Snow In May, Low Level

[Cookie]

We've had snow showers on and off today all day.

one shower lasted for 30 mins.

is this a common occurrence for may?

I wasn't expecting it at all, I knew the weather was going to be cold. but I didn't expect snow. not sticking of course.

will we ever see late spring properly?

[Thundery wintry showers]

To be honest I was amazed at the absence of low level snow reports today from Scotland, though tomorrow has always looked like being the peak day for it. The 850hPa values- below -6C over a wide area- certainly support snow.

It's been very unusual in recent years but it wasn't all that unusual up until 1997. Snow showers penetrated even to southern England on the 6th and 7th May 1997, while the 13th-15th May 1993 had a major snowstorm over much of inland Scotland and the period 11-19 May 1995 had frequent snow in Scotland (mostly in the form of showers, though frontal snow occurred locally on the 16th/17th) which penetrated as far south as the Midlands on occasion. There were a few examples per decade in most decades- e.g. the cold May 1979 had widespread snow early on, and perhaps surprisingly, sleet & snow showers were fairly widespread during the first week of the otherwise warm, sunny May in 1982. Even more remarkably, the exceptionally warm dry sunny May of 1989 had sleet/snow in some parts in the second week.

[Cookie]

Thanks mate, interesting information their.

[Mondy]

Watch out for volcanic snow in parts of Scotland tomorrow - you heard it first here !

[skifreak]

Had a snow shower around Moy on the A9 this morning heading to Aviemore. Heavy hail showers, then a sleet shower in Inverness during the evening.

[Northernlights]

Few flakes of snow here this morning and currently 2c. Not unusal to see snow in May here way back in the sixties and early seventies but it has been very rare in the last few decades. Vaguely remember going to a farm visit near Tomintoul from college in Aberdeen in either May 74 or 75 and hearing that their sheep had been buried the previous week in 6 foot snow drifts.

[Guest]

Few flakes of snow here this morning and currently 2c. Not unusal to see snow in May here way back in the sixties and early seventies but it has been very rare in the last few decades. Vaguely remember going to a farm visit near Tomintoul from college in Aberdeen in either May 74 or 75 and hearing that their sheep had been buried the previous week in 6 foot snow drifts.

You still with us NL?

No snow here yesterday as the showers were all up north. I've heard on the radio today that there is snow on the hills to the north of the Clyde at Greenock but I'm not sure where or how much.

[geordiekev]

V light snow here in Dipton near consett, glad I kept the summer seedlings indoors.

[Northernlights]

You still with us NL?

No snow here yesterday as the showers were all up north. I've heard on the radio today that there is snow on the hills to the north of the Clyde at Greenock but I'm not sure where or how much.

Yes still here complete with another light snow shower in the last few minutes when the temperature fell to 3c. Hills around the Firth above 2000feet still have a fresh covering.

[skifreak]

Currently +9.1c, dp +0.3c and snowing in Inverness!

[reef]

Currently having a heavy sleet shower with snowflakes mixed in. The temperature has fallen from 10.4C to 5.9C in about 15 minutes. Its the first wintryness here in May since 1997.

[Mark Bayley]

Some reports of sleet in Bolsover, also saw something in Worksop. Wasn't quite sure because i was in the car

[JRMcLeod]

Had snow showers here for the past 2 days. Some heavy snow showers last night at about 10pm. Woke up at 4am (rather, my son woke me at 4am) and there was a light dusting of the white stuff outside. Had the same again today, showers of snow, sleet and hail.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I mentioned this in the "Today's Weather" thread also- there's a link on snow at above-freezing temperatures here, indicating the dependence on dewpoint/humidity:

http://www.sciencebits.com/SnowAboveFreezing

Bear in mind though that the red line on the graph only gives the maximum temperature at which falling snowflakes won't melt. (A rough approximation of that line is given by the average of the temperature and dewpoint being near zero). If the layer of higher temperatures near the surface is very shallow and we have strong downdraughts (as is usually true of cold showery mid or late-spring days) snowflakes may only partially melt before they reach the ground even if temperatures are well above those thresholds. Hence the surprising report of snow with a temperature of 9.1C and dewpoint of 0.3C. However unless you catch only the passing edge of a heavy shower, temperatures will usually fall dramatically once it gets underway.

I'd been starting to wonder if it was possible to get fairly widespread lowland snow in May after the unusually long 13-year gap to 1997, but this year is really bucking all recent trends as far as snow is concerned.

[Guest]

I'd been starting to wonder if it was possible to get fairly widespread lowland snow in May after the unusually long 13-year gap to 1997, but this year is really bucking all recent trends as far as snow is concerned.

As the reports of snow showers become more widely reported the "experts" of the general population become more vocal. "It's because of the volcano" opined one self-appointed guru in the local shop earlier.

[Zenarcher]

No snow showers here yesterday however we did get a wind chill down to -3c and dew point just hit the minus too. I remember back a few years ago maybe 2007 in June we had a hail shower.

[Kentish Kiwi]

No snow showers here yesterday however we did get a wind chill down to -3c and dew point just hit the minus too. I remember back a few years ago maybe 2007 in June we had a hail shower.

Hail in June really is nothing to comment on at all. You can (and do) get hail at all kinds of temperatures at any time of year. Hail is more related to convection and the convective potential of clouds/showers (not to mention obviously loads of other factors that influence such a set up) rather than temperature and dew point like snow.

For instance I've experienced hail in NZ due to vigorous convection during the height of summer when the temperature was in the mid twenties, and you very commonly get hail in US (Usually the Central-South) during the tornado season of late spring - early summer, where temperatures get into the mid 30's.

[Ross B]

I saw snow about 5pm on the way back from Edinburgh just before Harthill, the thermometer was reporting 9c as well

Apparently here in Kilmarnock there was also a light snow and hail shower this afternoon, probably the first time i've seen snow at low level in may!

[Alex95]

Some sleety snow mixed in with a heavy shower at 11:30 this morning. The temperature was about 7°C.

[LomondSnowstorm]

Wintry showers today - not all that much in the way of sunshine and showers, just constant heavy cloud cover and occasionally heavy snow, sleet, hail and rain at around 11am (as I was in the exam hall so it's just a second hand account but it was, allegedly, 'real snow'), 2.30pm, 3,30pm (very heavy sleet then hail which lay on the ground) and just a few minutes ago.

Good to be back with some interesting weather again!

[osmposm]

The Little Ice Age and all that, I know, but this entry from the Woodford, Essex, Parish Register in 1698 is impressive; and the 11 days "lost" in the calendar change of 1752 means it wasn't any earlier in the year - in fact it was slightly later. Woodford was a bit outside London in those days, about 7 or 8 miles North East of the City. May 1698, incidentally, had the lowest CET mean in the whole record, at 8.5C (the daily figures, alas, don't go back that far); but perhaps surprisingly, April 1698 doesn't even make the top 100 for cold. It must have been an astonishingly late and unexpected burst of "winter returns" even for the period:

Remarkable fall of snow on the 3d of May 1698.

"Mr Henry Dawson, son of Madam Gertrude and Mr Richard Dawson, Gent. was baptized May the 3d: on which evening, before sunset, there was a great frost and snow, which covered the ground and houses; upon which I saw some snow remaining the next day, at noon, though it was a clear sunshining morning.—Peter Shelley, rector, 1698."

From: 'Woodford', The Environs of London: volume 4: Counties of Herts, Essex & Kent (1796), pp. 273-287. (on http://www.british-history.ac.uk )

[Nights King]

Had sleet and hail showers here today but not quite snow.

[Ross B]

A dusting of snow pretty much all the way from Harthill to Livingston this morning. Looked very strange for mid-May! Livingston appeared to have quite a good covering as well

[Lettucing Gutted]

Hail in June really is nothing to comment on at all. You can (and do) get hail at all kinds of temperatures at any time of year.

you very commonly get hail in US (Usually the Central-South) during the tornado season of late spring - early summer, where temperatures get into the mid 30's.

Indeed throughout history countries that are vulnerable to hot and thundery weather such as Bangladesh, India and China have suffered from grapefruit size hailstones that have fallen though scorching 40C low level air temperatures.

[Snowyowl9]

This May has been close but no cigar for snow showers here,had 5 days with hail showers,2 soft hail breifly but needed to be heavier,so a May 1993 but that did give snow cover over distant hills,nothing here bar a couple of hail showers,and similar low temps to this may,besides aa colder day on the 26th.

Colder air needed to penetrate further south on a stronger windflow,or lower heights.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/1993/Rrea00119930515.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/1993/Rrea00219930515.gif