Northwest Weather Discussion - Dec 2023 onwards

[damianslaw]

18 minutes ago, Geordiesnow said:

I got to say I'm dissapointed with how things have manifested especially with the initial northerly. Going to be a dry stable northerly as high pressure to the west is too close so no instability but it should be crisp and sunny. I did thought this was the most likely but yesterday's UKMO did briefly promised something a little better.

This also means less room for error for the cold hanging on as winds switch to a WNW'ly  as the northerly collapses which whilst this was going to happen seems to be happening a good 12 or so hours quicker too me.

Can we get the reload, I have my doubts but this would be my preferred choice over the threat of frontal snow which going by the ECM may not even bring frontal snow as the air is too warm.

Just kinda feel alot of chasing for an outlook where snow looks quite limited for our region so far.

Ah its a wait and see, I expect disturbances in the flow, it looks unstable to me. The GFS18z even shows -10 uppers breaching Cumbria. 

Edited January 10 by damianslaw

[Thunder Snow]

6 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Ah its a wait and see, I expect disturbances in the flow, it looks unstable to me. The GFS18z even shows -10 uppers breaching Cumbria. 

Here's hoping for some disturbances, don't like the angle of attack next Friday night front moves through far to quick 

[jellybaby1969]

3 hours ago, Day 10 said:

I've always said the GFS is head and shoulders above the others, for at least the last 2 hours.

This will get pushed south to the point it will be a slush fest for the far south...

[Joe Snow]

Would be interesting to get your thoughts @Kasim Awan on the potential low next week from a NW England viewpoint - a wasted interest for us here in the NW or a significant snow maker?
 

Are we better looking for short notice disturbances instead?  

[jellybaby1969]

3 hours ago, Day 10 said:

I've always said the GFS is head and shoulders above the others, for at least the last 2 hours.

This will get pushed south to the point it will be a slush fest for the far south...

[Kasim Awan]

2 minutes ago, Joe Snow said:

Would be interesting to get your thoughts @Kasim Awan on the potential low next week from a NW England viewpoint - a wasted interest for us here in the NW or a significant snow maker?
 

Are we better looking for short notice disturbances instead?  

Depends if we get the front north enough, if we're on the northern flank the easterly winds will produce a moderate leeward effect west of the Pennines with reduced snowfall rates as a result. Get it far enough North or get a front with lighter winds and the leeward effect will be minimal.

Any short scale troughs would bring lower levels a risk as there would be no leeward effect in these instances.

Edited January 10 by Kasim Awan

[rob_b]

15 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Ah its a wait and see, I expect disturbances in the flow, it looks unstable to me. The GFS18z even shows -10 uppers breaching Cumbria. 

After the early December event and the hassle that caused kind of hoping any major snow event stays down country sorry to be a party pooper 

[Joe Snow]

6 minutes ago, Kasim Awan said:

Depends if we get the front north enough, if we're on the northern flank the easterly winds will produce a moderate leeward effect west of the Pennines with reduced snowfall rates as a result. Get it far enough North or get a front with lighter winds and the leeward effect will be minimal.

Any short scale troughs would bring lower levels a risk as there would be no leeward effect in these instances.

Think we’ll see some snow probably from short notice features - south of the region at risk of any frontal activity if the low pushes far enough north. Cheshire/ Merseyside, Wirral & NE Wales into Staffs & the Midlands most at risk of this as per 18th Jan 2013. Way too early to accurately say though. 

Edited January 10 by Joe Snow

[Scuba steve]

29 minutes ago, Iceaxecrampon said:

Yes yes. Ppn type chart. “It’s only a guide” 
Has to stop short somewhere……..

38th parallel kim north Jun will not be happy

[Geordiesnow]

27 minutes ago, Joe Bloggs said:

The Greenland heights appear to be eroding too quickly really.

Some of the output was really good earlier today, hopefully we will see some upgrades again. 

The fact yet again we can't seem to get a sustained Greenland high is proving to be very frustrating. Is it climate change or something else, can't really blame the shortwaves on this one really! I bet in the 70s and 80s that would produce an epic northerly/NNW'ly with instability all over. Now it's just a glancing blow albeit the air under it is still quite cold but becoming a blink and you miss it affair.

More hints the Atlantic is coming into play also but that's still a long way off but hopefully the details can improve again because barring the threat of frontal snow and maybe some snow showers in northern and eastern Scotland, the snow risk does look fairly minimal so far.

[Slidergate '17]

This type of low pressure coming up from the SE into cold air is usually garbage for low lying areas around Grtr Man. So I'm not really holding out for next week (bit imby that actually.. i do apologise). However it could be jackpot time for our friends in the east of the region with a bit of elevation.. so here's hoping somewhere in the NW gets pasted 

[Geordiesnow]

25 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Ah its a wait and see, I expect disturbances in the flow, it looks unstable to me. The GFS18z even shows -10 uppers breaching Cumbria. 

You on about the first northerly or the second because they are both quite short lived and the first one, the thicknesses and pressure to an extent are too high. The second one is better thicknesses wise and lower pressure but it's a blink and you miss it before developments to our south come into play.

Still cold and dry is better than wet and mild and it will be good too see the sunny skies again after this anti cyclonic gloom clears but it all feels a tad underwhelming for me sadly on a snow point of view.

 

[Cheshire Freeze]

Pronounced rain shadow 18z GFS…Gtr Manchester right down into Cheshire.

Seen it before with that scenario…few hrs of drizzly snow that doesn’t stick.

[Geordiesnow]

3 minutes ago, Cheshire Freeze said:

Pronounced rain shadow 18z GFS…Gtr Manchester right down into Cheshire.

Seen it before with that scenario…few hrs of drizzly snow that doesn’t stick.

Or the classic of radar showing the PPN over us but nothing falling because the air is too dry and then when PPN does fall it's too marginal.

[Joe Snow]

7 minutes ago, Cheshire Freeze said:

Pronounced rain shadow 18z GFS…Gtr Manchester right down into Cheshire.

Seen it before with that scenario…few hrs of drizzly snow that doesn’t stick.

Yeah have seen a few events like that think there was a similar event in Mar 2013 that buried NE Wales & the Midlands but just grazed the region with some flurries. 
 

Then again 18th Jan 2013 saw some decent frontal snowfall south of MCR - not the dumping the Midlands saw but a covering none the less. We aren’t in the shadow as much this far SE. It’ll probably hit France anyway  
 

 

Edited January 10 by Joe Snow

[Joe Bloggs]

21 minutes ago, Geordiesnow said:

The fact yet again we can't seem to get a sustained Greenland high is proving to be very frustrating. Is it climate change or something else, can't really blame the shortwaves on this one really! I bet in the 70s and 80s that would produce an epic northerly/NNW'ly with instability all over. Now it's just a glancing blow albeit the air under it is still quite cold but becoming a blink and you miss it affair.

More hints the Atlantic is coming into play also but that's still a long way off but hopefully the details can improve again because barring the threat of frontal snow and maybe some snow showers in northern and eastern Scotland, the snow risk does look fairly minimal so far.

We’re looking at quite small windows.

Annoyingly, rather than a clean cold northerly from Sunday onwards we get some slightly milder air on Monday which may even bring some rain showers. Looks like some form of feature  will move down from the north Tuesday night - maybe bringing some snow on the back edge (major uncertainty here) behind this is some very cold air and we could get some NW’ly snow showers . How long that lasts depends on how quickly the great Midlands snow storm moves in.  

Worst case scenario is for the low to be far enough north that it cuts off convection for our region but not far enough to give snow. Basically what the 18z GFS shows! 

I think we are far more likely to do well via fronts and little features from the north and north west personally, which won’t be well modelled until very short notice. 
 

Fingers crossed for upgrades tomorrow. 

[Joe Bloggs]

18z GEFS look quite good though . Better Greenland heights on a very quick glance 

[damianslaw]

39 minutes ago, Geordiesnow said:

You on about the first northerly or the second because they are both quite short lived and the first one, the thicknesses and pressure to an extent are too high. The second one is better thicknesses wise and lower pressure but it's a blink and you miss it before developments to our south come into play.

Still cold and dry is better than wet and mild and it will be good too see the sunny skies again after this anti cyclonic gloom clears but it all feels a tad underwhelming for me sadly on a snow point of view.

 

There appears to be a trough/frontal feature associated with the runner/shortwave, on its back edge there will be a very cold air source, its questionable how much precipitation may be linked to it, but a good chance of some snow to low levels from it, should there be enough precipitation and provided it tracks through the region.

All a long way off... 

45 minutes ago, Scuba steve said:

38th parallel kim north Jun will not be happy

someone likes clean lines!..

Edited January 10 by damianslaw

[damianslaw]

1 hour ago, Thunder Snow said:

Here's hoping for some disturbances, don't like the angle of attack next Friday night front moves through far to quick 

Next Friday night! Lets get to early next week first..

[Thunder Snow]

10 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Next Friday night! Lets get to early next week first..

Well here's to some surprises for the start of the week

[Dark Horse]

1 hour ago, Geordiesnow said:

The fact yet again we can't seem to get a sustained Greenland high is proving to be very frustrating. Is it climate change or something else, can't really blame the shortwaves on this one really! I bet in the 70s and 80s that would produce an epic northerly/NNW'ly with instability all over. Now it's just a glancing blow albeit the air under it is still quite cold but becoming a blink and you miss it affair.

More hints the Atlantic is coming into play also but that's still a long way off but hopefully the details can improve again because barring the threat of frontal snow and maybe some snow showers in northern and eastern Scotland, the snow risk does look fairly minimal so far.

Inevitable really as even in December 2010 we did have a brief milder incursion from the west before it turned colder again, it would be highly unusual for the rest of this month or beyond to stay cold and I'm not going to delude myself into thinking otherwise lol. A full week of it is now unusual these days before we get an interruption. We'll see anyway, got to get the cold in first. Still even if there's no snow dry bright and cold is far better than the incessant rain we've had. Good riddance to it.

[Snowmad79]

Morning all, downgrades on the UKMO and GFS this morning with the forecasted heavy PPN around 16th now delayed a further day and the band barely even reaching southern coastal areas with GFS showing it as snow for the South Coast and the UKMO has it entirely rain up to midlands. And apart from that light snow else where. Yes too early for specifics but heres the UKMO 00z snow chart for 120 hrs, 144hrs & 168 hrs >>

 

 

174hrs GFS

 

Wise heads will know this can still go either way for the better or the worse, though still no full breakdown to the atlantic out to the 18th Jan at least.

Edited January 11 by Snowmad79

[Cheshire Freeze]

People were on about red warnings yesterday. The only red thing we’re likely to see is the red mist of another winter weather fail.

[Snowmad79]

4 minutes ago, Cheshire Freeze said:

People were on about red warnings yesterday. The only red thing we’re likely to see is the red mist of another winter weather fail.

Indeed mate, never set yourself up for big fall. Still hard to say what exactly will happen especially when you have that UKMO HD model throwing out copious amounts of snow for large portion of the UK. But then again I admit I've not really view that particular UKMO model before.

[iand61]

6 hours ago, Slidergate '17 said:

This type of low pressure coming up from the SE into cold air is usually garbage for low lying areas around Grtr Man. So I'm not really holding out for next week (bit imby that actually.. i do apologise). However it could be jackpot time for our friends in the east of the region with a bit of elevation.. so here's hoping somewhere in the NW gets pasted 

I’m in the east of the region and certainly should have the altitude but not putting my last fiver on a snowfest.

Maybe a covering at times as the fronts head south early next week but the current default in cold set ups is for anything coming in from the west/sw to stay well to our south and, even the forecasts are pushing the mid week system  south to a point where it is a midlands south event at best.

I didn’t take a lot of notice of the science behind the weather growing up in the 70’s and then into the classic winters of the early 80’s but we certainly got some heavy snow events during most years and  I’m not talking a couple of inches.

snow was measured in excess of a foot up here in the Pennines and crucially hung around for days and sometimes weeks so whatever the direction of attack, it was not only possible back then, but probably the most likely set up.

Frustratingly it’s now the complete opposite.