South West & Central Southern England - Weather Chat, 6th December and Onwards...

[Frosty hollows]

And that band of ppn is rapidly heading my way.....and it's rain 

[kent]

I totally agree with the sentiments expressed on here from snow loving members of this area including myself. Year after year we cling to the hype that the models spew out only to be repeatedly kicked in the teeth. Its no wonder that we have evolved to be extremely cynical lol.

[dancing daisy]

22 minutes ago, khodds said:

Gutted things have backtracked today. Was hoping for some snow on our weekend away.

have to say I'm quite proud of myself for conquering the outdoor plunge pool today to please the kids  jeeesus Christ! The things I do to entertain them! 

You're a better person than me Khodds, I just tend to float about in the outdoor pool with the ducks and avoid that plunge pool as if my life depended on it.

I've had a VERY stressful day, are the reports of snow this evening true? Give me something to smile about, please. 

[fromey]

10 minutes ago, Ali1977 said:

That bit of precip in NW Wales would be our best chance of a dusting somewhere  tonight looking at the track of the showers, no doubt it'll fizzle out though.

I would think the hoover known as the welsh mountains might suck the life out of it!!

[Chris K]

24 minutes ago, ajpoolshark said:

I don't normally moan about the weather, but even I have limits......what an utterly pants excuse of a 'cold spell'........a couple of frosts, a couple of chilly days and some drizzle do not constitute a cold spell IMO 

Agreed!!! And latest BBC forecast showing temps of 5-9c across most of the SW as rain moves in Monday.

Anyway...I am encouraged by Mr Fergies tweets with signals showing a block out to the W of UK and trough over/to our East, with the UK on the cold side in February. A while off and could change as ever... but if we have to endure a spell of mild, unsettled weather to get there, then I'll take the sacrifice.

[Nights King]

1 minute ago, fromey said:

I would think the hoover known as the welsh mountains might suck the life out of it!!

And of course it is so marginal that any ppn that made it across would be light and patchy falling as just rain or light sleet at best.

[Wilks]

23 minutes ago, Frosty1 said:

I'm in the middle of the latest met office yellow warning for snow tonight but BBC forecast has rain for my area.  Hopefully BBC web site is not as up to date as met office warning?

 

1 minute ago, Wilks said:

You're about 5 miles or so from me I actually think we'll stay dry we look too far west from the he radar tracks and I think even further east now London maybe a dusting 

 

[festivalking]

53 minutes ago, jtay said:

Swanage today. Not the gin clear skies that we were promised, but nice all the same...

Found a dolphin skull on the beach though. That made up for it.

Ah nice my old stomping ground

[Zephyr]

Monday's front is a let down also.

Actually what's that front coming over Wales at the moment? Was that in the forecast? Welsh mountains will probably eat it up though. 

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2016 by Zephyr

[Nights King]

17 minutes ago, Chris K said:

Agreed!!! And latest BBC forecast showing temps of 5-9c across most of the SW as rain moves in Monday.

Anyway...I am encouraged by Mr Fergies tweets with signals showing a block out to the W of UK and trough over/to our East, with the UK on the cold side in February. A while off and could change as ever... but if we have to endure a spell of mild, unsettled weather to get there, then I'll take the sacrifice.

I hope your right otherwise we shall be sacrificing a fourth year soon without any... 

[Frosty1]

18 minutes ago, Wilks said:

 

 

Yes, just had a look at the radar and it's all going further east I'm afraid, looks like light rain or maybe even nothing at all for us.

[Chris K]

3 minutes ago, Nights King said:

I hope your right otherwise we shall be sacrificing a fourth year soon without any... 

I find the problem for us in the SW quarter of the country is either we need a notable larger scale block to provide the goods, the perfect setup, or everything just right for a front to stall over us as it hits the cold air. On this occasion, it's just that little bit too far East. Really wouldn't have taken much for it to be further west when you think about the large scale N hemisphere patterns.

[Nights King]

3 minutes ago, Chris K said:

I find the problem for us in the SW quarter of the country is either we need a notable larger scale block to provide the goods, the perfect setup, or everything just right for a front to stall over us as it hits the cold air. On this occasion, it's just that little bit too far East. Really wouldn't have taken much for it to be further west when you think about the large scale N hemisphere patterns.

Still it is very unusual to go without any year after year without any you would expect a couple days of transient laying snow even in bad winters to lower levels.

I have not given up completely for Mondays event, it could still happen...?

[Chris K]

15 minutes ago, Nights King said:

Still it is very unusual to go without any year after year without any you would expect a couple days of transient laying snow even in bad winters to lower levels.

I have not given up completely for Mondays event, it could still happen...?

I guess with the warmth we had in December, perhaps this has been a contributing factor this winter? I don't know really.

And yes we could still see something Monday. Not out of the question at all, especially if you live on higher ground. Always ends up a nowcast thing when it comes to snow  

Edited January 16, 2016 by Chris K

[offerman]

Roll on Feb as I.F has alluded to. 

[karlos1983]

26 minutes ago, offerman said:

Roll on Feb as I.F has alluded to. 

Amen to that. But if it's anything like this, then no thanks. So annoyed, I've been thoroughly engrossed by the models over the past 10 days, I'm shattered, and for what? 2 frosts and a maximum day time temperature of 6.2c. That's not a bleeping cold spell. Come February the sun will be higher, the days longer and it becomes much harder to get laying snow, especially in our neck of the woods. I want an easterly with deep cold uppers and channel low after channel low with us right on the northern flank or I'm not interested. I'd rather an early spring..

 

anyway back to the models 

[Daniel*]

Sorry for trespassing your airspace 

Some nice pictures of Princetown, Dartmoor in snow.

[Chris K]

7 minutes ago, karlos1983 said:

Amen to that. But if it's anything like this, then no thanks. So annoyed, I've been thoroughly engrossed by the models over the past 10 days, I'm shattered, and for what? 2 frosts and a maximum day time temperature of 6.2c. That's not a bleeping cold spell. Come February the sun will be higher, the days longer and it becomes much harder to get laying snow, especially in our neck of the woods. I want an easterly with deep cold uppers and channel low after channel low with us right on the northern flank or I'm not interested. I'd rather an early spring..

 

anyway back to the models 

Not having a dig at you, but every year people often say its harder to have lying snow in February because of the longer daylight and stronger sun...whilst in marginal situations it may be true, if the right pattern sets up, it really isn't a problem. The ground and air temps will be far more important and would mainly overide the amount of additional warmth from sunlight that time of year.

[Jason74]

Whilst I am relieved to have finally seen some frost and colder temps, this by no means can truly be defined as a bone chilling cold spell (being an ex-Londoner I can remember the winters of 1987 and 1991, which were absolute corkers). It is and has been anything but. However, I cling to the hope offered by Ian Ferguson that February might offer us something more fruitful, and am hoping that some in the SW will see some decent snowfall late Jan/into February (living here right on the coast, one accepts that the chances of seeing anything white fall from the sky are always on the slim side).

I will give myself a couple of days off from the model watching and then start again next week, as bizarrely the last week has been emotionally exhausting

[fergieweather]

Lot of fretting folk. The modelling Mon-Tues has always leaned towards weakening frontal progression but nonetheless, MOGREPS has fair prognosis of 1cm(+) snow for Monday across E'rn W Country (Wilts/Glos)... Clearly not to be taken too literally. The key thing is a general muting of PPN signal early this week... however in medium range, key disclaimer is best left to my UKMO colleagues who wrote an hour ago: "...Despite the model convergence, because it is towards a more mobile solution rather than the previously blocked pattern, confidence is still only moderate at best..."

In other words, we do expect eventual mobility of sorts, BUT anyone taking current models at face value into medium range is missing wood for trees. Creep to climatology is, let us remember, NWP 'default'....

[The Enforcer]

BBC Weather's snowfall projections for this evening/tonight as today has progressed:

[offerman]

11 minutes ago, fergieweather said:

Lot of fretting folk. The modelling Mon-Tues has always leaned towards weakening frontal progression but nonetheless, MOGREPS has fair prognosis of 1cm(+) snow for Monday across E'rn W Country (Wilts/Glos)... Clearly not to be taken too literally. The key thing is a general muting of PPN signal early this week... however in medium range, key disclaimer is best left to my UKMO colleagues who wrote an hour ago: "...Despite the model convergence, because it is towards a more mobile solution rather than the previously blocked pattern, confidence is still only moderate at best..."

In other words, we do expect eventual mobility of sorts, BUT anyone taking current models at face value into medium range is missing wood for trees. Creep to climatology is, let us remember, NWP 'default'....

Thanks Ian.

These situations are often tricky to forecast but is El Nino making it even more so this time round?

 

 

 

[AWD]

44 minutes ago, Jason74 said:

(living here right on the coast, one accepts that the chances of seeing anything white fall from the sky are always on the slim side).

Surely living on the coast means your lucky enough to see the white stuff fall from the sky all year round?

 

[Chris K]

3 minutes ago, AWD said:

Surely living on the coast means your lucky enough to see the white stuff fall from the sky all year round?

 

I'm not really sure why I clicked to expand the image....

[AWD]

Back to the weather and I'm struggling to see anything particularly interesting, wintry wise for the W Country any time soon unfortunately.

Today and tomorrow are forecast to be the coldest days of this "cold snap" and to put it in layman's terms, it still isn't cold enough for snow for the majority of our region, therefore what chance do we stand when less cold, Atlantic sourced air invades on Monday.

Dewpoints will rise after tomorrow, 850hpa will rise and WBFL will rise.  I see two options personally for us.

1.  Very little, if any PPN makes it beyond Devon, leaving us in a cloudy and chilly regime.

2.  The PPN makes sufficient inroads into and across our region,bringing rain and milder temperatures. 

We need a colder and drier continental air mass for situations like this.  Not present during this cold snap.