South West/Central Southern England Regional Discussion 10/02/13 23z ------->

[Blizzardof82]

An uneventful night shift here which started with a little promise as things built to my east but alas no white stuff. The ECM promised so much last week but in the end all we got in Bristol was a dull damp Sunday followed by a dry night.

I will still continue to get led up the garden path by the models and am already looking to see if winter can finish with a sting in its tail

All those that did get snow last night get out and enjoy it, I'm off to bed to dream of winter wonderlands and January 1982

[divadee]

Morning all. I didn't stay awake last night as not a hope in hells chance of it coming this far south.

Just woke up and I was right!! At least it's not raining though!

[somersetsnow]

Dry (for once!) 2.5, a bit misty and Snowless..........again

[Frosty1]

Morning all, had some snow last night but hasn't settled except a little on cars here in Arborfield, south east of Reading.

[gottolovethisweather]

Slight SNOW right now in Newbury. Very negligible amounts settling on car roofs and the grass.

0.6c AT, 0.3c DP, 995.1mb rising rapidly Barometer.

Possibly more to come though, judging by the radar, coming in from the London area and moving Westwards.

[coram]

Slight dusting of snow in north Hampshire. Very wet and very little but it counts.

[MrNooo]

Very slight dusting here, light snow at 07.00, stopped now! Seems the main band was more N and E of here! Lets hope we see some this week!

[Timer]

Just started snowing lightly in Alton. Radar shows more from the east/southeast but nothing heavy.

Temp +0.9C, RH 95%, DP +0.19, Barometer 994mb

[George]

Quite a frost here this morning. Shame Wednesdays event looks like midlands northwards once again.

[Beast of Plympton]

I have to say that the view out of the window is stunning this morning. No snow, but it doesn't matter. Its -3.5c and there is a very hard frost covering the moors. Beautiful!!

[galacticwarrior]

Guess what? IT SNOWED!!!!! AND IT ACTUALLY SETTLED!!!

It settled ontop of cars and on grass, only amounting to 1-3cm though. Little flakes of snow are still blowing in the wind.

[Severe Siberian icy blast]

Have just over an inch hear , it really came down in the small hours, massive flakes. Not half as bad as some in the southeast and the midlands though .

[Polar Bear]

Where's that GTLTW? Need to know how Newbury faired ... Last time I looked the post said some settling.... .....

[Gibby]

Good morning. Here is the report on the 00z outputs from GFS, UKMO, ECM and GEM for today Monday February 11th 2013.

All models show a slowly weakening cold and cloudy Easterly flow over the UK today and tomorrow with occasional drizzle or light sleet and snow in placed though amounts will be inconsequential. Through Wednesday a trough of Low pressure will move East over the UK with rain preceded for snow for some followed by clearer and more showery weather in more Northern and Eastern areas while Southern and Western areas become mainly dry nearer to High pressure to the SW. It will become less cold everywhere later in the week.

GFS then shows a light SW flow over the UK during the weekend with weak troughs around, especially towards the North while High pressure to the South and East keep things potentially brighter and colder here with the risk of night frost. Through FI the milder theme continues with High pressure never far away from the South with winds flowing from between South and West for much of the time. Rainfall will be confined more towards the North and West at times as troughs brush by.

The GFS Ensembles show a milder spell on the way after Wednesday agreed upon by nearly all members. Thereafter, uppers slowly fall back towards the seasonal average. There are a few colder options but the vast majority show temperatures above normal with the operational one of the mildest for the second half of the run. There is some precipitation shown by most members off and on with an Atlantic influence dominant.

The Jet Stream shows the flow arching over the Atlantic and down to Southern Europe to the SW of the UK currently. The pattern moves East towards the UK later in the week before weakening and collapsing to virtually nil over the UK and Northern Europe with a renewed surge of energy moving NE across the Atlantic towards Iceland by the start of next week.

UKMO today shows less cold weather to end the week with some sunny spells but with a night frost on Thursday and possibly Friday night as a ridge of High pressure moves across followed by milder Southerly winds on Saturday with the milder air encroaching East and North slowly over the UK.

ECM finally shows a lot of High pressure around from the weekend until the end of it's run but it's position this morning is less favourable for notable cold weather for the UK. With no deep Continental feed of air this morning and High pressure sat over or in the vicinity of the UK the best we can hope for is dry and settled conditions with sunny spells by day and clear spells at night with some frost where skies stay clear. Otherwise temperatures by day at least won't be tht far from the seasonal normal.

In Summary this morning the weather looks like becoming High pressure based from the end of this week with a centre either close to or over the UK giving dry and bright daytimes but with some frost at night. Cold weather from the Northern European High is not far away to the East but on this morning's runs it looks less favourable for the UK to tap into anything really cold from there through the model run period. Still at least after the midweek precipitation there looks a strong chance for some drying up of the ground under better evaporation conditions than of late which I'm sure farmers and growers will welcome.

And for the SW

GFS brings a reasonable spell of SW winds from the coming weekend over this morning's output and with High pressure close by a lot of dry bright weather would be likely with the chance of slight night frosts but bright days allowing temperatures to rise to 8-10C across the region most days. ECM is equally dry for our patch but somewhat colder with more of a feed from the Continent at times making for lower daytime temperatures of 6-8C across the region but with more frost risk perhaps into the moderate category at times. UKMO follows a lightly milder camp as far as it goes while GEM would be altogether colder with winds from the North and East with day temps 4-6C and with the same frosts at night as ECM offers. The one constant for our region between the models today is dry weather which would be very welcome to our farmers and growers. With some sunny spells by day and lowish humidities the ground will at last have a good chance to drain and commence the evaporation process.

Edited February 11, 2013 by Gibby

[chris55]

Just missed us last night, cold and damp out there.

[Stargazer]

Yes, just a little wet snow here in central Reading too. 1-2cm on the cars and some rooftops and a little in places on grass. Probably just about enough coverage at 9am to count as a day of lying snow.

[lynnsim]

Been snowing moderately here for the best part of an hour now. Only just settling on cars and grass though.

Looking at the radar, it looks as though we could have this for a couple of hours. But will it stay as snow?? I don't have access to any temps/DP's (phone app is useless and no weather station of my own) so I can't keep an eye on that!

[textmum]

Travelling to London, left at 7 am, snow up on Birdlip to Cirencester, then no more to be seen travelling down M4 which was at a standstill, not due to snow! Reached Bracknell now and its starting to snow.

[Nights King]

Not a flake here from start to finish.

So what of the possible snow tuesday people were talking of about?

[ARTDEMOLE]

All I can see is mist in the valley...

[gottolovethisweather]

Where's that GTLTW? Need to know how Newbury faired ... Last time I looked the post said some settling.... .....

Yes it was Newbury. No issues regarding SNOW on the roads though, far too wet.

[o0herbie]

Snowing quite hard in Tadley (Hants/Berks border) - looks like a streamer coming off the channel from West Sussex/Hants?

[Severe Siberian icy blast]

Snowing quite hard in Tadley (Hants/Berks border) - looks like a streamer coming off the channel from West Sussex/Hants?

I'm watching it creep closer , not sure yet , but interesting

[dec10snow]

From BBC Weather on twitter:

Weather station reporting most snow overnight was High Wycombe, 13cm (5.1in) as of 5am. Tweet us your snow depths if you have any! Laura G

Strange, because our Reading residents are only reporting a bit...

Edited February 11, 2013 by dec10snow

[cerneman]

Bright morning, some high cloud Temps 3.5c, Suspect might see some blue sky today.

Of course no Snow here, But like Hedgehog said to hair brush "Can't win them all"