cuckoo

the Met Office defines a blizzard as "moderate or heavy snow" combined with a mean wind speed of 30 mph (48 km/h) and visibility below 650 feet (200 m). You've must have quite a bit more wind over your side of the Pennines and alot more snow!

Looks like the really cold pool over Southern Scandinavia feeds some cold air into Poland and the Baltic states before being blown away by the low coming up the North Sea on the 06Z GFS output. Looks like the Shetland Isles will be in a Northerly flow.

Ah! now i get it. I read the letter as theta not phi.

You got me excited there with the -10°C uppers over parts of northern Britain! If only we could tempt some of that Scandinavian cold pool over the North Sea. -20°C uppers over Norway. Hoping the low will go further south and east than is progged at the moment. Looking deep into to FI the door looks open for an Atlantic attack, if we could get some of that cold here first winter 2010 could go out with a bang! Alas it is unlikely to be so. Can't help but feel we've been a bit unlucky so far this February.

This chart kind of sums up my feelings about February so far. Despite favourable synoptics with a southerly jet and high pressure area over Greenland the cold air seems to be all around us but not over us. It was a similar story last week with the high pressure to our NW looking likely to expose us to a significant easterly but it became too close to us resulting in a slack flow and the majority of the cold air slipping away into France and Germany. Still I've not given up hope yet and will be looking at the 12Z and following the expert analysis in this thread.

Its looking further East to me on the 12Z so far

Looks like the low is taking its time heading south through the North sea

The BBC article pointing out that 1963 was colder when January and February are combined as the cold came later in the year then. Still a really impressive sustained period of cold for those North of the border. Something that would not have looked too out of place much further East in Europe. Saw some spectacular photos from the spell and confess to being a tad jealous of those who got to experience it.

I noticed the area i went on holiday to Poland in autumn was -28°C this morning. If the easterly in FI was to follow the northerly (and it was a straight easterly) there is certainly some cold surface air available at the moment!

A real battle between the Icelandic Low and Siberian High. Fear that we will just be too far to the west and will remain under the influence of the Icelandic low whilst large areas of north / central continental Europe reap the rewards of the Easterly (unless the low tilts SE / NW allowing the high to ridge further west). Alot of talk about the pressure of the high over Eurasia and i notice from some description about the Siberian high that it is often above 1040mbar so not particularly unusual, it has developed pressures in excess of 1080mbar in the past!

Looking at how far to the East the air is being sourced from there might not need to be a deep cold pool nearby. We could just tap into the -40°C air over Mongolia

Love those pictures of the frozen river. Thanks for posting them Osbourne One-Nil.

As a bit of a posting newbie here i'll take a stab at this. Could get it totally wrong however:- Many cold spells are associated with winds containing an easterly component. For the really cold minima, snow cover with clear skies and a very gentle east wind (if any at all) help to persuade more of the super cooled air on the pennines to sink down the western slopes and into the Lancashire / Greater Manchester area. I am guessing that those cold temps in Manchester / Stockport et al are a result of the air sinking down from Kinder Scout, Buxton et al. You could always cross the Pennines and move to Lancashire

Superb photos. How do people take pictures of lightning??

Keep 'em coming folks. Some great pictures in this thread. Fox and badger are my personal favourites so far

great photos ned. Some impressive looking drifts there in West Yorkshire!

Looks like the milder air was in the middle? widespread snow to the west and east but the central band has made it all the way to Derbyshire before the front edge turned to snow.

Sleet starting here near Belper (75msl)

Looks like the Lancashire and West Yorkshire areas which have done so well with the westerly snow showers all week are going to benefit from this band as well! Seems pretty likely that it will have turned to snow by the time it gets that far up.