mike Meehan
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Posts posted by mike Meehan
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5 minutes ago, Captain Shortwave said:
I glorious end to the day with clear blue wintry skies. I will not go outside as frankly -5C before sunset is completely nuts. Depending on wind I think the temperature could get close to -10C in sheltered spots. Fridgid!!!
Positively balmy at Watford with the temp as high as -3.4C as I type. Still getting a few flurries from time to time
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It does look as though it is the turn of North of the Thames today - we've just had a fairly moderate snow shower with more in the offing - temp currently -1.6C at Watford.
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9 minutes ago, echodelta21 said:
I'm not a forecaster (beyond radar watching and saying "it's going to snow!", but NW short range model is showing the Thursday/Friday event heading more towards Ireland? Hope I've just misread it, but that's a hell of a change compared to the current amber/yellow warnings for most of southern England....
It's just reaching us at Watford as I type, now clouded over after a blue start to the day, though we did get a covering through the night and it all looked white, though not deep, probably about 40 mm - the min was -5C and the temp is now -0.8C.
I note that the forecasts are now delaying the start of the thaw by about a day - these situations can be problematic.
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12 minutes ago, Weather_Novice said:
They can throw down Artic snow proportions into Chelmsford, just just settling! Very frustrating really and surprising.
Just had a persistent, heavy fall, the ground is now damp as it has all "sublimated" ...Naw, that's melted!
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25 minutes ago, Weather_Novice said:
Que??
Do you mean it is now too cold to settle?
If that is the case, let just have spring - it is miserable.No, it can never be too cold to settle but when it is very dry snow does sublimate i.e. ice changing from a solid to a gaseous state without the intervening state of being a liquid.
As it happens I see the cu is now building up more, the temp is now +1 C
, however the radar shows showery activity over Holland and the North Sea heading in our direction.
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Just now, IPredictASnowStorm said:
are u going to get snow there?
According to NW a period of moderate falls later this afternoon.
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Just looked at the radar and currently Watford is in a SFZ - snow free zone.
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1 minute ago, danm said:
I think the issue at the moment is the time of year. Jan '87 and Feb '91 had max temps widely sub zero with similar upper temps (in the case of Feb '91) and thicknesses.
We are virtually in March now so max temps are higher than they would have been even a few weeks earlier.
Still bitterly cold though!
Exactly - don't remember much of '47, the other really cold winter but understand th difference was more of a Greenie high set up, rather than a Scandy one. That year the cold and snow did not really set in until the end of Jan but lasted until April - the comparison between that year and '63 is quite interesting because overall there was more snow, with some considerable depths being recorded and less sunshine in '47.
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No more than an incomplete dusting at Watford with no real fresh snow overnight - the small bits we have are in the process of sublimating or melting in the sun.
Now have a temp of zero, slighty more humid today at 68% - steadily decreasing pressure - see NW have promised us some for this afternoon and see the wind is changing to a more easterly quadrant, so we may benefit from a Thames streamer but don't really want the temp to rise much higher, otherwise we will get wet stuff instead of powder,
Was thinking back and a number of times circa 20 years ago we get maxes of -5C around here, though the beast from the east has been modified by comparatively warmer temps, though it has come later in the season this time.
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Whereas this morning we only had some slight flurries at Watford hardly showing the ground, this afternoon we have had more organised showers a little heavier to the extent the whiteness is beginning to show, though the wind is blowing the snow clear in more exposed areas - temps have just dropped below freezing as I type to -0.1C but humidity increased to 75%. Now just turned to -0.2 C with 76%.
It looks like a number of further showers on the radar coming our way and if the forecast runs true to form I would expect a respectable accumulation during the next 24 hours.
The advantage of it being below freezing is a specific amount of precipitation can lead to greater depths.
Wondering about the weekend and if snow does get firmly established, the fronts forecasted to come through to give milder weather may get delayed, or even held at bay.
Warm air can find it difficult to dislodge a settled cold air mass, though it will depend on the energy pushing it along. This happened a few times during 1963 and the cold air did not get really dislodged until March after something like about 68 ice days with just a brief interlude in January when the temp reached a balmy +4C for a short while. The end finally came by an onslaught of the Atlantic from the North West.
I've been waiting for a repeat performance of that winter ever since but sadly to no avail - usually after a promising couple of weeks or so the cold has in fact been pushed out of the way.
Now -0.3C
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Now here's a thought - people can dream of having the need to get these over here.
https://www.facebook.com/iwantthatvideos/videos/534133900305863/
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Eurika! - just get the odd few flakes coming down, not sufficient to cover the ground - temp -1.2C. 68% humidity.
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No snow at Watford!
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Looks like an interesting week coming up - the lucky ones in the east can probably look forward to streamers from off the channel and the North Sea, which often give rise to an unpredictable amount of snow in some areas.
Sometimes I have seen the forecasters caught out when the amount exceeds expectations but the conditions have to be just right for this.
In my case being at Watford I am in hopes of a Thames Streamer but it depends a lot on wind direction to gain the full benefit and it can make the difference between just a covering and several inches.
We will see what we will see. Should it happen hoping for the powdery stuff, but it needs the temps to stay below freezing
As it is a beautiful blue sky today - temp 3.2C with a 55% humidity.
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Cheddar man lived some 10,000 years ago, the ice caps still covered part of the UK, though they were receding and the UK was still attached to continental Europe via 'Doggerland'.
This, I would venture to say would have given us a cross between a maritime and a continental climate.
Not too far to the north tundra would still have existed but I would imagine that by the time Cheddar man and his forebears reached the Cheddar Gorge forests have started to re-establish, otherwise the area would not have been so attractive.
Personally I would have expected much colder winters than we have now with snow for most of the winter season but depending very much on the wind directions, with the northerly and easterlies bring more snow, whilst the southerlies and westerlies bringing milder conditions bringing intermittent thaws.
I would have expected that in the summer there would have been quite a difference in temperatures, again depending on the wind direction with the warmest conditions coming from the continental south east.
One thing of which I am not quite sure is whether at that time there would have been sufficient melting to decrease the salinity of the north Atlantic, thereby slowing the Gulf stream but there again I have no reason to think that Cheddar man was stupid, so if the climate were to be too onerous, I doubt that he would have settled in that area.
Just wondering what thoughts people had in relation to this.
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1 hour ago, Quicksilver1989 said:
Yup snow for the many and not the few hopefully!
Still trying to keep myself grounded, I don't want a conservative cold spell under a strong and stable high....The chart of Catacol for the same date shows a different set up to mine, (preceding post) though a similar set of circumstances but it is an example of how the models can vary.
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Looking forward to 28.02.2018 there is an interesting feature of the Scandy stretching over as far as Greenland.
With quite respectable uppers as well.
Something which I think is a relatively rare, a contraflow jet stream over the UK with SSE over Scotland
Though not exceptionally cold considering the chart - we would have done with a similar set up a couple of months ago.
Yet it appears that snow is forecast - still another 10 days to go and many a slip twixt cup and lip!
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During the winter I keep an eye on what is happening in Russia and eastern Europe in the winter months hoping that some will be shared with us and over the years a max of -18C at Moscow has been fairly common.
I have not seen anything like that for this season, in fact quite a few days during the earlier part have been above freezing and most of the cold days have not really been much worse than we have had in the UK during some of our colder spells, particularly 1963.
Is this perhaps one of the mildest winters on record so far for that part of the world?
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Isn't this really what we need for the summer months - the problem with this winter is that the HP's have been in the wrong place.
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Some tweets relating to snow above 300 metres in Herault in the South of France:
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4 minutes ago, snowrye said:
Still raining,maybe I should build an ark
That's where I think the stories relating to Noah's Ark got it wrong - back in those days I would suggest that the people of the Middle East had not made a scientific study of the melting of the ice from the last ice age and strongly suspect that they did not know about the Laurentian ice field which has a lot of fresh water dammed within it, releasing it as the dam melted causing a sudden upsurge in sea levels and consequently the inundation of low lying areas.
At the time their main experience of flooding would have been from rainfall, so they invented the story of rain for 40 days and nights.
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Mostly white with wet stuff here now, we've just has a session of heavy snow which has now eased off and the temp is now 0.9C.
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We've had a mixture of rain sleet and snow for the past coupla so hours now, may be more but I was in the land of nod earlier - just come a bit heavier, most not settling though just starting to get a whitish tinge - temp 1.4C with a 92% humidity.
Looking at the radar we are at the southern end of the snow.
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3 hours ago, damianslaw said:
High pressure tends to influence more come February and especially March and into April, so plenty of time yet - and can still pack a punch in terms of delivering exceptional cold weather. The continent takes a long time to warm up during the Spring, a high pressure ridging out of Siberia in mid Feb in Scandi when it often does can produce a significant cold pool despite the increasing solar warmth, you don't need embedded cold air in January to do this - look back at Feb 2005 for an example of this.
Raw easterlies in March are though not my cup of tea.
Back to the thread- Friday and more especially Saturday look excellent days for winter mountaineer enthusiasts - Sat will see light winds and sunshine and low freezing levels, make the most of it!
'47 did not start until late Jan but that year they had a good Greenie setup which extended to Scandy.
We live in hopes - recently the Scandi high has teased for a short while then though better of it and in any case the continental temps were far too high to do any good.
Though at the same time we had December 2010 which at one time I thought could have exceeded 1963 but was cut short by us getting revisited by the jet streams moving north.
But as you say by the time March and April arrive I start to get anxious for the Spring with balmier temps - the snow is for winter.
Watford is still well below the freezing level.
Do you mean it is now too cold to settle?
, however the radar shows showery activity over Holland and the North Sea heading in our direction.
East Anglia and North London weather discussion (25/02/2018) onward
in Regional
Posted
Looking at the radar there is a dollop of snow extending from the south Essex coast in the region of Malden and had just reached Watford by about 2130, although there had been some previous light falls.
This looks like being persistent - it is not exceptionally heavy, 'cos the vis is a little over half a mile but over a period of a few hours it should build up depth to few centimetres give Watford a more respectable covering.
Meanwhile the current temp is -5.1C and snow is getting blown about be the wind, so we may end up with some mini drifts.
I think snow drifts are one of the best aspects, especially when you get powder snow and marvel at the different formations.
It reminds me of when I was on night duty once when in plod, I took a car out to te villages in the Chilterns. There was an area when the land fell away to the east and the road was exposed from the east building some great little drifts about a foot to 18 inches deep.
I kept the car going at a steady 40 mph, powering through these drifts - there was no problem with traction with it being dry powder snow.
I had the sensation similar to that of a destroyer battling through heavy seas which were breaking over the prow - it was exactly like that only the snow was flying over the bonnet of the car.
It were great, I thoroughly enjoyed that - however not thinking of going for a drive tonight - I was much younger then.