DaveL

Well that lot sprung up remarkably quickly, 5pm nothing on radar to suggest anything at all this early in the evening. 8pm torrential downpours, a whole long line of the things.

Dry as a bone here, right in the gap. None of the rain reached the ground. Andy Bown

Some people! Told me daughter whose nearer the coast than me to move hers into a corner well away from her car if she doesn't want it scratched or dented and to be chasing it across the street. Not that bad here though, full bins should be OK unless it gets a lot worse.

Yes, the main issue being surrounding houses on the estate!

64mph gust at Soton Dockhead just now. Nothing too horrendous hereabouts yet, 25 mph gust at 3m height but I have to nearly double it for comparison with more exposed higher sites.

GFS 06Z has gusts of over 60 mph widely in the central south from around 8pm to 1 am, peaking at 65 to 70 mph. We shall see what the 12Z says when it's out. EDIT 12 Z is out, similar but peaks nearer to 65 mph, it says.

Just looking at the Met Office's UK warnings map I find it very hard to work out what's what, with the mix of yellow and amber wind warnings, and yellow rain warnings in many areas. Lots of room for that to be improved methinks!

The yellow warning for wind was increased to amber with no forecast increase in wind speeds hereabouts, max 56mph gusts. I suppose certainty must have gone up a notch but if gusts don't get over 60mph, as currently forecast here, it will I am sure stay at amber and some people who I warn will be moaning that nothing much happened other than self-powered wheelie bins!

Record low for here, -6.2°C as late as 7:51 am. Beats the Beast from the East here by 0.2 and probably colder than December 2010 (though I had a north wall thermometer then, which will have underestimated some of the night minima). +5.9 this afternoon briefly in the sun but shaded grass is still frosty. And last night was fabulously clear, got some shots of the half moon right next to Jupiter, plus Jupiter and its 4 biggest moons.

The latest UKV for 11Z tomorrow has a little band of sleet further north than that, as far north as Southampton. So not only is it now "how far will it get?" but also "will it even be snow?". My take on it is: Definitely Maybe! Perhaps. But GFS says "No". If it snows, it should stick because current grass temperature here is alreday down to -6°C, air temp -0.3 and falling so the ground will be pretty cold. Wind is still calm, sky clear, DP -3.1.

Record January Low here, for at least 11 years anyway at -5.4°C. It just doesn't get particularly cold here in these 'ere suburban gardens. Could still go a bit lower, and my record for any month is -6.0°C during the Beast from the East!

It's gone up from 8 to 10 degrees here since the rain eased off an hour ago. Positively warmfrontesque it is!

Werll that's my inch already exceeded here. I reckon the Met Office missed a trick here in Central Southern England, should have been upgraded to amber.

Well into the Netweather red zone here now, 20 mm an hour rain rate and the gutter's overflowing. Haven't quite hit an inch this afternoon yet but it likely will before it stops. And my anemometer's knackered, seized up, just had to order a new cartridge, grrr.

+0.8 here now, going up at 0.9°C an hour. Looks like a rain shower incoming shortly.

Stil -2.0°C here in freezing fog, with a maximum og -0.4 today. Was hoping for my first ice day since the Beast from the East but I'm pretty sure it will be well above freezing before midnight, sadly.

Just to make you all jealous (including myself) here's what I just posted in the Northwest group... daughter's house at sea level in Ulverston Cumbria. Coming in off the Irish sea (well Morecambe Bay), smallish area, completely unforecast they tell me! Seemingly, they are under an orange amber warning, issued at 12:43pm after 4 hours of snowing lol.

Meanwhile, at sea level justy now, in Ulverston (daughter's house, I live in the south). You wouldn't even expect this by looking at the rainfall radar!

Same here regarding the November lowest max (and here, lowest min as well) now I've had time to check back to the years before I got my VP2. But in Nov 2010, 4 days were colder and 2 more almost as cold as yesterday, and with December 2010 getting even colder and all the snow, that was a real big freeze!

Supposed to be sleeting here on the radar but not even a squelchy flake has been seen so far. It's also 1 to 2 degrees colder than the forecast and even the 'nowcasts', at 2.9°C max and slowly falling now so maybe we'll get a blob or two. Incidentally, I had my coldest ever (11 years) November night this week and today looks like being the coldest day max for the month in that period of time.

Bolt it to a solid fence post!

My VP2 is bracketed onto horizontal 4 foot pole that's bolted onto a vertical 10 foot aluminium pole which in turn is bolted to a 5 or 6 foot wall at the bottom of my garden, held by a heavy duty standoff bracket. The wall is ivy covered which mostly stops radiation from the sun from messing up the temperatures. I can lower the pole or lean a ladder on it if I need to. The anemometer is mounted onto a thinner alu pole that extends a few feet above the 10 foot pole. I have to extrapolate the reported wind speeds to get near the true 10 metre strengths but in the middle of an estate it's hard to get reliable speeds even up on the roof so I'm not doing that! Bit like Dorsetbred really but his pole's bigger than mine! Btw, the super cap has lasted 11 years to date so all the chat about a busted one's making me nervous! Anemometer's on its way out though, I need a tune up kit.

Pressure went down to 953.3 here at 6:15 this morning, 12 hPa less than my previous record! Otherwise, just like a normal windy blustery Autumn day. Not so in Jersey!

Schools in Gosport and the southern part (at least) of Fareham are all closed tomorrow due to the Amber. Even the secondary schools. Back in my day, we were made of stronger stuff!

Heavy showers here this morning but we've somehow missed everything this afternoon, by whiskers! Beautiful mainly sunny afternoon then, reached 14 degrees. Not so concerned about Ciara now here, still under an Amber but the strongest winds here could be around midnight tonight (when it's only a yellow warning). But tomorrow's another day and I suspect that the exact track of Ciara will change a bit so anything could happen. Modern computers and everything, OK, but I still recall the October 1987 storm that was supposed to strike northern France and the Channel... only!