South West Of England Regional Discussion Thread

[AWD]

If the FAX chart for Saturday and Sunday is anything to go by:

http://www.netweathe...s;type=fax;sess

Front approaching to the West of Wales, 528 DAM to the East of our region, suggests a quick period of light snow for the Wiltshire/East Gloucs/High Ground East Somerset before it quickly turns back to light rain.

http://www.netweathe...s;type=fax;sess

Front cleared our region and pretty much cleared all but Kent, 528 DAM in the North Sea, our region under less cold air, but not especially mild, avergae at best I would say.

Basically going along with similar vein as the UKMO raw output

Edited January 31, 2012 by Active Weather Dude

[Mark Parsons]

If the FAX chart for Saturday and Sunday is anything to go by:

http://www.netweathe...s;type=fax;sess

Front approaching to the West of Wales, 528 DAM to the East of our region, suggests a quick period of light snow for the Wiltshire/East Gloucs/High Ground East Somerset before it quickly turns back to light rain.

http://www.netweathe...s;type=fax;sess

Front cleared our region and pretty much cleared all but Kent, 528 DAM in the North Sea, our region under less cold air, but not especially mild, avergae at best I would say.

Basically going along with similar vein as the UKMO raw output

Probably only high ground would see snow on that Saturday chart the wind is South Westerly, the SW peninsula never gets a major snow event on a South Westerly, so not much hope there then! However lets hope the charts throw up some better solutions for us over the coming days.

[Nights King]

Pub runs are terrible as well The beast from the east is now more like domestic cat as the 4x4 charges in from the atlantic with no intentions of stopping.

[snowmadchrisuk]

I seriously feel sick after viewing the 18z

[snowmadchrisuk]

I agree with the poster who said last night what is the point of the 18z .. it goes from 1 extreme to the other... It ruins our Weekend breakdown, Sends us Mild for a week and then goes to the totally other extreme and gives us the most perfect Greenland block you have ever seen.. It is nice to view but chance of evolving like that are zero IMOH ,,, Ignore the opps in the short term and look out the window ....

[weathe20]

I seriously feel sick after viewing the 18z

You need to get out more.

To be honest the model output thread is a joke, they have suddenly forgot it is COLD NOW and the weekend could see lots of snow for some. Why look into FI chasing and chasing and chasing something so far out.

[Frosty_wsm]

Rubbish 18z for the short/mid term but then its so different to the earlier 06z & 12z that until you see all the gfs outputs for each run showing a similar scenario you can't take it seriously.

[Mark Parsons]

It's Prozac time in the mod thread, most of the models predicting mild mush this weekend and in to next week, this all despite the meto being very cagey about what might happen at the weekend and beyond. I don't think anything has changed we are still in a state where going more than a few days ahead in the forecast can be hugely inaccurate .

[weathe20]

Well hardly a frost last night! No frost on the car when I left work at midnight, min temp last night -1.1. When is the cold supposed to arrive? Sorry but this cold snap is turning into a non event for me. Still havent seen the grass white with frost yet (prob due to a bit of wind). Looks like a quick breakdown with a little rain sat into sun then mild zonal all the way. Yes Im depressed, what a crap cold SNAP!!!

[weathe20]

Four weeks of winter to go....got a feeling its zonal all the way!

[Mark Parsons]

Well hardly a frost last night! No frost on the car when I left work at midnight, min temp last night -1.1. When is the cold supposed to arrive? Sorry but this cold snap is turning into a non event for me. Still havent seen the grass white with frost yet (prob due to a bit of wind). Looks like a quick breakdown with a little rain sat into sun then mild zonal all the way. Yes Im depressed, what a crap cold SNAP!!!

Yes it all does seem a bit half hearted, we have had much worse, I think the next couple of days will be the coldest days then bang back to reality at the weekend, what a waste of cold lol !!!!!

[Mark Parsons]

Don't think it will be zonal all the way we just have to except some mild blips in between the cold and the more that happens the more chance of battle ground snow that might be favourable to us!

[AWD]

You need to get out more.

To be honest the model output thread is a joke, they have suddenly forgot it is COLD NOW and the weekend could see lots of snow for some. Why look into FI chasing and chasing and chasing something so far out.

Well hardly a frost last night! No frost on the car when I left work at midnight, min temp last night -1.1. When is the cold supposed to arrive? Sorry but this cold snap is turning into a non event for me. Still havent seen the grass white with frost yet (prob due to a bit of wind). Looks like a quick breakdown with a little rain sat into sun then mild zonal all the way. Yes Im depressed, what a crap cold SNAP!!!

Make up your mind mate, is it Cold Or hasn't the cold arrived to you yet?

Maybe take your own advice and "get out a bit more" as you say.

I agree with you that it isn't good cold snap though, but oh well, you win some you lose some! Next week isnt looking mild zonal by the way. Its going to

get milder with temps coming up towards average and settled. There is no active Atlantic being shown next week ( bar GFS FI ), settled with temps around average looks likely to me.

Beyond that no one has a clue, there is no clear signal to me! However, I do think, with no zonal Atlantic forecast, and the cold never too far away, and a spit vortex, we stand every chance of a cold/snowy spell as we progress into mid Feb. Only time will tell though!

Just to add, here are a few tweets from Matt Hugo this morning:

Matthew Hugo @MattHugo81

To put into context uncertainty next wk ECM ENS for Central Eng has temps varying between ~ +6C and -6C given synoptic evolution uncertain

Matthew Hugo @MattHugo81

Early estimation given full 00Z data set suggests snow risk late Sat into Sun across Eng/Wales with approx 3cm to 6cm of snow poss generally

Matthew Hugo @MattHugo81

What seems evident now is we will have to go through a milder, changeable spell of wx before the risk of further cold wx as Feb progresses

Matthew Hugo @MattHugo81

The split in the ECM ENS clusters is once again large as early as 120hr. Impossible to describe the variety evident!...next wk uncertain

Edited February 1, 2012 by Active Weather Dude

[Mark Parsons]

Well said Active, it comes down to being patient and realistic!!!

[weathe20]

Make up your mind mate, is it Cold Or hasn't the cold arrived to you yet?

Maybe take your own advice and "get out a bit more" as you say.

I agree with you that it isn't good cold snap though, but oh well, you win some you lose some! Next week isnt looking mild zonal by the way. Its going to

get milder with temps coming up towards average and settled. There is no active Atlantic being shown next week ( bar GFS FI ), settled with temps around average looks likely to me.

Beyond that no one has a clue, there is no clear signal to me! However, I do think, with no zonal Atlantic forecast, and the cold never too far away, and a spit vortex, we stand every chance of a cold/snowy spell as we progress into mid Feb. Only time will tell though!

Just to add, here are a few tweets from Matt Hugo this morning:

Matthew Hugo @MattHugo81

To put into context uncertainty next wk ECM ENS for Central Eng has temps varying between ~ +6C and -6C given synoptic evolution uncertain

Matthew Hugo @MattHugo81

Early estimation given full 00Z data set suggests snow risk late Sat into Sun across Eng/Wales with approx 3cm to 6cm of snow poss generally

Matthew Hugo @MattHugo81

What seems evident now is we will have to go through a milder, changeable spell of wx before the risk of further cold wx as Feb progresses

Matthew Hugo @MattHugo81

The split in the ECM ENS clusters is once again large as early as 120hr. Impossible to describe the variety evident!...next wk uncertain

Thanks for putting in that effort with the colours just for me, must of taken you ages!

Well Matthew Hugo seems confident of what? I did read his twitter posts bigging up this cold week, but it hasn't turned out how he thought either.

Even if the models did show something cold next week its so far away its not worth mentioning. As we have leant with this cold spell the models can just change suddenly as they did a couple of days ago to show a quick break down.

Reading the posts in the Model Output thread about the GFS they say zonal all the way.

Edited February 1, 2012 by weathe20

[khodds]

Can I just point out that the reason we didn't get a white frost is down to the air being very dry and little humidity from the continent. It was very cold here, -3 this morning and the easterly wind is bllowing. #justsaying

Its not over yet. Infact its just getting started.

[weathe20]

Can I just point out that the reason we didn't get a white frost is down to the air being very dry and little humidity from the continent. It was very cold here, -3 this morning and the easterly wind is bllowing. #justsaying

Its not over yet. Infact its just getting started.

Yeah, did say due to the wind. But was expecting to the temp to drop a little more. Will wait and see tonight. Current -0.8

And what is just getting started?

Now I give up, LOL. Just seen the local forecast for saturday and its snow. Eh?

Edited February 1, 2012 by weathe20

[khodds]

That was -3 without the windchill still 0c now... I meant that the cold was only just setting in today. I don't know whhat to expect re the weekend now. Don't think anyone does till it happens

[Mark Parsons]

At the moment it looks like there could be snow any where away from the south west facing coasts on Sat however I pointed out last night that it would be very unusual to get a dumping on a south westerly wind which is what is progged!!!!

[Paul T]

Firstly things will be getting pretty cold overnight tonight through to Saturday morning. Lows of -4 or -5 qutie possible

The lowest temperatures today will be just before midnight, and not from the early morning, as is usually the case.

Pretty much all decent snow events involve cold from the north or east being present while the atlantic supplies the moisture and consequently higher temp values.

The key on Saturday is for the ppn to come at a reasonable time, I.e not 3pm as this always helps us in the SW in particular. The big thing for me in this set up is the specific direction of the wind. If a SW'rly blows straight through then that is rain all the way. If the SW'rly bumps into Ireland and is kinked (by bumping into old air and also a high pressure ridge) then the wind will come from more of a NW'rly direction. Therefore better to keep whatever cold around us. The bonus to all this, and something I can see developing more is the potential fr a weak low to build in the channel. This will further help skew the SW'rly. This can already be seen here:

http://cdn.nwstatic.co.uk/gfsimages/gfs.20120201/06/96/h850t850eu.png

All good fun!

[AWD]

A well - balanced interesting read about this weekends events from Liam Dutton, weather forecaster:

http://blogs.channel4.com/liam-dutton-on-weather/ding-ding-mild-air-cold-air/482

[Frosty_wsm]

Loads of uncertainty on the national forecast at 1.30 just now, its still not set in stone that the mild air will flood across the country this weekend, the cold could still win out or not get pushed very far east and end up coming back west, will be interesting to see how this all plays out but to all those people in the model output thread writing off a cold outlook in the mid term, they could end up being wrong.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Smartie

[weathe20]

Firstly things will be getting pretty cold overnight tonight through to Saturday morning. Lows of -4 or -5 qutie possible

The lowest temperatures today will be just before midnight, and not from the early morning, as is usually the case.

Pretty much all decent snow events involve cold from the north or east being present while the atlantic supplies the moisture and consequently higher temp values.

The key on Saturday is for the ppn to come at a reasonable time, I.e not 3pm as this always helps us in the SW in particular. The big thing for me in this set up is the specific direction of the wind. If a SW'rly blows straight through then that is rain all the way. If the SW'rly bumps into Ireland and is kinked (by bumping into old air and also a high pressure ridge) then the wind will come from more of a NW'rly direction. Therefore better to keep whatever cold around us. The bonus to all this, and something I can see developing more is the potential fr a weak low to build in the channel. This will further help skew the SW'rly. This can already be seen here:

http://cdn.nwstatic..../h850t850eu.png

All good fun!

You talking about tonight? The GFS shows -1 at midnight and -4 at 6.00 am.

[AWD]

Short term and the Met Office now pretty bullish that the Atlantic will win out this weekend now. Whether its a quick, pretty snowless breakdown as per GFS, or a longer little more snowy before turning to rain breakdown as per ECM, is still up for grabs, but next week now looks like temps trending up to around average and pretty settled courtesy of the Azores High. They have now gone for a north Westerly wind, which down here is pretty useless really. So next week then expect average settled days with maybe some light night frosts.

UK Outlook for Monday 6 Feb 2012 to Wednesday 15 Feb 2012:

Eastern parts of the UK are likely to be cold, dry and bright at first on Monday. Western areas are more likely to be cloudy with rain, this falling as snow on high ground. The rain is likely to move slowly eastwards during Monday, with western areas becoming drier but staying rather cloudy. After this, northwesterly winds are likely to affect the UK, bringing showers to many northern and western areas, with a chance of further snow on hills, perhaps to lower levels in Scotland. It will also become rather windy at times. Central, southern and eastern areas should gradually become drier and brighter though. Temperatures are likely to be near or slightly below average for February, but it should be less cold than recent days.

Updated: 1216 on Wed 1 Feb 2012

Longer term outlook still bullish for colder and potentially snower weather though. This is where I think the month will go too, there are already tentitive signs on some FI output of the Azores High pushing up into Greenland and forming a Greenie high. A long way to go yet and far from certain, but it will be something to keep and eye on, as I said, tentitive signs at the moment!

UK Outlook for Thursday 16 Feb 2012 to Thursday 1 Mar 2012:

Temperatures will probably be around average at first, but cold weather looks likely to prevail during this period, with both daytime maximum and night-time minimum temperatures likely to be below average for much of the time. Rainfall amounts will probably be near or below average in many areas, but possibly above average over southern Britain, and with below average temperatures expected there is the potential for snow at times.

Updated: 1219 on Wed 1 Feb 2012

[Frosty_wsm]

Well that forecaster was anything but certain about the weekend outcome, that much was obvious.