Maz

For the third morning this week a thin covering of snow in Summerseat. Thicker covering from 200m upwards and also Blackburn area seemed to catch more snow too. Roads very icy everwhere this morning, saw many accidents on the snow/ice. Just frost and fog once down onto the M6 at Preston.

Looks like the end of the cold spell is "official" now. Thanks for a good read over the last few weeks. I've enjoyed everyone's predictions and joy/dispair as rain/sleet/snow/cloud/ sun etc moved over us. Been a real winter spell here, just north of Bury, 2 days of "Irish Sea streamers" with thunder snow to boot, were hard to beat, but last Tuesday and the super blue sky Arctic days that followed, probably did beat it. Lots of other small snow falls since 17th December too, and the snow never managed to entirely melt (although it did go mostly green for a day or so before the 2nd Jan snow). Still a deep cover of slowly thawing snow... Here's to the next cold spell!!

Arguably there is a "third way": The Scandi high is usually held up by a low pressure over southern Europe. This can move towards us in the Easterly flow giving frontal snow spreading SE to NW over the country. Much as was forecast for last weekend at one stage. The instabilty associated with this often acts to beef up the showers off the North Sea.

The models, from 5 days back, have always shown the SE flow from the continent raising temps to just above freezing. I'm surprised how quickly the wind has "mixed out" the cold surface layer, but that's what happened. The low dew points are typical of continental air and keep our hopes of snow going. As to mild air pushing so far west, there is a slight fohn effect over the Pennines (hence the patches of blue sky in the lee of the hills being reported) The Kendal and Appleby reports show this most. As the front approaches, there will be more moisure in the air, dry air won't be descending our side of the Pennines, so the Fohn effect will decrease. Still a rain shadow effect our side of the hills though which will decrease ppn. The latest NAE with mix of rain/sleet/snow and greatest intensity over Pennines looks about right. The heavier ppn is coming from what is over Holland/Denmark and southern N Sea at the moment, and is still picked up on the NAE. Ppn moving in later this afternoon and then sticking over us til midday tomorrow. Intensity slowly decreasing - which will give a tendancy for snow when more intense, turning to drizzly sleet/rain tomorrow. Higher elevations (say 200m+) all snow.

As an example of the temperature inversion from my commute this morning: -10c on the car thermometer in the Irwell Valley (north manchester), 150m ASL . -6c on top of the moors over Grane Road, 350m ASL. -10c on M65 by Darwen, 100m ASL -11c on M6 by Preston, 10m ASL I know the car thermometer not that accurate, but demonstrates the point and the very low manchester readings, around 70m ASL, probably in a hollow with cold air draining off the Pennines. Also crystal clear "alpine" air when on the moors, and looking down you could see the trapped "haze" below the inversion.

Still too much 'North' and not enough 'East' in the wind aloft, so doesn't look like the latest crop of showers will get far enough inland. Wind needs to strenghten too!!

One off northumberland, the other off Norway. Need to see some evidence of rotation in the second one, suggestive of PL - but instability doesn't seem to be there really.

Yep, the first area seems to be dying as soon as it hits land at the moment. Light snow flurries at best I think, if it makes it at all. I guess the rising pressure hepls to kill the showers

Karyo, Yes those are the two areas. The first one started off just off western Norway too, yesterday afternoon. The first one has developed a bit, will interact with the edge of the little low off SE England soon, and thats the key time. Will it disintegrate or get a bit more organised? More of an E'ly flow may help the second feature get inland tomorrow?

Snowdrifter, Yep, 72 hours away is a long time to forecast exactly where troughs/ disturbances will form in a showery airstream. Look for the main high pressure to be as far north as possible and the winds as strong as possible to maximise our chances. Further south and east most at risk, but don't count us out yet. Unlikely to be a snowfest though - we need our own Irish sea streamers for that.

Karyo, Its only flurries we are talking about really, but falling snow is good no matter what!! The first little area of showers you mention is the more organised area now intensifying in the North Sea off Aberdeen. Its the little disturbance I mentioned off Norway yeterday evening. Its not really developed much, but should give fun and games in the Borders/Northumberland and we may get the tail end in the second half of the night. EDIT: There is also another little disturbance off Norway too, which I guess could spawn your second area of showers.

Some forecasts have shown more organised snow coming into NI tomorrow - could be that area as it would appear to be tracking too far west for us in the NNE wind. The low forecast to clip East Anglia tomorrow evening is shown on the sat picture too, along with a little disturbance to its north, off Norway. That seems to be the origin of the streamer coming into Northumberland. A small convergence zone between NNE and ENE winds could develop as the low moves in pulling winds esaterly for a time in EA and move down the line of the streamer. This happened with the first low of the cold spell on December 17th/18th and gave eastern parts of the region their first dusting of the cold spell.

23cm snow on average in the garden. Drifts upto waist height on my attempt at fell running over Holcombe Moor and up Bull Hill. The couple cross country skiing up there were having lots of fun! Couple of snow flurries today. The winds seems to be NNE, which gives too long a land track for the showers to get to NW England. If the wind strengthens a touch and veers to betweeen NE and E showers will get accross the hills, troughs/ streamers might give local areas a top up. Worth looking for anyway. And if the stronger E'ly the METO are warning of for Sunday comes off, there will be more organised bands of snow.

Grass: 23cm (average) Concrete: 20cm (average) (Summerseat, 145m ASL) On fell run on Holcombe Moor, encountered waist deep drifts (tiring to plough through), at 400mASL on Bull Hill.

Can see some blue sky now, the snow has stopped and seems to have moved to the south. Time to enjoy the winter wonderland.

Wysiwyg, yes I think you are spot on. The convergence zone, Irish sea moisture, frontal lifting and orographic uplift are all working in our favour. I think the low pressure developing over the Irish Sea near the North welsh coast, has stalled the frontal band. I guess once the low centre pushes southwards over Wales it will drag the band of snow with it, moving faster for a time, before stalling again over central Southern England (accoring to Meto).

It seems to be slowly sinking South, I'm about 15miles north of central Manchester, so would think it will hit you soon unless it losses intensity once it leaves the hills.

Karyo, I can confirm that the uniform dark white to your North is heavy snow. Been continuous for the last hour. Stupid amount of snow now!!

The village primary school here is open - all the kids walk to school anyway. But classes seem to have been cancelled and all the kids are out on the cricket field with the teachers making huge snowmen and just running about and diving into the deep soft snow!! Wonderful to see the snow being enjoyed. ...and it is still coming down, moderate snow, over 20cm, completely level cover as there is no wind.

Around 15cm of new snow from the light showers yesterday evening and the more organised band late in the night. Its been dry for an hour or so. My eyes are to the band moving into Preston/Blackburn on the radar, will that move south and hold together?

Looks like an interesting evening model/ radar/ lamp post watching: - Will showers develop and push inland on the westerly flow ahead of the occlusion. Judging from the reports from Blackpool and Preston some activity already, but I guess 6pm onwards . - How much ppn will the occlusion give? Guess we are looking at whether the temperature gradient and moisture from the sea pep it up a bit, how fast the front moves (will it stall as it hits cold air) and also the impact of the little low pressure over the North Sea developing. A few hours around midnight. - Finally will there be a wrap around occlusion behind the low pressure hit us, with a NE wind, tomorrow afternoon (or any troughs in the NE flow)? There is some rain from the occlusion being reported from coastal locations in Scotland, so its safe to assume around the coast likely to be similar in our region, snow inland, with the back edge of the front and the wrap around occlusion tomorrow (if it gets this far NW), being 100% snow. I'm thinking 5-10cm fairly widely inland, more in places catching showery activity before and after the main front. Of course it could all fizzle into nothing but a little bit of snizzle!!!

Nothing but rain here. Looks like only a few higher locations in Pennines getting any snow (Rossendale, Saddleworth etc). Precipiation has made it this far north though, and is still moving northward according to the radar, so there is still hope for snow levels to fall a bit maybe.

Yep, that's nice to see. Same wind direction as the snow last Sunday and Tuesday, but more "normal" winter temperature of 3c here today. Rapid melting of lying snow. The track of the low pressure to the SW this week seems to be fluctuating wildly at the moment on the models. Wonder where the battleground will eventually lie?

Drip, drip, drip.... Back to grey and drizzle today, temp 3c Got about 6cm of snow last night before the thaw set in. Another snow shower this morning, and then a little light rain. 7th day of complete snow cover and 6 days with falling snow, max depth 17cm on Tuesday make this a memorable spell when you consider we are so close to the relatively warm Irish sea. Will be a complete cover for Xmas day too here (unless it rains all night). I kind of feel we have used up all our "snow events" for the winter in one go, but the models suggest more cold weather might set in as early as Sunday. Please keep the rain away til then so the cover stays til then!! Happy Christmas everyone and thanks for an entertaining "soap opera" over the last week or so, its really added to it all for me!!!

That's good news. A light easterly wind off the snow covered Peninnes should keep the cold surface layers over all our region.