East Anglia & South East Cold Spell Discussion Part 18

[Guest archiesmummy]

well has just started pouring down with rain here now.....

[Tom D]

SNOWING HERE!!! temp of 0.8c

Oxford

Mark

We may find that initially the heavy bursts are wintry, but I'm pretty sure you'll soon have rain.

[stewfox]

http://forumcache.netweather.tv/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif' date='23 December 2009 - 14:23 ' timestamp='1261578204' post='1668603']

SNOWING HERE!!! temp of 0.8c

Oxford

Mark

How much , I drive back that way later, we could do with a top up in oxfordshire

Light rain down here in reading where I 'work'

Edited December 23, 2009 by stewfox

[patrickshere]

2 degrees here with light rain. Snows starting to melt too.. Still can't see the grass though.

[kold weather]

Got light rain now here as expected as the warm front comes northwards and spreads the milder air in, temps will probably not drop all that much overnight as we have a rather cloudy flow coming in for the next 24hrs.

Temps tomorrow look a touch cooler as the airflow changes ever so slightly to a more SSE flow which sees the airflow comes off France which is a little cooler then obviously the channel.

[ukmoose]

Far south now looking quite a bit milder it has to be said, near coast temps now upto 6-8C generally, whilst further north temps are a little lower between 3-4C, then further north again in East Anglia temps are still very cold indeed, quite a few places in the western portion of the region and around the wash that are in the coldspot so to speak, with temps still decently below 0C.

So quite a big constrast in temps in this region, from 8C to -3C!

That's a very impressive temperature range for a relatively small area. Not often we get that. Probably shows how difficult it is proving for the milder weather to head northwards. Still white over here but not as 'crisp'. Not keen on getting the 8C from Brighton!

[TEITS]

Still -2C at 14.30 and now we have freezing fog moving in!!

[Archie_Lewis]

Still -2C at 14.30 and now we have freezing fog moving in!!

Sounds like your having what we had

Around 12pm freezing fog came in with a temp of -2 ahead of the showery rain.

We now have a temp of 2degrees and light rain. Snow only slightly melting though

[icy toes]

Met Office just put out heavy snow warnings for East Midlands and Peterborough this evening. The first band of rain will be here soon - it'll be interesting to see whether it falls as rain or snow.

Edited December 23, 2009 by icy toes

[Cheese Rice]

New Meto radar http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/pws/invent/weathermap/

[TEITS]

Met Office just put out heavy snow warnings for East Midlands and Peterborough this evening

Note the warning for Peterborough says heavy snow with 5-10cm likely. This isn't the case of the other regions.

Damn shame im going for my curry at 7.30 tonight as I will miss the fun and games of following the radar.

[Rich44]

awwww send it east a bit....

[TEITS]

Wow temps have now dropped to -3C at 15.00.

The lying snow is definately having an effect on the air temp in this region.

[icy toes]

Wow temps have now dropped to -3C at 15.00.

The lying snow is definately having an effect on the air temp in this region.

Yep -it's -2 here now at 3.30pm. Gonna be a cold one again tonight. The leading edge of that rain band will be here within an hour. Could it fall as snow?

[remymartin]

Temp 0 here at the moment and no rain yet or thaw

[tinybill]

frezzing rain here road like ice

[stewfox]

Sounds like your having what we had

Around 12pm freezing fog came in with a temp of -2 ahead of the showery rain.

We now have a temp of 2degrees and light rain. Snow only slightly melting though

Same in Reading an hour earlier but very light rain

It will be interesting how far it goes before it turns to snow (if it in fact does)

However at 2c its going to be slow melt in reading

[Coast]

Temps are dropping but not currently to anything unusual for this time of year. I'm also on the lookout for lightning in the next few hours along the Sussex coast.

How are airports kept open in cold weather?

At Prestwick in the west of Scotland, a Boeing passenger jet slid off the runway while taxiing, but planes are still taking off and landing despite much of the country being blanketed in snow and ice.

The first thing to bear in mind, says David Learmount, of Flight International magazine, is that the situation at airports is similar to that faced by motorway drivers.

On a clear sunny summer day, drivers will tend to leave a smaller gap, and therefore smaller safety margin, between themselves and the car in front. On an icy day, they would tend to drive much slower and leave longer gaps.

"Aeroplanes do the same when they are approaching to land," says Learmount.

"They have to leave for safety reasons big gaps between the departing aircraft and the arriving. The aeroplanes cannot brake and slow down easily."

The same applies to visibility. The pilot needs bigger safety margins if visibility is lower than normal.

"The final decision about whether it is safe to land is not the [air traffic] controllers," says Learmount. Instead it rests with each pilot.

One big issue is ice. Airlines are typically responsible for de-icing their own craft. Airport operators like BAA take responsibility for the runways and roads at the airport.

They use precautionary anti-icing chemicals to try to ward off ice, and de-icing chemicals when it has formed. Taking Heathrow as an example, the airport boosts a fleet of new de-icing vehicles that can carry 57,000 litres of chemical. Fifty staff at Heathrow deal with the cold weather work between the beginning of November and the end of March.

and grit is not used, says David Learmount.

"Salt is corrosive to bare aluminium [which is often found on planes]," he says. Instead, less corrosive chemicals like urea are used in the de-icing.

The level of disruption depends on how busy the airport concerned is. In an airport like Heathrow which can often be operating at 98% of capacity, small amounts of disruption can cause rafts of cancellations.

"Really busy airports operate pretty close to capacity - even going to a more widely spaced approaches might mean cancellations," says Learmount. At smaller airports the effects of the weather on schedules may be much less noticeable.

There are some situations that lead to all flights being stopped. For instance, at Aberdeen on Tuesday the airport had to stop flights for two hours in the morning and another hour at lunchtime because of heavy snow. Snow cannot be cleared while planes are landing and taking off.

Disruption is also exacerbated by the knock-on effects from other airports. But there is no possibility that icy disruption can be cured by heated runways. While pitch underheating may be the norm in Premiership football, it might be a bit more tricky to install it on the vast expanses of the typical runway.

"If there were you would create a lot of other problems, it would be phenomenally expensive and not at all green," says Learmount

[PB22]

Better make the most of the next day or so as its going to feel very different by Boxing Day it seems with Kent possibly into double figures:

http://www.wzkarten.de/pics/Rtavn7817.html

[kold weather]

I'd be a little surprised if temps are that high Paul but that is quite an impressive warm up and given Brighton is at 8C today I suppose its quite possible...

I suspect for this region after tonight the cold spell is just about over...for the time being anyway the attention shifts much further north but towards the end of the year wil lbe interesting to see the cold slowly filtering south-westwards again but a few days that are a good deal milder then the last 10 days have been down here.

[Ben_Cambs]

Temps again havent got above 0C today. Not expecting anything more than sleet tonight. Current radar shows freezing rain and snow either side of Cambridge

Edited December 23, 2009 by Snowman0697

[tinybill]

Better make the most of the next day or so as its going to feel very different by Boxing Day it seems with Kent possibly into double figures:

http://www.wzkarten..../Rtavn7817.html

Paul looking at the gfs it looks like its only 0ne day for mild weather then bang comes the cold again then it looks very interesting too say the lest to the run up to the new year

[Lowestoft]

Paul looking at the gfs it looks like its only 0ne day for mild weather then bang comes the cold again then it looks very interesting too say the lest to the run up to the new year

Where do you get this information from that is the complete opposite to what the Met Office are saying?

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_temp.html

[Ben_Cambs]

I think it is safe to say by Boxing day, most if not all the snow we have recieved in the past week would of melted. But good news is on the horizon, with another cold spell due around the new year according to GFS and ECM

[Iceni]

Just had a sleet shower. The dewpoint's still just below zero but temperature's 1.8° C — didn't understand why it was only sleet until I looked at the uppers and they're –3.8° C, not the –5° C required.

Even so, it doesn't look like a thaw's on the cards tonight.