East Anglia & South East Cold Spell Discussion

[Country Boy]

Not a flake here out of yesterdays snow..But then we dont get much here anyway ( little clacton essex. ) We had the best of the summer waeather in the country and we are in the dryest part of the land...Think we have to wait untill the new year now for the next big event

[saint]

Looks like fog is starting to roll across the fields in the distance......

[remymartin]

What a day. No power for 4 hours, no buses , no gritters. But on the plus side built a sledge, oh what fun took me back a few years

Edited December 22, 2009 by remymartin

[Lowestoft]

Jusy back from a lovely long walk along the beach. A beautiful clear crisp evening. Perfect.

Edited to say: From the homepage here at Netweather: "Freeze Continuing.

The cold is not going to let us it's grip across the UK easily as we move toward Christmas"

Let us it's grip. Nice one.

Edited December 22, 2009 by Lowestoft

[Coast]

From the homepage here at Netweather:

Cheers for that Lowestoft - sorted now, thanks to your keen eyesight!

[snow drift]

As a boy in the North cotswolds i was told by many a farmer that when snow sat in little hollows and on north facing slopes, after a slow thaw that had been over a few days, that it was "waiting for more". The point being that cold is difficult to shift once it has been in place for a while. This looks like a similar situation. 25 years ago we would have expected to have got another cold spell. Over recent winters we have got used to mild and on the whole uneventfull winters. The models certainly would suggest that the cold air is never to far away and indeed Scotland may not lose it at all.

I would add that although i have looked at this thread for many years and my ability to evaluate what may happen is improving, i am in awe how some on here are able to spot trends that could happen that are more than aweek away. That is why i love this thread, not because i want to know what will happen in the next 24 hours but what will happen down the line. If it is not correct then i will never get fustrated and ask why it never snowed in my back garden.

[StormChaseUK]

Quickest freeze day so far this year here in Bucks, windscreen was frozen at 3pm fast , which it has not done since Saturday.

-2C currently. down to around -5C overnight I think. With more snow to come weds/thurs easily.

[lizzieloo202]

Quickest freeze day so far this year here in Bucks, windscreen was frozen at 3pm fast , which it has not done since Saturday.

-2C currently. down to around -5C overnight I think. With more snow to come weds/thurs easily.

All the snow that fell last night is still in the trees now, been all winter wonderlandy (?) all day, no sign of a thaw here at all.

Just heard on the news that Thames Valley Police have been moving abandoned cars, therefore people will have to pay to get them back.

Oh dear, that's gonna go down well

Edited December 22, 2009 by lizzieloo202

[k66yla]

The snow is well into a thaw here now but there is still a covering everywhere. I wish the ice would hurry up and thaw, the roads are in a terrible condition, forgotten how many times I got stuck today trying to deliver parcels

[Charltonkerry]

The thaws continues in Dartford, looks like it will all be gone by tonight. Shame really been nice to have had snow on the ground over the Xmas period.

Ooops got that totally wrong, left for work and everthing was wringing wet and dripping, got back and no more melt outside and everthing frozen. Just goes to show that cant trust a fridge engineer when you talking about the cold. Anybody know if it could hang about to Xmas.

Reminds me of the good old days when snow used to hung around in nooks and crevices and you where told that it was waiting for more to come and join it, and do you what it used to.

[Kiwi]

GFS minimum temps shown for tonight around here are -2C.

Its already -3.9C!! Does GFS not take account of snow cover?

Snowy Sherborne St John -- a couple of miles outside Basingstoke

[morfius]

http://www.natice.no..._asiaeurope.gif

Check out the European snow cover, not often that you see pretty much all of Europe covered like that....

What's even more impressive is the near 100% snow cover of Russia with the snow even working it's way down the eastern black sea coast!

Infact there is nearly continuous snow cover north of the 45th parallel!!!

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow.gif

Edited December 22, 2009 by morfius

[StormChaseUK]

GFS minimum temps shown for tonight around here are -2C.

Its already -3.9C!! Does GFS not take account of snow cover?

Snowy Sherborne St John -- a couple of miles outside Basingstoke

Yes there is a 3C difference currently, so expect -6, -7C

[Tom D]

Not much in the way of melting today, top temp of 0.5c, currently -1.1c. The slushy pavement and roads are beginning to freeze up and become very dangerous.

[musician]

As a boy in the North cotswolds i was told by many a farmer that when snow sat in little hollows and on north facing slopes, after a slow thaw that had been over a few days, that it was "waiting for more". The point being that cold is difficult to shift once it has been in place for a while. This looks like a similar situation. 25 years ago we would have expected to have got another cold spell. Over recent winters we have got used to mild and on the whole uneventfull winters. The models certainly would suggest that the cold air is never to far away and indeed Scotland may not lose it at all.

I would add that although i have looked at this thread for many years and my ability to evaluate what may happen is improving, i am in awe how some on here are able to spot trends that could happen that are more than aweek away. That is why i love this thread, not because i want to know what will happen in the next 24 hours but what will happen down the line. If it is not correct then i will never get fustrated and ask why it never snowed in my back garden.

I agree entirely. I was also a boy in the North Cotswolds and know the expression "It's waiting for more" and more did indeed, usually arrive. I am also in awe of these model discussions. Even though I don't understand much of the background detail, I get the thread and read every single reply. I'm sure I'm beginning to understand some of the detail as time goes on and I certainly seem to have a good grasp of what weather is on the way. I really must congratulate all these excellent "posters" in this, my favourite thread!

[Upgrade]

looking further ahead its quite possible the very cold air that stays in situe over scandinavia will make a comeback

after xmas.

so to sum up a very exciting prospect ahead watch carefully each forecast on the BEEB for snow in your area ,weater radar and temp, i feel theres going to be some fun and games with these synoptics some places could get anther pasting ; enjoy

It is interesting to note that after forecasting a push towards milder weather now, tv forecasters have become more tenentative again and are forecasting snow "in the north" as early as Boxing Day.

Some warm-up!

Edited December 22, 2009 by jimmyay

[justinflavin]

no sign of a thaw here in basingstoke. gritters were only out on the main roads apparently, so that means most estates are still treacherous.

if the slush freezes overnight its going to be a nightmare during rush hour tommorow.

[snowblizzard]

Interesting to see that temperatures across Western Europe have recovered significantly today!

http://www.wzkarten.de/pics/Reurmett.gif

These countries have been in deep freeze for the last few weeks.

I bet they were glad to see much less cold air move in.

[justinflavin]

itv weather are now reporting that it will freezing fog over southern england tonight. that's bound to freeze the slush on the roads.

ice rink travel chaos tommorow morning?

[Iceni]

as some rightly point out there not much point talkin about it when your to busy looking at it !!!

As for charts i feel the old fashoned methods are useful here what the synoptics infer are not necessarily what the weather is at ground level , we are in one of those situations, now cold air is entrenched and mild air rides over the top as opposed to pushing the cold air away , in fact it takes several attempts to push heavy and dense cold air at the surface out of the way.

Don't need the models… my sure fire method has come up trumps again, I've seen several flocks of field fares — always always means snow's coming.

For about a month in advance though (and probably when the field fares are taking off from Northern Norway) I find Glacier Point's the Man. He's infallible.

[Nick.F]

no thaw in NE Essex since the very early hours, it's been below 0c ever since.

Local forecasts (happened to see another one tonight at friends, do not normally watch them) saying getting down to -2c here tonight - they should look at actual readings around the area. Here it is already just a smidgeon above -2c, guessing maybe -4 or lower here tonight.

Don't know why they bother, when simple checks seem to be beyond them.

[shotski]

Another cold one in Slapton, Bucks -4.2 at the moment and falling. We had a low of -9.6 on 6th jan 09 I wonder if it will get

close to that. Maybe more snow wed nite and then a very slight recovery over xmas but then it looks like the fun and games

may really start in the new year. Keep it locked to the model output discusion, these people really know their stuff

[Ben_Cambs]

Slush on roads. Bound to be awful driving tomorrow morning across the snow covered areas of EA, SE and Central southern England.

[rich1]

yesderday was a frustrating damp squib during the day but the front swung back overnight and gave about 1cm repairing some of the damage to the snowcover, persisted well in the shade today with temperatures barely above freezing, wasnt the 4 or 5 degrees forecasted anyway

tonight looks very cold if it stays clear, may be a harsh frost. The colder the nights the better, may help the cold air and snow we have persist a bit longer up to the big day itself. Decent cold spell here though maybe not as spectacular as elsewhere and is still ongoing

[snowlover2009]

Certainly an interesting trend from the models just after xmas. If I had one complaint then this would be the lower heights to our N would prevent a very cold pool from moving S but then again it could be cold enough for a major snow event. However with the lack of decent heights to our N it wouldn't be very long before the N,ly flow was toppled.

Just read Joe B latest forecast and he suggests short lived cold spells before winter really kicks in for mid-late winter.

Maybe just for once the mild spells will be short lived and its the colder spells that will be dominant this winter!

mild spells might last as long as cold spells from recent years, infact even shorter lookign at this upcoming blip, infact not a blip for here.

it can onyl get better for my part of the world astonishing because we have had snow on the gorund since last thursday and then comes ecm and throws somethign which will put current snow to shame lol.