weatherobsuk

Light snow has been falling here now since 1.20pm from convective showers that have been building up since the morning. Looking at the Radar it seems theres more to come.

The town below Galeras is built upon Pyroclastic flows that have origionated from the Volcano, I think you are wrong in your assumption The Pit in assuming Galeras is incapable of destroying this town as any moderate eruption from the peak would sent a collapsing flow down the flanks and over flow beds upon which the town has been built upon. Shetland your reports and anlysis are much welcome and you shouldnt let one member get to you, especially when they dont know the full facts and probobally got their info from Wikipedia anyway. A good read on Galeras is a book called "Surviving the Volcano" by Stanley Williams. Which is his own personal account of being inside the Crater as Galeras erupted in a small explosion in 1993.

They had re-runs of the series this afternoon, including the infamous Greensburg programme. I have to say seeing that brought a tear to my eye, and brought a bit of reality back to the show. Its one thing seeing pictures of it on the net, but when your with a group of chasers who had called it on the day but completely missed, then drive right though the day after. Jeees. I only got to see that one show as mum wanted to watch Tennis, but I'll be watching the new series religiously.

*BREAKING* Although maybe co-incidental 2 significant fireballs have been seen across seperately over Kentucky in the US and Italy. The US fireball is significant in that a eyewitness who has said theyve seen Satellite debris re-entry before confirmed it was most likely a Satellite entering the atmosphere. The Italian sighting which is verified by 2 sky-watch cameras has been estimated at mag -16 and a possible Earth impact. Picture of the Italian mag -16 fireball Seems a bit co-incidental that 2 re-entering fireballs have been seen on the same night, both highly bright magnitudes and days after the Satellite impact over Siberia.

11'c for Whaley Bridge on Tuesday afternoon which is a welcome relief as we havent been into double figures for 3 months now, and quite frankly as much as I love the snow the cold gets quite tedious.

Those showers over the Western Isles look interesting for tomorrows prospects for those in the North if todays low fails to deliver, winds are due to swing Northerly as it passes so some places could well see some convective activity out of this by the morning especially the North Wales coast and Northwestern facing coastline such as Liverpool and Morecambe Bay.

Yep, basically the transition from when the Low turns itself from the Barocyclonic Leaf (the mass of cloud formed from when the moisture is initiated over the Atlantic) into the Cyclonic Anticyclone itself as it begins the transation into the low pressure system from the formation of the frontal system and begins to wrap around forming the Hook and classic "frontal-system" shape. Often than not its not the Frontal system itself that causes the severe winds but the pressure gradient on the SW flanks of the Hook, of course however embedded within the system can be CBs that bring upper level winds to lower regions from the pressure gradient and cause straight-line wind gusts which can often be confused for tornadic damage. The pressure gradient is also responsible for storm surges and the sting-jet phenomenon which is the caused by the Low riding on the Jestream and carrying the upper-level winds to ground-level as the gradient drops and can give sustained winds of up to 100+mph over a central track spanning many miles. A bit in-depth but I just thought I'd share a bit of Knowledge ive picked up over the years.

Lets not forget its still out in the Atlantic and yet to undergo Cyclogenesis, so a eventual change in the system even 40 miles north than what the models are showing now would be favourable for the Northwest (especially for Cheshire, Manchester and the Peak District.)

Good things come to those who wait B)

lol haha, comes with the territory of being a ex-pilot, going off the old aviation system. Must stick with being a Civvy lol.

3cm fallen here since 1600, radar shows the backedge not far away so It looks like the precip will be ending soon. Once again the Pennines got the better of the forecast than the low-lying areas, still less than predicted but theres 3cm of snow on the ground so I cant complain.

You can view a video about the channel low here: (put together by John Holmes and voiced over by myself) http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=beta1;sess= Thanks for the Video Paul, loved the Graphics and very informative.

lol its probobally me now used to having 5 minute radar instead of waiting half a hour for the updates, anyway light bands now coming into the Peak District and on cue slight precip beginning to fall. Sadly the darker colours are seeming to want to stay the other side of Cheshire though.

hmm, must be the way the Meto overlays the precip on the map. A error on the system must be pushing further East than it origionally is. Either way NW has it spot on as for where the true location of the precip is at the moment.

On the NW radar the precip is just crossing the Welsh border, just passing Liverpool and Chester now and hugging the Northwest coast. Meto radar tells a different story showing it more inland so i'd say the NW radar is the more accurate one today giving the lack of reports so far in the Northwest.

I'd doubt that they send Volcanologists into the crater or fumaroles willingly knowing there's a risk to their personal safety, afterall they volounteer to go up there based on data there given and if there was any evidence on ground movements then the instruments would have already picked this up. Its a case of helicopter them in and out as quick as they can, as any volcano thats venting and showing signs of unstability on a seismograph is prone to erupt at any minute. I think personally this is a sign of the Magma coming up to the surface and what were seeing are the first stages of the gases being forced out of the chamber, when Redoubt blows it'll go off big time and I expect to see quite significant pyroclastic flows running down into the valleys with Lahars and massive devastation for a wide area.

lol just beat me to it, Alaska Volcano Observatory however has said in their latest activity report that the swarms have been constant throughout the night and that field crews will be attempting to measure gas emissions later today. Rather them than me.

Thanks for the updates Coastie, im looking at the webcams myself and just assuming it was Lenticular clouds being blown over the rim of the Volcano as theres another peak to the right in the distance which seems to be having the same weather characteristics as Redoubt summit wise.

I'd expect it to drop even further if it was -4.3'c already, if high clouds stay out of the area then I think -11'c could be quite expected by dawn.

I am surprised you have so little snow left, plenty left here as you drive up out of the town, lots of people sledging as well. Plenty of snow on the hills, Buxton and the Moors are geographically higher in elevation than Whaley Bridge is however, here the village is in a "bowl" like-shape so were surrounded by high sided hills on all sides much like Buxton is so obviously the cooler air is higher while at lower levels the snow thaws out. Not been to Buxton during this cold-spell sadly so I havent been able to get snow depths, im just going off estimates on the heights of the tops of the peaks around here which are about the same elevation as that as the peaks around the Goyt Valley. Current temp in Buxton is -2.6'c at 19.18pm.

I'd wait for a top-up, only 2-3cm of lying snow left on the hills around here, unless your really brave and want to try Kinder Scout/Edale area, but the slopes there are really dangerous for sledging for children due to the steep inclines. The sun has melted much of what we had yesterday and all thats left is just the hardened crust of snow from the past 4 days thats not really fit for sledging on anyway. Best to wait until the next snowfall event where its really powdery again and you'll get some decent sledging.

Temps as low as -10'c inland tonight however in rural areas once the wind swings northerly again, so keep the heating on tonight.

Theres currently a cooling trend going on with upper winds at 60' going from Westerlies to Easterlies coming from Siberia, the last time this happened was before Christmas when we had the period of intense cold that froze lakes and canals. The trend is expected to occur for at least another 2 weeks and can be followed in this thread here http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?s...0&start=510

And with the Stratospheric Warming Event progged to take place according to charts and ensembles, its set to get a hell of a lot colder still. Sure we've not seen 1ft of snow and massive disruption across the Northwest, but at least we've seen snow into 2009 already and with 10 more days (maybe more) of cooling to come, its not over by a long shot. were just 1/4 the way through it.

Its important to stress the precipitation is also heading NNE along the front rather than coming up southerly which I think some people are assuming its going to do on the FAX charts. Southport-Harrogate-Scarborough I expect will be the cut-off point for the precipitation of the front from the SW, areas behind this line will see 5-10cm below 100 meters, 10-15cm above 100 meters and 15-30cm at higher levels.