Iceni

I caught some shut eye, and got up again fully expecting to see the snow'd been washed away by rain, but no, it's still lying — pictures in the morning. :lol: My MetO gizmo's had a chance to refresh and there's still no warning of any description for Suffolk, I suppose we are at the western edge of it, but anyone further east from me got any reports? it might well be chaos on the A14 tomorrow. I must say cheers to BBC Beta, they were the only ones to have 'heavy snow' for my area through yesterday for tonight.

YESSSSS! Remembered one of the cats was still out so went down to call him in and he was waiting on the doorstep — don't blame because it's snowing cats and dogs!!!! Lovely powdery snow again. Whoooohooooh! Thanks for keeping the faith Seasons, my snowy friend.

OMG from the radar I'm going to get a dumping of something in an hour or so! Rain or snow? Isn't it the principle that in heavy precipitation the air temps can cool down and produce snow? Dewpoints are still good as are temperatures at <0.5° C, but the upper air's –2° C... don't think I can take the suspense tonight, so might not wait up.

Us too. I went for a walk around lunchtime in bright sunshine, but it wasn't having much impact on the snow — just a superficial surface melt if that and in shaded ground, it's still 4" deep. I have a good feeling you are right. On NW Extra radar there are little specks of precipitation dotted around and they are all definitely pink.

Indeed, I'm just up the road from you and out of curiosity just checked our dewpoints and they're –2° C, 850 hPa's –4.8° C, ground temp are just tipping into 0° C — we still have snow cover. So technically, all we need's the precipitation for tonight... I asked on the model thread whether there'd be a 'warm sector' associated with this low and how to identify them, but was ignored. Can anyone on here help out?

By that argument, nor do those funded by energy/oil companies? Next question: who has the most cash and most to lose?

Where did you live then? I remember '63 and going back for the spring term in much the same, but much colder conditions as London had yesterday... sure the first week several children and a couple of teachers didn't make it it, but by the start of the second week it was back to normal. I've got vague memories of BR bringing back into service the much heavier steam trains as they gripped down on the track better. In some ways, it might have been easier, because '63 was so severe, no thaws, so once the snow had been cleared up that was it until the next shower, none of the snow/thaw/re-freeze/ice/snow problems we seem to have (so rarely) nowadays. Also people were far more used to dealing with real wintery weather as it happened nearly every winter, Dad had a set of snow chains for the car. They usually lived closer to their work or school. Most of the village schools have gone now and the children commute miles away into towns. Certainly buses were running and as we didn't have a front wheel drive car (not many around and usually only farmers had 4X4s – landrovers) we'd to walk up and down our hill to the bus stop at the bottom.

To keep it for ourselves, or keep those dreadful Norfolk people having any? :lol: I was wondering whether it was Offa's Dyke or something. I've never seen such a clear cut feature before between snow and no snow.

No you misunderstand. I'm talking about the snow already there which show as the lighter areas on the landmass... if you watch the animated loop you can actually see the areas still with snow cover as they stay still, whereas the clouds move. I was wondering why this straight line was there, it runs about 10 miles north of me. I might go out and check if it got caught in the melt last night. We've still got a good covering although it's not what it was yesterday.

I noticed on the radar. Here's a satellite of the UK... you can just about see the areas with snow. What's puzzling me is that dead straight horizontal snow line running across EA. Is it a digital glitch or is it really there? If it's a natural snow line what would cause that?

That warm sector melted about half the snow we had yesterday — a shame, but still a good covering and has frozen rock hard so perhaps today's the day for tobogganing, although it will be more painful if I fall off Friday's looking promising for EA on the ECM and Wednesday and Thursday for central southern England, everyone seems to be backing away from rain on Thursday which is really good news.

Just been out to check whether all our lovely snow is melting, no chance... :o It's sleeting very slightly and certainly doesn't feel any warmer at all plus dewpoint's steady at 0 ° C. If (please just this once) it holds on and freezes overnight, tomorrow will be my ultra-favourite sort of day — deep snow and sunshine

That's a poor show from Waitrose, I got my seed potatoes delivered this afternoon in a sub-blizzard and they don't grit the lanes around here.

You can! that mild sector's about a mere 20/25 miles east of me — eeeek Stay away from my patch, you dismal beast of a weather phenomenon!

Chucking it down again... watching the dewpoint like a hawk, but it's staying steady at 0° C. I really think height above sea level's a big factor here (we're 110 m) and it's just keeping us on the right side. Just been out to take this of the car which lost some of it's snow when I drove to the village shop this morning. Although it's still proper snow, it's wetter than the dry powder stuff from last night. My head tells me that at 4:30 pm and with a ground temp of 0.1° C, it can't start warming up too much so the snow melts or it starts raining, surely?

Try out what the boys and girls are saying on the models thread here... http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?showtopic=53289

Just noticed the temps are on the slide again, back down to -0.2° C, so I'd imagine we are sorted until Thursday at least.

I'm hoping it'll stay that way, still snowing on and on (no offs) for the past couple of hours, sometimes light, but pepping up (as of right now) every so often. We'll get a foot at this rate. About 9" now. The local newsgroup, well known for it's pc-ness — anti 4x4s, anti-rural, anti everything, but very pro carving up the roads for more bus lanes, airport expansion and building houses on productive farmland — has gone VERY quiet.

Not really. A lot colder in '63 (I was in rural W. Sussex at 350m) and it never melted from when it fell on 26th December until 2nd week of March. Just layers and layers of it. I can remember walking on top of 3' snow and not sinking into it with a 3" ice layer at one point. Plus the fact that 4 of us and our sledge were being pulled by a pony on an icy lake nearby. Wish I could find the pictures of that.

Who says Suffolk's flat? Just come in from an hour's sledging which looked like a non-starter because the snow was too deep :o :o then the farmer came along on his quad bike and he made a few trips up and down the hill for me and voila, a Cresta run (minus a factor of 10 :lol: ). Still snowing steadily although the temp's risen to 0.2 ° C, but the dewpoint's still steady on 0° C very good news indeed for later on tonight as it must be as warm as it's going to get by now. Oh yes and we've got about 6" of beautiful dry powdery snow.

I don't understand this sleet/rain business, as opposed to more snow. For my (CB8) locale, according to NW Extra, my dewpoint's still 0° C, upper 850 hPa's are –10° C and the temperature's -0.4° C. It's showing as pink on the radar. How could it be sleet?

Tell me about it. For 15 years I used to do a 70 mile commute into London in all weathers, in fact, due to various Tube strikes usually I'd turn up at the office to find only several people had made it — although 80% of them lived in London less than 10 miles from the office. I don't expect anyone to employ me, I do expect my boss to be reasonable, however. Try it, you'll find your staff appreciate you and will make the effort — after all this is a one day event out of +20 years normal weather, it's not their fault if public and private transport packs up. As it was forecast very well on here, why didn't you sort it out on Friday so they could work from home via e-mail in the eventuality? That's what good managers do, troubleshoot.

I'm in CB8! It's been great... I can't wait for dawn when I'm going to do some serious tobogganing (the joys of being a humble lowly housewife). Here's some pics taken a couple of hours ago... think we're getting on 6 or 7 cms by now.

That's appalling! Time's certainly have changed... I remember on the railways BR used to have to pay for a taxi (or even a hotel room) if the train didn't complete its journey. It happened to me and I got a freeby 25 mile taxi ride home. Haven't these employers heard of the internet? In 'extreme' weather the police advise people to only travel if their journey's essential... makes less work for them when they're flat out. And what happens if having struggled in they can't get home again (quite likely with more snow on the way tomorrow) I'd expect the employer to book hotel rooms for the stranded staff. As for keeping an eye on those with children what happens if the school's shut? 5 year olds home alone?

Another reason to have a 4x4... who'd ever have thought it? I remember them running the last time it snowed in London, 2003 (?) and in the '80s. Perhaps those bendy buses might just keep on bending into shop windows :lol: