North West Cold Spell 9

[V for Very Cold]

nothing here , on a slow melt with leaden skies and not even prospect of the white stuff Snowmad is getting

back to the LRF models then

[damianslaw]

Its all looking very marginal for the region today in terms of potential snowfall. Areas with height in the far south of the region and then later Pennine areas could see some snow falling, but the precipitation doesn't look like being that heavy which won't aid evaporative cooling, so a sleety wet snow mush could be deposited.

Temperatures are climbing everywhere, here in Cumbria we have just lost the frost. The 528 Dam line is straddling southern scotland, we need it further south, its the low pressure which has forced it further north.

I'm not expecting any snowfall, being on too low ground, however, the fells above about 300m could get a good pasting overnight and into tomorrow.

Its from later tomorrow night we begin to see the thickness lines and dewpoints coming down to levels more condicive for snow this coinciding with the pull of the low pressure back south.

[Snowmad79]

Lets not be gloomy, after all we can laff at all those to our south that are getting a good bath in the cold rain . Some of the posts in the other threads are so funny to read that the prospect of impending drizzle doesnt bother me so much anymore

Edited December 29, 2009 by Snowmad79

[HotCuppa]

Its all looking very marginal for the region today in terms of potential snowfall. Areas with height in the far south of the region and then later Pennine areas could see some snow falling, but the precipitation doesn't look like being that heavy which won't aid evaporative cooling, so a sleety wet snow mush could be deposited.

Temperatures are climbing everywhere, here in Cumbria we have just lost the frost. The 528 Dam line is straddling southern scotland, we need it further south, its the low pressure which has forced it further north.

I'm not expecting any snowfall, being on too low ground, however, the fells above about 300m could get a good pasting overnight and into tomorrow.

Its from later tomorrow night we begin to see the thickness lines and dewpoints coming down to levels more condicive for snow this coinciding with the pull of the low pressure back south.

Lets hope your right because for as it stands its looking like rain throughout today in the south of the region thats even if this band manages to get across the mersey, let alone passed chester.

[Weather-history]

Nothing in the Manchester METARs suggesting snow just rain/sleet/drizzle

[karyo]

Its from later tomorrow night we begin to see the thickness lines and dewpoints coming down to levels more condicive for snow this coinciding with the pull of the low pressure back south.

And ironically, by then we will be dry!

I'll keep an eye for any snow showers making it through the Pennines Friday/Saturday but it has to be said nothing organised is expected.

Karyo

[SNOW-HEATWAVE-YES]

3.5c in central Manchester at 60m ASL. Snow, dammit!

[HotCuppa]

And ironically, by then we will be dry!

I'll keep an eye for any snow showers making it through the Pennines Friday/Saturday but it has to be said nothing organised is expected.

Karyo

Just cold and dry conditions with a small chance of snow on Jan 1 if we are lucky..though I am keeping an eye to the north west in the mean time..there was a hint there could be a low breaking through the blockade which with the antipated temps could produce something quite nice..but that was at the end of the first week, tbh not to be believed with the way the gfs as behaved lately tho

temp has dropped back to 2.4C and dp is 0.9C

light rain has now turned to sleety conditions in rhyl, prestatyn and chester. Light rain now crew heading towards manchester.

radar has some quite heavy organised rain in the sw heading our way it looks like

Edited December 29, 2009 by HotCuppa

[cheshire snow]

Just cold and dry conditions with a small chance of snow on Jan 1 if we are lucky..though I am keeping an eye to the north west in the mean time..there was a hint there could be a low breaking through the blockade which with the antipated temps could produce something quite nice..but that was at the end of the first week, tbh not to be believed with the way the gfs as behaved lately tho

temp has dropped back to 2.4C and dp is 0.9C

light rain has now turned to sleety conditions in rhyl, prestatyn and chester. Light rain now crew heading towards manchester.

No Rain here yet

Rain to snow event possible later as the 528 line drops south

Any thoughts guys?

C.S

[HotCuppa]

No Rain here yet

Rain to snow event possible later as the 528 line drops south

Any thoughts guys?

C.S

The lp is pushing the dam line further north. Temps everywhere appear to be climbing..still time enough yet for the easterly to kick in but i just can't see anything but rain coming from this, tonight as the temps drop from what i have read elsewhere it appears that any snow showers will be confined to higher elevations, with the occassional small flurry here and there, for the most part it should be come dry cold and crisp with a good night time frost i reckon.

I am expecting the met office to reduce the areas under advisory for snow in the next hour. They will probably change it for icy conditions later tonight, with warnings for higher elevations to the north of the region.

Edited December 29, 2009 by HotCuppa

[Verglas]

dull morning, a little breezy.

looks like just wet on the motorway cams where all the white stuff is supposed to be coming from !

another 'damp squib'

Conditions at local time 10:29 on 29 December 2009

Temperature and Humidity

Temperature 4.6 °C Dew Point 0.1 °C

Windchill 2.1 °C Humidity 73%

Heat Index 4.6 °C

Rainfall

Rainfall Today 0.0 mm Rainfall Rate 0.0 mm/hr

Rainfall This Month 159.6 mm Rainfall This Year 410.1 mm

Rainfall Last Hour 0.0 mm

Wind

Wind Speed (gust) 10.4 mph Wind Speed (avg) 6.5 mph

Wind Bearing 202° SSW Beaufort F2 Light breeze

Pressure

Barometer 998.7 hPa Falling slowly -0.2 hPa/hr

(wind readings affected by sheltered location and skewed by position relative to house roof)

[HotCuppa]

dull morning, a little breezy.

looks like just wet on the motorway cams where all the white stuff is supposed to be coming from !

another 'damp squib'

(wind readings affected by sheltered location and skewed by position relative to house roof)

and here comes the rain almost on que :lol:

[Backtrack]

Non event for Wales! It's falling as sleet or rain there.

[cheshire snow]

Non event for Wales! It's falling as sleet or rain there.

Snow now in parts of South to mid Wales as the heavier PPN pushes in

C.S

[Storm Animal]

Bitter easterly wind here & had some snow grains too giving a slight dusting to melted patches of existing snow. Hopefully that band from the South will hit up here this evening and be cold enough for some snow. Temp currently 0.8oC

[cheshire snow]

Excelent

Sun now showing here

Anyone fancy a BBQ

[trickydicky]

Robbed this off North Sea Snow Convection AKA Tamara from the Model thread:

"Yes that is a correct analysis, it did look like the Greenland High would extend far enough east towards Iceland, as well as linking up with heights towards the Siberian arctic in terms of sustaining an easterly or north easterly airstream for longer. Indeed there were promising signals on some of the modelling up to last night that this would happen. These spoiling shortwaves that keep tracking down from the north were a feature of the last cold spell and scuppered longer term snow potential for this part of the UK. As you say, the whole pattern is too west based in that respect and will keep favouring north western parts of the UK rather than southern eastern areas - with a tendency for troughs to pull the winds round to the north west or even west on the southern flank of the low pressure.

However, the overall picture certainly remains a cold dominated one - and no real signal that this is going to change - irrespective of the fact no doubt that the models will try and prematurely break it down "

I think the general gist of it is short lived easterly, switching to northerly and eventually north westerly as low pressure forms over Norway. So basically a re run of what happened last week and gave the north west 3 days of heavy snow showers. I'd happily take that right now.

[fluffytrollop]

m21 had a light dusting of grains and powder this morning - lovely surprise! I'd consider the salopettes for the kids not to be a waste of money now then :-)

got fingers (and toes eyes and everything else!) crossed that we're cold enough to get the dumping everyone's on about...if this little lot stuck then surely the rest should follow..?

[iand61]

currently 1.5'c here with a cold damp feeling wind.

had the snow equivalent of a 5 minute severe drizzle shower a couple of hours earlier but nothing since.

still think we will get something more substantial later in the day or overnight but a little concered about the temperatures.

drove back from the south coast yesterday and never saw any lying snow until we reached the M62 and M60.

still quite a bit remaining on the ground here in Bacup although even this has turned to more like ice.

Ian

[Bartlett Low]

m21 had a light dusting of grains and powder this morning - lovely surprise! I'd consider the salopettes for the kids not to be a waste of money now then :-)

got fingers (and toes eyes and everything else!) crossed that we're cold enough to get the dumping everyone's on about...if this little lot stuck then surely the rest should follow..?

I told my wife she was imagining it - it was frost!

Seriously though looking at the latest 06z GFS I cant see any snow in this area until possibly this time next week.

Obviously a lot can change before then.

[Weather-history]

Look how cold these Manchester 2m temps ensembles are for the GFS 06z run, very few ensembles get to the 5C mark even in the FI section

http://91.121.93.17/pics/MT2_Manchester_ens.png

[lukemc]

Hi,

Do you think we could see some very low min temperatures in our area during this upcoming cold spell e.g. pushing negative double digits? For example I did notice that Liverpool Airport recorded -10C in December 1995 I don't think we have had a -10 since then, does anyone know any different? Also does anyone know what the record minimum temperature for the Merseyside/Liverpool area is I believe that possibly -15C was reached in 1981 but can anyone confirm that? It would be nice to see that record rivaled even if we do not get much more in the way of snowfall. Anyway, talking of snowfall being affected by temps why did we have such a large increase in due points and temps in the early hours after getting down into severe frost territory - usually if we get down to -5 or below it takes a while for the temps to recover and dew points even longer what has come into play is it the wind direction? Surprising when it is still dark at that time of morning? Also it did notice that Metcheck had our area (South Liverpool) down for a high probability for moderate to heavy snow for tonight and tomorrow not sure if that has changed now and their was a guy who lives in St Helens on the TWO forums that said he was predicted over 24 hours of continuous snowfall with accumulation of a foot on Metcheck! Maybe that is a bit OTT but if the PPN did get heavy enough could cold air undercutting come into play bringing dew points and temps down especially after dark - and also wouldn't the wind coming from a more easterly component help with less chance of modification by the Irish Sea?

Luke

[HotCuppa]

Hi,

Do you think we could see some very low min temperatures in our area during this upcoming cold spell e.g. pushing negative double digits? For example I did notice that Liverpool Airport recorded -10C in December 1995 I don't think we have had a -10 since then, does anyone know any different? Also does anyone know what the record minimum temperature for the Merseyside/Liverpool area is I believe that possibly -15C was reached in 1981 but can anyone confirm that? It would be nice to see that record rivaled even if we do not get much more in the way of snowfall. Anyway, talking of snowfall being affected by temps why did we have such a large increase in due points and temps in the early hours after getting down into severe frost territory - usually if we get down to -5 or below it takes a while for the temps to recover and dew points even longer what has come into play is it the wind direction? Surprising when it is still dark at that time of morning? Also it did notice that Metcheck had our area (South Liverpool) down for a high probability for moderate to heavy snow for tonight and tomorrow not sure if that has changed now and their was a guy who lives in St Helens on the TWO forums that said he was predicted over 24 hours of continuous snowfall with accumulation of a foot on Metcheck! Maybe that is a bit OTT but if the PPN did get heavy enough could cold air undercutting come into play bringing dew points and temps down especially after dark - and also wouldn't the wind coming from a more easterly component help with less chance of modification by the Irish Sea?

Luke

lol to metcheck, they always blow everything out of proportion over there, no offence to them but thats what they usually always do.

As for very low temps, that remains to be seen, the only time I have seen upper air reach -10 was for today, which was progged by GFS a couple days ago. You need to differentiate between liverpool and surrounding areas. Liverpool city is a heat sink so I doubt it would ever get to the likes of -15c even back in early 80's I could be wrong. The coldest spell we have had out in the country to where you are, we have had -7.1C which was recorded if i remember last Tuesday night/wednesday morning.

We should get a sustained temp drop over the coming few days, and by sustained I mean more than 2 days. Potential for the easterly to hang on for a while..but as always things can and usually do mess up lol Last night we where well on the way to reaching the lowest minima of -7.1C again potentially until sw winds kicked in.

The problem is Luke Liverpool back in the day didn't really record temps as well as other places such as further down south or indeed other locations further north. It's hard to distinguish through almanac's whether the record temps where just guesses or actual temps. From what I have seen the lowest temp recorded in Merseyside was some place east of St Helens think it was newton le willows or some place, which allegedly recorded -21C back at the end of the 1880/90's since then the lowest was -17C Billinge which I think is in St Helens (not very good with durisdictions and which towns own which areas etc) which I think I read was back in 1947 and it had over 6 feet of level snow not including drifting snow which was again allegedly over 15 feet deep in some places.

Edited December 29, 2009 by HotCuppa

[Never snows where i live]

lol to metcheck, they always blow everything out of proportion over there, no offence to them but thats what they usually always do.

As for very low temps, that remains to be seen, the only time I have seen upper air reach -10 was for today, which was progged by GFS a couple days ago. You need to differentiate between liverpool and surrounding areas. Liverpool city is a heat sink so I doubt it would ever get to the likes of -15c even back in early 80's I could be wrong. The coldest spell we have had out in the country to where you are, we have had -7.1C which was recorded if i remember last Tuesday night/wednesday morning.

We should get a sustained temp drop over the coming few days, and by sustained I mean more than 2 days. Potential for the easterly to hang on for a while..but as always things can and usually do mess up lol Last night we where well on the way to reaching the lowest minima of -7.1C again potentially until sw winds kicked in.

So, will we get snow then today or tomorrow?

[AderynCoch]

-13C was recorded at Liverpool Airport in December 1981, which is a mild location even by local standards. -9C was logged in December 2000 (though the Echo the next day had "-10C" emblazoned across the front page in large font).

-15C at the airport would be truly exceptional. I dare say there's a good chance we had such temperatures in some of the severe cold spells of the past, such as February 1895 and January 1881 (when -18C was recorded just up the coast at Blackpool).

Particularly interesting is the -10C logged in December 1995, as there was hardly any snow about (just lots of ice and frost). In contrast, the -13C in December 1981 was recorded under optimum conditions (deep snow cover, clear skies, no wind). I wonder how low it could have gotten with some decent snow on the ground.