East Anglia & South East Cold Spell Discussion

[Nick F]

Great forecast! i live on the southdowns in west sussex is this band likely to be snow throughout when it arrives here tonight?

Hard to say until obs come in, but IMO looking at the charts there could be a bit of sleet or rain at first due to moist westerly winds ahead of band, then quickly turning to snow as colder drier air from the north undercuts the band of precipitation ... kinda what happened on the evening of 28th January 2004, when it started as rain with westerly winds ahead of front and many I remember on BBC snowwatch were slashing their wrists, before it suddenly turned to snow with lightning and thunder as cold air undercut from the north.

[joespontiac]

Luton is cold and snowy already. Is this band projected to hit us again tonight?

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

A couple of shots of my back garden taken earlier (these and others are also posted in the Photos thread).

Note cat LOL!

[BarnetBlizzard]

max of -0.1today now -0.2. Cold but no near as cold as most of you in south east England

[Iceni]

My outdoor transmitter says 43.5c!!

Think I better pop over to ebay

There's a steam train arriving in norwich at 1400 from kings cross for a carol service. How perfect would that have been?

A few flurries since 1000 but blue sky, mini avalanches off roof now

Steam trains (I can just about remember them from my childhood ) coped far better in snow and ice than modern ones do — heavier wheelbase and engines. I'd love to see it but Norwich is a bit too far to go today.

[pinball wizard]

Hard to say until obs come in, but IMO looking at the charts there could be a bit of sleet or rain at first due to moist westerly winds ahead of band, then quickly turning to snow as colder drier air from the north undercuts the band of precipitation ... kinda what happened on the evening of 28th January 2004, when it started as rain with westerly winds ahead of front and many I remember on BBC snowwatch were slashing their wrists, before it suddenly turned to snow with lightning and thunder as cold air undercut from the north.

Hi Nick, current radar shows the ppn in scotland to be decreasing in intensity and area, will it pep up at all as it gets further south or are you expecting it to be a quite narrow area of ppn by then?

[hire17]

Steam trains (I can just about remember them from my childhood ) coped far better in snow and ice than modern ones do — heavier wheelbase and engines. I'd love to see it but Norwich is a bit too far to go today.

Just went through, covered in ice. Travelled via Ely and Thetford. Perfect blue skies, must have been stunning

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

With such cold air entrenched in the SE would it really be initially rain even with the less cold sector? I was intending to travel to Swansea tomorrow AM with my 4 yr old but this looks decidedly doubtful...wouldn't folk agree?

Also I have to say the storm on Thursday night was amazing, the windchill was incredible....now that was an old style wintry blast.

BFTP

[SMU]

With such cold air entrenched in the SE would it really be initially rain even with the less cold sector? I was intending to travel to Swansea tomorrow AM with my 4 yr old but this looks decidedly doubtful...wouldn't folk agree?

Also I have to say the storm on Thursday night was amazing, the windchill was incredible....now that was an old style wintry blast.

BFTP

I Agree with this- with the current plots in terms of surface temps & the fact theres a good 7 hours cooling to come I am estimating that we will be average around -4 when the cloud sheet arrives possibly less- when the upper 'warmer pool' arrives then it will lift the Dp's & temps but not at that drastic rate-

Maybe feezing rain- but very unlikely-

As it stands - I guess 1-4 inches in the SE tonight......

T72 looks interesting - possibly a big snow event at Day 3..... More developments on that to come- but remember stagnent surface cold is the bee all & end all for the UK in terms of assisting snowfall & with such a shallow trough cutting NE up the coast I cant see to much mixing prior to the onset of the Precipitation-

If the 06z was to varify & the PPN arrived at might I would hazard a guess of just the extrem Southern & south eastern coastal areas being rain & inland being a sharp cut off....

Steve

[Downpour]

With such cold air entrenched in the SE would it really be initially rain even with the less cold sector? I was intending to travel to Swansea tomorrow AM with my 4 yr old but this looks decidedly doubtful...wouldn't folk agree?

Also I have to say the storm on Thursday night was amazing, the windchill was incredible....now that was an old style wintry blast.

BFTP

Exactly what I was thinking. It has remained below freezing all day in Ealing, west London. Probably be minus 3 again under clear skies by 0100. Glorious winter's day with the sun glistening on the modest, but largely unmelted 1" snowfall on the parks and gardens from Thursday night. Hoping for something better tonight. The BBC are confidently forecasting heavy snow at 0300, moderating to light snow by 0600. In my heart I don't believe it. What are people's thoughts? We in west London missed most of the Chiltern band and the SE band, do you think we may squeeze another inch tonight? Then heading up to Leicestershire on 23 December for Christmas, maybe a better location there...

[Ocean Transit]

Temperature dropping again after a high of -2.4 deg. C

IIRC this has to be the coldest day at this location this century

[Rich44]

Temp now plummeting was 3C just over an hour ago now down to 0.4C

[Tom D]

Temperature dropping again after a high of -2.4 deg. C

IIRC this has to be the coldest day at this location this century

I've been up to -1.4c and I don't remember such a low daytime minima in my life (I'm 19)

[snowking]

You know that will curse it and then the PPN will narrow, we'll know who to blame. :-)

You are very much on the ball!

It was 2pm i chose as this is when the snow was likely to be at its narrowest according to the NMM this afternoon

Anyway, appologies for the delay, just been fiddling round with contrasts and various things to try and get a clear image of the two but no such luck, so ive coloured in black the NMM predictions, which at 2pm wasnt too far out, although as you'll see its picked up the heavier parts quite well, though not so much the lighter sutff preceeding and proceeding the band

[tornadica]

Well the sun has only just come out in Deal, and with the sun setting now and due to be down in the next hour, i can imagine the snow that fell wont melt but i am unsure if the band moving sound will produce rain in such cold conditions. well i hope it does snow again. Double fun for Deal woop woop!

[huntso]

Really hoping to see some snow on Tues 22nd, its my birthday and have never seen any for the past 50 years (admittedly lived in London for most of it and cheated one year in Innsbruck, but that doesn't count)

Had a look at the met office five dayer and they are giving heavy snow for my location mon night and tues day, but the tues nightime is a puzzle.

Temp of -7c with Drizzle, yet down the road in Cambridge is saying Fog, how likely is Drizzle given those sorts of overnight lows?

Also not convinced that the predicted low will materialise either or at least not as far north as me

[angel23]

hows luton lookin for more snow ppl

[Iceni]

Will the snow follow the 850 wind vector arrows? If it reaches us mid-west Suffolk and follows the arrows, it will be a direct hit

Is there any chance it'll all be 'used up' by the time it gets south? On the radar it's about 30 miles from Newcastle atm.

[BarnetBlizzard]

-1.0 here now, almost wish that we weren't going to get any snow tonight, just to see how low the temperatures could go.

[wellington boot]

I really don't understand the rain concern tonight. It's freezing now. The warm sector doesn't really reach the south east properly. Look at the 6z maps, which is when it actually gets here, and the dew points are below 0C everywhere, the 850s are lower than -5, even the max min map has the far south east at -0C.

What's the issue, apart from the fact that according to the ppn maps, the far south east gets almost nothing from this.

[MAF]

Will the snow follow the 850 wind vector arrows? If it reaches us mid-west Suffolk and follows the arrows, it will be a direct hit

Is there any chance it'll all be 'used up' by the time it gets south? On the radar it's about 30 miles from Newcastle atm.

getting nervous now, that front seems to be coming down the country a bit quick. at that rate it will be here and gone in a flash

[chionomaniac]

The second ice day on the row here in Brighton. The temperature has reached -1.9ºC but has since dropped to -2.4ºC. I can't see that the approaching cold front this evening is going to give anything other than snow tonight, especially so as most of the precipitation comes after the warmer 850's have passed.

One of the great things about ice days following snowfalls is the formation of icicles. The sun has enough strength to melt some of the snow which refreezes instantly in the subzero temperatures in the shade. I haven't seen icicles like those around since 1991. Here is hoping for another ice day tomorrow.

c

[Sno' problem]

getting nervous now, that front seems to be coming down the country a bit quick. at that rate it will be here and gone in a flash

Thats what I was thinking...Moving pretty fast and still quite a thin band. Is it expected to intensify as it moves South?

(Just noticed SnowKing's post saying that the band is at it's narrowest now, but how much bigger is it going to build?)

Edited December 19, 2009 by Sno' problem

[Ben_Cambs]

hows luton lookin for more snow ppl

Snow tonight, anywhere between 1-4 inches (2-10cm) is likely across many parts of the region. Possible widespread snow Monday night into Tuesday, as low pressure pushes up from the south, but there is low confidence on this at the moment.

[Ocean Transit]

Crazy temperatures in East Anglia at the moment. Marham and Wattisham are -5 deg. C at 3PM!