East Anglia & South East Cold Spell Discussion

[mesocyclone]

The GFS 18z is another pile of crap run for my area and really most in this region (away from the usual annoying snow hogging suck zones - N EA etc) will be lucky to get 2 tiny cms between now and when this 'beast' ends.

Yesterday after the 12z ECM; I was looking at some Snow showers from Sunday to Tuesday, with masses of snow streaming in for Wednesday and lasting for days and days with no let up to the cold.

Today I'm now looking at mainly dry for the next week with perhaps the odd snow flurry from wednesday onwards, then the milder/marginal air starts knocking on the door for the end of next weekend - nothing out of the ordinary for mid winter.

Looking forward to a bit frost I guess. . .

I'm not an expert but i've read some more knowledgeable people saying the gfs doesn't pick up the convective type of snow we are expecting as well as other models. I'd say watch the radar as it always surprises some, so hard to nail down to exact amounts/areas.

Edited January 2, 2010 by mesocyclone

[coldfingers]

I think the met office flash warning is mainly for ice. They mention the possibility of sleet/snow showers. Nothing special, the real snow always looks a few days away and will continue to be.

Edit; It has been frosty in shaded spots all day though lol

personally we usually get so little snow in Bognor that I am totally happy just to be getting heavy frosts and lots of ice. Any snow will be a major bonus.

Keep the faith, it will come. I am not usually an optimist that the south will get snow but I think this winter is going to be special. Actually it already has been. I had snow in December for the first time for more years than I can remember. Loving it!

[Stu_London]

Does anyone know whether it will snow in high wycombe

cant see anything significant for a few days - maybe wednesday onwards?

Evening all,

Had a dusting from the stuff peeping up a little down this way.

Anyone know where that big batch of cloud approaching from the sw is going to end up? Seems we have the stuff coming from the north and that band in the sw still trying to push up.

Would this cause some convergence for some?

Thanks if you can answer, still learning!

Meso

Ignore the stuff to the SW - it's not going to affect mainland UK.

The action we need to be looking for is from the north and east but not for a couple of days yet

[snow raven]

Lets face it - I spent £40 on a pair of decent boots for walking on snow and ice and £12 on a pair of wellies for Mini Raven today. Naturally its going turn into the mother of dry spells for London and the SE

[Stu_London]

Lets face it - I spent £40 on a pair of decent boots for walking on snow and ice and £12 on a pair of wellies for Mini Raven today. Naturally its going turn into the mother of dry spells for London and the SE

There is a lot of talk of dry weather in the model output discussion.

I think we will get some snow however but not as much as the uber rampers are talking about

[mesocyclone]

cant see anything significant for a few days - maybe wednesday onwards?

Ignore the stuff to the SW - it's not going to affect mainland UK.

The action we need to be looking for is from the north and east but not for a couple of days yet

Thanks Stu, can't wait!

[Blizzard_of_Oz]

Lets face it - I spent £40 on a pair of decent boots for walking on snow and ice and £12 on a pair of wellies for Mini Raven today. Naturally its going turn into the mother of dry spells for London and the SE

Put them up for sale on e-bay I will put a bid in for them, I'm heading off to the NE in a few days for the real armageddon.

[Tim Bland]

IMO this cold spell will be remarkable for its deep prolonged cold rather than snow. There has been lots of ramping re snow starting with last weeks event which was lots of rain and more recently tonight we where supposed to see an organised front moving south with 5cm and now it a few flurries, This was shown on models only last night and only downgraded at the last min. I expect to see a 2-3 day Easterly starting on Weds with most of the region having between 5-10cm by the weekend. The snow will mainly be in shower form so hit and miss, some lucky areas may have 15cm while others only 3cm. The feature comming south on Tues night could give 5cm more widely. I dont think we are going to see the deep 50cm drifts that some have been ramping up. On a positive note anything that does fall will last for a long time.

Edited January 3, 2010 by Tim Bland

[snow raven]

There is a lot of talk of dry weather in the model output discussion.

I think we will get some snow however but not as much as the uber rampers are talking about

[/quote To be honest, thats fine with me. I'm a bit fussy when it comes to snow anyway - only liking to fall when I am at home! It took me over 3 hours to get home from London before Christmas when 1cm of snow fell on London - I seriously wasn't impressed, believe me!

[Blackie]

BTW I love your HDR stuff. Bit of a Am-Tog myself but not as good as your stuff!!

Are you a Nikonian or a Canon man???

You've missed NeilSouth, HW. He's gone to bed - overexcited by the propsects of all that snow next week, or possibly not!

But I agree, I took a look at his HDR photos and they are amazing. Not tried that myself as yet. I am a Canon man myself - and you might want to see a post I just put in the weather photography section.

As for the snow, while I would love it to come down by the bucketload as I remember it doing in some celebrated winters of old, it certainly does appear as though we are not going to fare well from the current set-up. At least in the short term. Fingers crossed things improve from mid-week...

Edited January 3, 2010 by Blackie

[nick sussex]

To be honest reading this thread i'm wondering whether i'm looking at the wrong model output! All the models prog an easterly with snow for the se, the uncertain aspect is how unstable and strong the flow will be, much of this is in relation to a developing low in the northern Med.

All this talk of it being dry is just way off the mark, unless all the models are wrong and suddenly bring in an ese or se flow which would negate convection substantially, but this is very unlikely, the Med low is expected to track ne this means in conjunction with the Scandi high that winds should be easterly to ne.

[SMU]

Hi Leigh / All-

I think we still have a chance of a dusting in the SE tonight-later on though- but it will melt tomorrow-

The -10c isotherm & coldest uppers will filter through during the day & I bet temps will be 2/3 degrees down on today- ( I think around 2c)

Temps will plummet early on tomorrow eve- & the chance of another dusting overnight into Monday-

Monday to Wed- dry but a couple of bands of light snow will move through- then all hell breaks loose weds onwards-

S

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

IMO this cold spell will be remarkable for its deep prolonged cold rather than snow. There has been lots of ramping re snow starting with last weeks event which was lots of rain and more recently tonight we where supposed to see an organised front moving south with 5cm and now it a few flurries, This was shown on models only last night and only downgraded at the last min. I expect to see a 2-3 day Easterly starting on Weds with most of the region having between 5-10cm by the weekend. The snow will mainly be in shower form so hit and miss, some lucky areas may have 15cm while others only 3cm. The feature comming south on Tues night could give 5cm more widely. I dont think we are going to see the deep 50cm drifts that some have been ramping up. On a positive note anything that does fall will last for a long time.

I agree with a lot of that

I adore snow, but most importantly I want snow that lasts. In this country generally speaking huge amounts of snow rarely last. Winters like 1947 and 1962/63 are very very rare. They always have been,

So, if I was to get, say for eg, 5 to 10cms of snow and then had, say, a dry couple of days with hard frosts, pleasant winter sunshine but no melt, and then, say, another 5 to 10cms and the same thing repeated then I would be an enormously happy bunny!!

Or alternatively - several days of convective heavy snow showers with clear spells in between and hard frosts. End result the same amount of snow. Plenty, but paced out so you get out and about and enjoy it with the roads open. Much as happens on the continent and life goes on without gridlock!

I still have patchy snow cover from News Years morning. Hardly any of it melted today despite full sun and air temps a few degrees above zero for a couple of hours this afternoon. Been clear and freezing hard again since. Would be nice to see this stay till the next snowfall and when the properly cold air gets here.

Edited January 3, 2010 by North Sea Snow Convection

[snow raven]

To be honest reading this thread i'm wondering whether i'm looking at the wrong model output! All the models prog an easterly with snow for the se, the uncertain aspect is how unstable and strong the flow will be, much of this is in relation to a developing low in the northern Med.

All this talk of it being dry is just way off the mark, unless all the models are wrong and suddenly bring in an ese or se flow which would negate convection substantially, but this is very unlikely, the Med low is expected to track ne this means in conjunction with the Scandi high that winds should be easterly to ne.

To be honest Nick, I am going to take a break from getting peoples feed back from every model run. I personally dont understand the out put, and so put my faith in posters putting their opinions into it. Its seriously getting on my wick, going from the 50cm snow in the SE and would grind to a halt, to the slash the wrists its a dry spell in the space of around 6 hours!

I am going back to the good of fashioned watching the BBC weather then drawing back the bloody curtains - much less stressful and usually brought the most unexpected joy and glee when finding it had snowed when only rain or sleet was forecast!!! Never got disapointed back then!

[SMU]

To be honest Nick, I am going to take a break from getting peoples feed back from every model run. I personally dont understand the out put, and so put my faith in posters putting their opinions into it. Its seriously getting on my wick, going from the 50cm snow in the SE and would grind to a halt, to the slash the wrists its a dry spell in the space of around 6 hours!

I am going back to the good of fashioned watching the BBC weather then drawing back the bloody curtains - much less stressful and usually brought the most unexpected joy and glee when finding it had snowed when only rain or sleet was forecast!!! Never got disapointed back then!

Convection beginning ot fire to the NE now- a small window of 12 hours for some flurries on the SE-

SR- stick with the forecasters as opposed to the hopecasters--- 18z only gives around 35cm for the SE-

lol

Steve

[Tn9]

There is a few showers in the S North sea,just got to wait for the wind to swing NEasterly again,half a chance anyway

[snow raven]

Convection beginning ot fire to the NE now- a small window of 12 hours for some flurries on the SE-

SR- stick with the forecasters as opposed to the hopecasters--- 18z only gives around 35cm for the SE-

lol

Steve

I had just made my decision to have a good 48 hour break from model watching and then you go and post that....

Seriously, I am going to give myself and my sanity a break from the board for a while - going to Bluewater today (when I usually refuse to shop there at the weekend) for some decent walking/snow boots for myself and mini-raven was stressful enough! To then read some of the posts in the model thread just makes me want to cry Poxy PMT

Fingers crossed for all of us in London & the SE in this upcomming cold spell (I wont count EA in that good luck message, because they are pretty much a dead cert for snow )

I am off to suffer cold turkey for 48 hours. Wish me luck!

[Blizzard_of_Oz]

Convection beginning ot fire to the NE now- a small window of 12 hours for some flurries on the SE-

SR- stick with the forecasters as opposed to the hopecasters--- 18z only gives around 35cm for the SE-

lol

Steve

35 cm is that not hopecasting Steve ? If we get 10 cm people will exagerate it to 50 cm just a bit like the man who went fishing when you are a Snow lover lol, I do hope you are right and I always take note of your post's since last February.

[Eye of the Storm]

Just started snowing here in Colchester. Very fine flakes though. I am eagerly awaiting next weeks, looks very interesting Weds Onwards. I would suspect that the Norfolk, Suffolk and Esseex coastlines will take a battering. I'd expect some thundersnow thrown in too with those low uppers over the N.Sea

[Snow Queen one]

35 cm is that not hopecasting Steve ? If we get 10 cm people will exagerate it to 50 cm just a bit like the man who went fishing when you are a Snow lover lol, I do hope you are right and I always take note of your post's since last February.

I think it was meant to be a tounge in cheek post to be honest. lol

[rmc1987]

Lets face it - I spent £40 on a pair of decent boots for walking on snow and ice and £12 on a pair of wellies for Mini Raven today. Naturally its going turn into the mother of dry spells for London and the SE

I think this has been over ramped for London and South East. Next week too all the same, I expect an anti climax from this!! Met office don't sound that convinced. How many sunny days are we going to get? If only I saw as much sun in summer lol ;-)

It's an event mainly for those further North.

[Blizzard_of_Oz]

I think it was meant to be a tounge in cheek post to be honest. lol

More of a I hope you are right post realy lol take a look at this Snow.

http://www.tynebridgewebcam.com/south.htm

[SMU]

35 cm is that not hopecasting Steve ? If we get 10 cm people will exagerate it to 50 cm just a bit like the man who went fishing when you are a Snow lover lol, I do hope you are right and I always take note of your post's since last February.

havent you heard of kentimeters..... the standard conversion rate is 1cm : 5km's.....

seriously- our normal window for easterly snowfall lasts ~ 12 hours before the wind swings off to another direction- last feb I got 4 inches in 12 hours from the Easterly-

The 18z gives us a window of around 66 Hours for convective snowfall

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1141.png

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1801.png

So a good chance we SHOULD exceed the decent benchmark of 10cm....

lets hope so- if we cant get above that in these synoptics we never will-

S

Edited January 3, 2010 by Steve Murr

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

To be honest reading this thread i'm wondering whether i'm looking at the wrong model output! All the models prog an easterly with snow for the se, the uncertain aspect is how unstable and strong the flow will be, much of this is in relation to a developing low in the northern Med.

All this talk of it being dry is just way off the mark, unless all the models are wrong and suddenly bring in an ese or se flow which would negate convection substantially, but this is very unlikely, the Med low is expected to track ne this means in conjunction with the Scandi high that winds should be easterly to ne.

As one of the (many) biggest snow rampers of the SE region, I am not going to downplay things easily for my part of the world!

However, I would rather wait and see if shedloads of snow are going to occur. There is some truth in what some people say about the 'jam tomorrow' scenarios. I don't doubt that most people will be very very unlucky not to see at least SOME snow this week - but in view of the fact that the best potential for many parts of this region is still three to four days away, and with so many short term features to have to deal with first, then as a measure of my fledgling years as a weather model watcher, I am going to reserve some caution before proclaiming deep drifts along my section of the A28 East sussex/kent border road

And another output or so to confirm what the euro low is going to do. Getting boring in my granny years i know

Edited January 3, 2010 by North Sea Snow Convection

[john mac]

This thread is unbelievable tonight, all doom and gloom and were on the verge of something special like feb91. Can people please get real and stop reaching for the prozac already. IT HASENT EVEN STARTED YET!!!!!!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: