South West England Cold Spell Discussion

[Stoxs]

As we found out around North Hampshire. berkshire yesterday situations like this can change in a second.

Tomorrow if you are travelling about even only a few miles make sure you are prepaired for situations to get difficult.

Even driving a 4x4 was no gain as i couldn`t get around parked/ abandoned vehicles.

[Lynxus]

OK:

Approx anywhere north of Bristol - tomorrow evening - could become fun and games. I say no more at this stage: far too much fluidity in the high-res modelling and WBFL geography / lowering based also on precip intensity. But potential is certainly there (my tip - Glos: eyes to the skies, certainly; perhaps elsewhere in this region too).

We're trying to emphasise this core uncertainty (i.e., rain/snow discrimination and potential) as best possible, in the usual short broadcast durations / wider public consumption message style. In the current state of flux, tomorrow evening's mesoscale (let alone subregional) detail is frankly a lifetime away. Tonight's continuing ice and freezing fog prospects are much more pressing.

Will try to keep you all posted on the UKMO view.

Thanks for the update man.

Hopefully your early morning trip today wasnt too eventful.

Im borderline excited, However with the potential for heavy fog, This worrys me.

Not because i cant see, but because id rather have the temp drop some more.

It would be nice to have fog tomorrow right up to the ppn event.

Fingers crossed aye guys,

I think were one of the ever decreasing amount of places that haven't had any snow so far.

I think these damn hills around gloucester and the Btol channel really dont help us with our weather.

Edited December 22, 2009 by Lynxus

[Ian Fergusson]

Evening Ian,

What would you say the prospects are for this far south and west, but 900feet up on Dartmoor, current temps are -4.5C so plenty of surface cold around and existing snow cover.

Well, clearly at that location AMSL you'll always be sitting prettier with these borderline WBFL values and wintry / wet PPN bias forecasts (assuming no other Fohn or equally skewing effect, of course.... no risk of such this time!!). So yup, there's potential. But our Chief Forecaster at UKMO has been keen to stress the Bristol northwards angle, at least for more widespread wintry potential, whilst equally stressing the (many!) caveats in this evolving set-up.

I do urge caution until we see the status of things tomorrow am after further runs....

It's another knife-edge one (we are getting used to these in this region, eh?) and earlier runs today (NAE) painted solely rain / sleet way, way up across the whole SW peninsula, excepting very highest ground and extreme NE periphery of Glos.... albeit the same modelling then hinted at lowering the WBFL sufficiently (partly through PPN intensity, I assume) into S. Glos and elsewhere later in the night, locally at least.

It's another brewing forecasting mare, and believe me, we've grown well accustomed to these at BBC Weather the last few days!!

[Dartmoor_Matt]

Yeah, was like that in Feb here, all the 'town folk' tried to get up here to see some snow and go sledging, got their cars stuck, left them behind and 4 days later the ploughs still couldn't get through.

Muppets.

[Lynxus]

But could it be our turn

I BETTER BE LOL.

Im getting starved of storms, snow and pretty much any exciting weather.

I may actually die from a lack of it.

[Dartmoor_Matt]

Well, clearly at that location AMSL you'll always be sitting prettier with these borderline WBFL values and wintry / wet PPN bias forecasts (assuming no other Fohn or equally skewing effect, of course.... no risk of such this time!!). So yup, there's potential. But our Chief Forecaster at UKMO has been keen to stress the Bristol northwards angle, at least for more widespread wintry potential, whilst equally stressing the (many!) caveats in this evolving set-up.

I do urge caution until we see the status of things tomorrow am after further runs....

It's another knife-edge one (we are getting used to these in this region, eh?) and earlier runs today (NAE) painted solely rain / sleet way, way up across the whole SW peninsula, excepting very highest ground and extreme NE periphery of Glos.... albeit the same modelling then hinted at lowering the WBFL sufficiently (partly through PPN intensity, I assume) into S. Glos and elsewhere later in the night, locally at least.

It's another brewing forecasting mare, and believe me, we've grown well accustomed to these at BBC Weather the last few days!!

Thanks Ian,

At the moment black ice is forecast on the lower levels, which will make things interesting to say the least... snow is fine, least you can see it, black ice on 90degree bends coming down off the moor will be... hmm.

It is certainly more interesting at the moment than are usual SW erly fed weather! Here's hoping it continues. (although with the caveat that perhaps not if you need to get up 5mins earlier at 3am)

[Rich_Clements]

Well at least the roads should now be salted they certainly were not Monday morning I have never seen as much slush as I did on the M32 that morning.

[Ian Fergusson]

My take on tom eve is it looks like one of those typical evenings from last February where the v.short range forecasts (within a few hours of the event) was changing all the time. As we all know most of us in BTL, Gloucs and N. Somerset were on the 'right' side of marginal for those falls in Feb. Maybe tomorrow

That's a really good parallel. I remember the Feb event(s) all too clearly and yes, it's similarly balanced in terms of regional snow / rain bias. Lucky me / Rich A. At least by the time I'm off air at 0900, people forget what went bust with a forecast by evening time ....

[warren]

Thankfully I finished work at 1130hrs but the term 'thankfully' never seems so apt when scraping ice off my car at 0335hrs and assuming the recent unsolicited role of ice-rallying Vauxhall test driver on the streets of north Bristol. Tomorrow promises more of the same. I fully expect minima way under the -3C our UKMO MOS suggests for centre of urban Bristol tonight. It's already -5C in parts of east Somerset....

Thanks for the update Ian. Drive carefully, I think we will be needing alot more of your input over the coming days.

Warren

[dogs32]

I BETTER BE LOL.

Im getting starved of storms, snow and pretty much any exciting weather.

I may actually die from a lack of it.

lol

I can just see it tomorrow night you puffing fag after fag outside watching the sky..lol

Same here but without the fag's..

Like Ian said it's still Knife edge and still not 100%..

so hold tight and see what might develope

Edited December 22, 2009 by dogs32

[Nights King]

Thanks Ian,

I think we shall just all have to wait for the morning and then have another look although i feel this one maybe another one we don't really know until it happens. Would be great for many areas to see a "real" white xmas and by that i mean snow on the ground and not Necessarily falling.

Another long night i sense tomorrow.

Just found your old forecast (below) you do love the term knife edge!

Edited December 22, 2009 by mullender83

[twister2005]

evening all snow watchers, sounds exciting times ahead but not getting my hopes up to much yet, but would be amazing to be in the right place for a change

[Ian Fergusson]

Thanks Ian,

I think we shall just all have to wait for the morning and then have another look although i feel this one maybe another one we don't really know until it happens. Would be great for many areas to see a "real" white xmas and by that i mean snow on the ground and not Necessarily falling.

Another long night i sense tomorrow.

Indeed. Effectively, as we see tomorrow's more organised area of convection (and a shortwave trough) appear, the resulting response will be WBFL's lifting quite readily across the SW up to ca. 800m and in order to bring them back down again -- thus bringing a change to snowfall - we need the precip to fall heavily enough, and aligned to the flow, in order to herald the transition.

So, those areas benefitting from a longer fetch across terra firma (as well as increasing height, obviously) are more at risk, hence me emphasising Glos (Cotswolds) BUT.... big BUT...... lower levels also not excluded. The similarity to Feb 2009 events (in a public communication sense, rather than synoptically) is how the transition from rain to sudden heavy (disruptive??) snow could be very marked and locally smallscale. Thus, for the likes of me, either entering the folklore of TV forecast accuracy awaits or.... a complete blooper.

Our best current guess on MO expertise and high-res modelling is anywhere from Bristol northwards to see most risk of the transition to snow, but I so, so emphasise how this is a really tricky bit of predictive science!! I'm off to bed and await the next output.....

Edited December 22, 2009 by Ian Fergusson

[Wilxy]

Indeed. Effectively, as we see tomorrow's more organised area of convection (and a shortwave trough) appear, the resulting response will be WBFL's lifting quite readily across the SW up to ca. 800m and in order to bring them back down again -- thus bringing a change to snowfall - we need the precip to fall heavily enough, and aligned to the flow, in order to herald the transition.

So, those areas benefitting from a longer fetch across terra firma (as well as increasing height, obviously) are more at risk, hence me emphasising Glos (Cotswolds) BUT.... big BUT...... lower levels also not excluded. The similarity to Feb 2009 events (in a public communication sense, rather than synoptically) is how the transition from rain to sudden heavy (disruptive??) snow could be very marked and locally smallscale. Thus, for the likes of me, either entering the folklore of TV forecast accuracy awaits or.... a complete blooper.

Our best current guess on MO expertise and high-res modelling is anywhere from Bristol northwards to see most risk of the transition to snow, but I so, so emphasise how this is a really tricky bit of predictive science!! I'm off to bed and await the next output.....

Do you think bristol will see any snow tomorrow night as in bristol its self.

[Jane Louise]

I am also suprised that the Cotswolds/Glos hasen't had much snow Maybe it will be our turn next .I really do hope we see some snow tommorow evening. A white Xmas would be nice too.

[Bristawl Si]

Do you think bristol will see any snow tomorrow night as in bristol its self.

Ian's already said at the mo the prediction is BTL northwards, but with underlying warning that the exact areas that could be subject to a period of snow could change. Forecasting nightmare - we'll know more tomorrow.

[dogs32]

Cheers Ian..

Like Ian said thing's still developing so it's no point pin pointing any place to say it will snow.

It's all still up in the air,Tomorrow we will see where the model's are going.

edit

Bristol Boy...Could it be a repeat of last year when we stayed up late.

Waiting for the blizzard's

Can you remember that evening,or was it early this year?

Edited December 22, 2009 by dogs32

[03jtrickey]

Some pictures from my trip into the Cotswolds, up Cleeve Hill earlier. About 2cm snow in the shade, and had melted in places. Made for some picturesque scenes.

Edited December 22, 2009 by 03jtrickey

[alijoe]

Some pictures from my trip into the Cotswolds, up Cleeve Hill earlier. About 2cm snow in the shade, and had melted in places. Made for some picturesque scenes.

Aww lovely pictures....thanks for sharing. Everything looks so gorgeous with the snow doesnt it?

[BristolBlizzard]

Some pictures from my trip into the Cotswolds, up Cleeve Hill earlier. About 2cm snow in the shade, and had melted in places. Made for some picturesque scenes.

great pics

[Jane Louise]

Very nice pics James. I can see the snow on the hills from the village.

[Bristawl Si]

Some pictures from my trip into the Cotswolds, up Cleeve Hill earlier. About 2cm snow in the shade, and had melted in places. Made for some picturesque scenes.

Too much green compared to North Bristol, though, James. LOL

[03jtrickey]

Thanks all :-)

Too much green compared to North Bristol, though, James. LOL

Just wait until tomorrow - the Cotswolds will be pasted ;-) I hope... they do very well out of marginal situations. A number of times, especially in borderline setups when we have had no snow or only a bit of snow down in town there has been a foot or more on the hills.

Still it was nice to see a bit of snow today - we have been rather snow starved so far in Gloucestershire!

[Stoxs]

thought it was pitures of a had frost!!

nice piccies trickey

ohh 1k !! only took 5 years LOL OHH I MUST NOT SPAM THE FORUM!

Edited December 22, 2009 by Stoxs

[❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️]

How about not quoting the pictures?