6th January 1994: snowfalls catches people out

[Weather-history]

Although the prospects of snow was forecast, this snowfall did catch many people by surprise on the 6th January 1994.

A band of rain became slow moving in a line from the Wash to Hampshire, including parts of West London. As the falling preciptation cooled the surrounding air, the rain turned to snow and this process was fastest in the areas where the preciptation was heaviest. By evening, most of the Home Counties to the north and west of London were having heavy snowfalls and this severely affected the major routes in the area especially the M1, M25 and M40 causing travel chaos. Up to 7" of snow fell in parts of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. The situation was further complicated when the skies cleared later in the night to allow the snow and slush to freeze.

[johnholmes]

yes, cooling by evaporation in a static situation like that one, does occur, and possibly more often than many forecasters might like to admit.

John

[Snowyowl9]

We had no snow here except frosts for 4 nights as it got down to -3c for 3 nights in a row from that day.

The day before that we had rain/sleet and hail showers.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119940105.gif

[Weather-history]

http://youtu.be/_dpeg-Wt5UI

[DaBrigg]

We also had a light but unexpected fall of snow that morning on the east coast of Ireland.

A showery band of precipitation moved south around around dawn, after a hard frost, and landed on frozen surfaces.

The covering only lasted a few hours but was perfectly timed to cause trouble during morning rush hour in Dublin, etc.

Although it wasn't much, any snow covering here is highly unusual most winters.

Funnily enough, I have an Irish TV weather forecast from the previous evening recorded on video.... predicting showery rain, with perhaps a bit of high ground sleet/snow mixed in. The snow was a nice surprise. Conditions were just on the right side of marginal.