Easter Weekend Chill/Freeze

[Mammatus]

True, but it doesn't stop us southern idiots from coming up though!!!

Speak for yourself

Looking forward to a very wintry spell down here in Suffolk, penertrating and hard night frosts, strong to gale force northerly winds and at times moderate to heavy snowfall - all this 11 days from April You just couldn't make it up

Mammatus

[BristolBaggie]

BBC Bristol local weather mentioned earlier "we are keeping an eye on Sunday could be up to 20cm on hills due to front moving through""

Boing Boing

Fingers crossed

[london-snow]

I agree with you Kold wholly, and disagree with yeti. If tonight's 18z run were to varify then a good chance of a widspread heavy snowfall across our area. HGT's 850-1000, DP's, 850hPa's, WB temps - all factors looking prime for some prolonged rainfall snowfall.

Precipitation Grid ref. indicates the heaviest falls to be Herts, London and Surrey. 3 - 4mm (Rainfall) per hour progged for 4 hours = 12mm, translated into snowfall = 12cm :o

Expect some flash weather warnings tomorrow morning from the MetO if the 18z is concrete-

Sunday really is looking very good now!

Mammatus

does that mean i might get 2cms out off this sunday richard or anyone thanks for your help

[LadyPakal]

Same here in Essex, something about evening out term lengths. So mine are off for the 4 days, back for 4 and off for 2 weeks.

Ah, but you get the days off work, don't you? We don't. :o

I'll be snow watching from my office tomorrow - maybe there will be enough for snowball fights for the kids in the school opposite.

[Mandy Langlands]

oooo and me too, lol

[Snow Leopard]

It's Easter Weekend and the flash warnings cover Grampian, which is likely to be covered in Walkers, Trekkers and Climbers over the weekend. Seems eminently sensible to issue some kind of warning to me, after all, the warning actually talks about blizzard conditions and gales with up to 10cm over higher ground and over higher routes. People die on the Scottish mountains in these conditions.

Climbers in Grampian? :o Thought it was pretty flat up there Walkers maybe. But you are right, going to busy all over. Keep safe and an eye on the mountain forecasts here.

Edited March 20, 2008 by Snow Leopard

[Geordiesnow]

Any updates from people in Scotland, is snow falling to lower levels now or is it still rain or whatever?.

[Spurry]

Luxury! When I were a lad we had to get up at three int mornin and ..............

Oh I think we did that one already :o

We're looking at temps of + 4-9c over the next few days and calling it severe, as much as i love snow and wish for cold weather in Winter that is pushing it a bit far....i hope we get some snow , but whatever we get , it will not be anywhere near severe(even with the wind chill)

[Nick L]

Your missing the point. The amount of snowfall is only one factor the MO have to consider when issuing warnings. "Severe" weather can be prolonged, but a 10 minute shower which provides a covering coupled with gusty winds must be classed as severe too. Warnings are issued for the safety of the public, and for the older generation especially, 2-5cm's widespread is more than enough to cause problems and be classed as "severe".

I know they are classed as severe events and I am sure they can cause problems. But it just seems quite a sad state of affairs when our European friends can cope with twice that amount and we seem to grind to a complete halt! Lessons just don't seem to be learnt.

[LadyPakal]

Tipping down with sleet at the moment - snow inland looking at the traffic cams. DP 0, temp around 2.5 (dropping with the ppt).

Edited - it's now snow.

Edited March 20, 2008 by LadyPakal

[kold weather]

I would guess Geordiesnow that the showers are probably starting to turn to snow even down to low levels now, however quite a few places are still reporting rain showers...though this will change soon...

The good news however is Lerwick has been reporting snow showers with a temp of 1C so hopefully that a sign that the cold air is now starting to head south and soon should reach Scotland and when it does expect more widespread reports of snow down to low level hopefully it will happen in the next few days.

Edited March 20, 2008 by kold weather

[Snow Leopard]

Any updates from people in Scotland, is snow falling to lower levels now or is it still rain or whatever?.

Rain here in Edinburgh, also in Perth and Dunblane. Some snow falling on the higher ground further north. Still a wee bit warm here. Temp 4C DP 1C but I see its dropping fast in the north so should be with us by morning. I think the prospect of snow is grabbing the headlines but we have also had a fair bit of wind today. Max gust here 61mph at 15:20.

A 9 South of Inverness

Edited March 20, 2008 by Snow Leopard

[frostynikkers]

Philip Avery's forecast now was fairly detailed, but the snow fall has been greatly reduced for sat and sun on his forecast. It looks like for Sunday the only area liable to see snow according to his forecast is the edge of Norfolk by the wash and a bit of Lincs, Northants. It excluded all of essex, suffolk, cambs and further south with a bit more chance in fact to the west. Looks like London will also miss out entirely. Can his forecast still be so wrong this close?

[Mark H]

Any updates from people in Scotland, is snow falling to lower levels now or is it still rain or whatever?.

Temp 3.5 here in south lanarkshire,no precip here as yet,however i may be too shelterd and too far inland to see any overnight showers here.

[frostynikkers]

He also said that the snow currently in north Scotland is moving away east across to the continent, not south. It really weasn't an inspiring forecast unless you live in a few specific areas.

[Snow Leopard]

Aviemore just got a dusting. Looked on the MetO cam at 22:00 and it was rain, just looked again and its snow. :o

Horizontal snow anyone

A 9 north of Aviemore

Edited March 20, 2008 by Snow Leopard

[kold weather]

Well I wouldn't read too much into the longer term forecast to be honest, mainly because the sunday chart was probably for Sunday afternoon, by which time the frontal system would probably have cleared most of the UK anyway, if he showed the saturday night charts I suspect it;d have looked rather better!

Also nice webcame image, not really surprising they are getting snow...actually I'd imagiune condtions up in the highlands could be quite severe at times, in heavy snow showers and winds getting upto 60-70mph on higher ground, cold windchills plus the risk of blizzards!

Edited March 20, 2008 by kold weather

[suffolkboy_]

Philip Avery's forecast now was fairly detailed, but the snow fall has been greatly reduced for sat and sun on his forecast. It looks like for Sunday the only area liable to see snow according to his forecast is the edge of Norfolk by the wash and a bit of Lincs, Northants. It excluded all of essex, suffolk, cambs and further south with a bit more chance in fact to the west. Looks like London will also miss out entirely. Can his forecast still be so wrong this close?

Never take those BBC graphics too seriously, they are only really a guide; very misleading usually. For example, they showed rain over me all day today, but this morning was only the odd few spots in the air before the cold front moved though later on.

[damianslaw]

The cold spell is recieving much media attention largely due to the three following factors -

1 - It is coinciding with a public holiday therefore there is a greater chance of it causing disruption to peoples travel plans and people, also a white easter makes a good headline

2- The SE has potential to see some snow, if it was just looking like a northern affair, the media would not be jumping on the hype as much

3- We have had such an abymsal winter wintry wise, that this could well turn out to be the most significant wintry spell of the whole season, co-inciding with the start of spring. People have probably be lulled into a false sense of security that that is it now and spring is in full bloom, had we had some proper winter weather then i'm sure the media wouldn;t be talking about it as much as people would be more prepared.

I for one am not complaining the weather seems to have thought well we gave them a pathetic winter for snow, we have to give them something to distill the bitter aftertaste why not give them a white easter. Nature does have a habit of balancing itself out -pity it wasn't the start of the christmas holiday period. Anyhow i often think there is a higher chance of a snowy easter than a snowy christmas, synoptics from late march and through april favour northerly and easterly airstreams much more than at christmas.

Another thing I have to say is well done to the models particularly GFS for predicting the cold spell and sticking with it, for once we have not seen downgrades nearer the timescale, yes we have yet to see how much snow if at all any does fall, but the cold theme is certainly going to happen and in this context their have been no downgrades nearer the timescale, in a season of many downgrades it does give us a bit of hope.

[Geordiesnow]

Well that is good news KW although it be interesting what Lerwick reports when its gets hit by that occluded front later on as it has a mild sector in it.

Keep up the reports northerners so we know how the cold air is getting on and looking at XCweather most stations in Scotland are recording freezing or below dew temps.

It be interesting how much PPN will be on the radar tomorrow, although looking at the beeb's graphics it does not seem alot but when its zoomed in there appears to be more.

[kold weather]

Well I really enjoy seeing cold air work its way southwards and seeing the reports turn from rain to snow. As you say Geordie most stations now close to freezing in terms of dew points so I imagine its only a matter of hours before the precip turns to snow inland even down to low levels and that should be spreading southwards now towards N.England as well soon, showers now starting to develop in NW England now as well, probably just rain though for now.

The beebs graphics are a good for where the precip will be in general but clearly they cannot totally estimate the coverage of the showers and how many there will be outside say 12hrs and even that is generous

Edited March 20, 2008 by kold weather

[Northernlights]

Strong wind temp 0c and heavy snow now falling and settling. thought it might before midnight Going to look pretty wintry by morning if this keeps up.

[ribster]

The silence from some quarters in here and the model thread this evening is almost deafening:

:o

Edited March 20, 2008 by ribster

[Northernlights]

Strong wind temp 0c and heavy snow now falling and settling. thought it might before midnight Going to look pretty wintry by morning if this keeps up.

Forgot to add 100m above sea level

[Cookie]

we have snow showers and light covering