trickydicky

been belting it down with big 50p flakes here for 20 minutes or so. Yeahbabyyeah - don't suppose you can stick some pics up!

ah, Cumbria, possibly the greatest place on Earth

i've never seen a morning quite like it, to follow the rain, sleet and hail we have now had a heavy snow shower. There's now an inch or so of what can only be described as sludge on the ground!

bizzare weather here, freezing rain first (I think, judging by the leathelness of the pavements) then snow for about 5 minutes and then back to rain again. odd

its been barely above freezing here for 3 days, down to about -6 at night and even when I took the bin out last night frost had formed on the car. A reasonable chance of some snow then you might think? No

The highest road in Britain is the Cairnwell Pass, at the top of which is the Glenshee Ski centre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairnwell_Pass The only other I can think of that would get near 850m is the private road to the radar station on top of Great Dun Fell in Cumbria. Might be worth a trip to Wicklow if I can catch a special offer on the Ferry!

I think someone needs to have a word with the Irish tourist board, why havn't I seen more of this area, looks bang up my street. If there are roads at 850m that would make them comfortably 200m higher than any road in Britain, surely not worth the effort keeping it open in winter!

Hello Kippure, how high is this Mountain and the road which you go up on?

Yes it does. Very nice area largely untouched by the tourist hordes!

has this worked... yes it has! took a stroll up Longridge fell in central Lancashire this morning. Summit is about 360 metres above sea level so there's no danger of hitting your head on the underside of a 747! It does give some ruddy marvellous views though. To be seen are, Chipping Vale, Ribble Valley, west Pennine Moors , Trough of Bowland/Bowland Fells, Inglebrough and my dog. Temp in Longridge was -4 when I set off at 8 30 AM and -2 when I got back at about 10 30 or so.

Having spent all my time in the north west (Cumbria and now Lancashire) I have to say Northerly. At least from a northerly you used to be garanteed snow in Cumbria. Used to be being the important part here. Back in the day when the initial front past in a northerly we would get snow and then for the rest of the northerly it would be wall to wall sun shine and severe frosts, December 1995 being the ultimate example. I can remember going sale shopping in Carlisle and every river, even the Derwent west of Cockermouth, was frozen solid. Now though northerlies seem to only effect Lerwick, Aberdeen, Whitby, Norwich and Bergen! An easterly brings just the sunshine bit for these parts though while we are forced to watch news clips of people frolicking in snow pretty much everywhere else. Whatever the set up was that brought the Blizzard to south west Scotland, Cumbria and Lancashire in early February 1996 is my ultimate, I've been waiting for it to happen again ever since!

Thanks very much, that would be good. I have seen a picture of school children relocated from Liverpool to the Lake District skating on Grasmere in 1940. On the picture there was snow on the tops of the fells but none at valley level. Grasmere freezes fairly easily though due to its small size.

bump

Good evening peoples, this is the first time I have been so brazen as to start my own topic so come on, someone has to reply or i'll be embarrassed! My question is this - what is the coldest it can get without snow cover? I know it can get sub -20 almost anywhere in land in the UK quite comfortably with a bit of snow. I would estimate that the limit of a non snow cover frosty night would be about -15. I grew up in Cumbria and I seem to remember -12 or so being not out of the question from time to time on occasions when there was no snow. Any Ideas? Much appreciated

-0.4 It has to happen sooner or later, why not next month?!

there's some sort of icy build up on my car windscreen, whether this originated from snow or not though is unknown! Raining heavily now

To answer your last question: it's not really calculated like that. The only criterium is that snow survives: be it 1, 2 or 10-years old. It doesn't matter. In 1996, the snow at Garbh Choire Mhor was (I think) around 20-years old when it did go. How long do they have to have stuck around to be classed as permanent or even a small ice cap? I picked a book up somewhere about the Cairngorms, it was quite old (1960's i think) and it had a picture of Coire an Snaechda on Cairngorm and under it a caption said something like "a view of the britains only glacier in coire an snaechda". Is this true, was there once a small glacier there, ps sorry for any dodgy spelling.

the smallest amount of snow possible has fallen in Longridge, Lancs. You can just about make out some flakes on soil!