wysiwyg

I think we'll need a minute's silence or something

HAHAHAHAHAHA! QUALITY!!!!!!

Hehe yep - it's my alter ego that posts in the ramping thread

It's bound to be a downgrade full of warm sectors and rubbish 850s That's it - i'm never looking at the models ever ever again - in fact I'm deleting the internet!!!!! When are the 00z runs due out?

Probably grind to a halt like the rest of the country ( sorry couldn't resist!!! )

Nah! Just been warming up with a few mini-ramps in the last couple of days - I would hate anyone to get ramp-strain on top of the modelwatching-strain that everyone is already experiencing See what I mean!!!!! It's the day after tommorow we can really start to ramp!!!

Will be cool to hear what's going on a little further north in Cumbria. The south Lake District is only an hour or so away by car for me and after the snow has fallen I may well be tempted to have a drive up and get my fix of the scenery in its winter coat so to speak

Yep I think the "pub run" may have just got a little out of hand tonight!!

Good on Ya TWS :lol: nothing like a good ramp every once in a while! Keeps us all sane I think up here in the snow-starved North West

See TWS's post above Also could depend on where you are in Preston. I've seen the back end of Preston (i.e longridge, ribchester etc) get pasted with snow whilst town centre and out towards the west is just rain and he odd bit of sleet. It's a very marginal area in virtually any possible setup.

I think I'm right in saying that convective snow can and does occur due to the Irish sea, however the big problems for the Lancashire coastal fringe in a true Northerly flow are a ) we are sheltered by the Lake District and southern Scottish uplands and, b ) we dont actually have very much coast facing north. I think convective snow for the coastal plains either side of the Ribble Estuary is pretty unlikely in a true northerly. We would be relying on something backing round more to a NNWrly direction to stand a chance of convective snow showers. In a true Nrly we would stand more of a chance from the small troughs that often form at fairly short notice in this type of airflow. The North Wales coast I think does quite well from a Northerly - I can remember when I used to live on the Wirral seeing Deeside and Westwards getting a good pasting in a Nrly but it was dry down by the estuary side at Thurstaston - Maybe Steve P can shed some more light on that?

I usually find a good ramp helps a lot <_<

Hello group - my name is Andy - and i'm addicted to lamp post watching. Can we have a group hug now please?

Yeah but what about lamp post watching?

Yes it usually does unless you get the latter scenario where the warm sector is completely undercut by the cold sector and lifted totally off the ground. Its all down to the relative energy levels (positive and negative) in the cold block (high pressure) and the approaching low pressure system. I'm probably not anywhere near the best person to try and explain this as my knowledge of metorology is fairly basic. Worth having a look at some of the links and guides in the learning area - that's where I got most of my basic knowledge from.

No it would initially be effectively a warm front. If the cold air over the UK was stubborn enough and the warm sector was moving slowly enough, the warm air would rise over the cold air. As that happened the warm air would cool and so would be less able to hold water vapour. The vapour condenses out, falls through the cold air where it readily turns to snow. A further effect that sometimes occurs is that the (now cooler) warm air that is shedding its moisture cools enough to begin to push the cold air under he warm sector. This speeds up the occlusion of the front and can sometimes lead to prolonged snowfall as the whole system becomes slow moving. This may be a little simplistic but I think it gives you the guist of what can happen as the atlantic tries to break down an entrenched cold spell.

I was in hospital in Southport in Jan 1984 and I remember it snowing there - SOUTHPORT!!!!!!!

I ermm have a "friend" who thinks he may be addicted to errm lampost watching. What advice can this thread give? To him. Actually if we're getting all upmarket about lamp size then I am actually looking forward to seeing what a blizzard looks like when viewed under the huge floodlights on the all weather pitch across the road from me - and yes the nutters would carry on playing in a blizzard

I asked the Top Gear lads if they would help me make a few mods to my car to help me through the upcoming cold spell....... When I finally managed to get the car back of the stig - they came up with this - not bad I reckon!! In fact I was flooded with literally some emails asking me for the plans!!!

I posted that pic last year and got away with it - that was before I knew about the naughty step

Already been in training for such eventualities for the last week coast !

That's because we're all far too busy in the ramping thread

You missed one coast HUH?????

The stress of model watching is obviously getting just a little bit too much for some people Clearly - the models have forgetten to take into account the shift in the earth's gravitational field and that's why they are all over the shop just now! But obviously the more seasoned and experienced forcasters are not letting any of this rattle them. It's just another day at the office pondering the likely pattern of the jetstream, the PDO, the MJO, SSWs, ENSOs......................

Do we have a contigency plan to cope with a breakout of "model wars" ? It would seem that the ECM's reputation is hanging by a thread and I fear if any more rubbish data is fed into this model that the model discussion thread will become a battleground of taunts and jibes and the poor little model just wont be able to cope any more. As a result of this it will pick up it's ball and sit in the corner sulking. Clearly this would mean that there would be no weather to discuss whatsoever as everybody knows that the models have a) a mind and personality of their own that lets them play nasty tricks on us snow lovers and, b ) the models actually control what the weather is going to do. In absence of a formal SATSIG or SODITALL policy on offering a telephone helpline for models that are suffering from a terrible loss of confidence due to nasty bullies, I urge everyone to give the poor ECMWF model a break and talk nicely about it for a bit in order to stop it totally throwing its toys out of the pram!!