carled

*course

Well, yes, but you'd have thought that the BBC know that too. And the MetOffice. And Accuweather, and so on... They're looking at the same charts and, for some reason, aren't getting excited about the virtual certainty (reading the model thread) that half of England is about to be blanketed in snow! You'd think they owe it to the public to at least alert them to the possibility of said snowfall, if it was in any way falling into 'possible' as a scenario, right?

I get bewildered by the excitement on the model thread followed by the BBC app and TV forecast showing nothing but a bit of frost and sunshine in the vast majority of the country. One group or t'other is in for egg on their collective face.

According to the netweather radar there's a big green lump right over Rugby at the moment where I currently am. I can confirm there is the merest snizzle in the sky, not a sign of any serious precipitation. Maybe it's a chemical leak from the Cemex plant and not precipitation ;-)

Doesn't look very written off at the start of this thread, but anyway...

Not really. As of last night/this morning we were (mostly) under an Amber warning with 5-20cm of snow, depending on local happenings. That all disappeared early this afternoon.

I don't remember that being a surprise - it was predicted (for my area at least) for days beforehand as "5-10cm" and I got exactly that!

You know how things tend to start off as "Oh My God! EPIC snowfall coming" and gradually peter out into "oh - maybe just a few showers" and end up as "ah, just a bit of snizzle then..."? Always seems the downgrades are the accurate predictions. When is the last time anyone can remember "Not going to get anything but a few flakes" turning into "Oh wow! We did NOT see THAT coming! Unbelievable turnaround to produce somethign from nothing!" Just never seems to happen that way. Curious...

MetOffice Amber warning for most of midlands from 04:00 to 11:00. Look at detailed forecast for Leicester and we have no snow forecast until 10:00 and then on and off until late afternoon. WTF MetOffice? Get a grip lads. Leicester snowshield warming up right now to deflect all white stuff ;-)

Even a rank amateur like me can see the massive difference for Wed/Thu (mainly) between GFS and ECM. The GFS is determined to bring in that low across the UK but the ECM is having none of it, instead modelling a system in the Bay of Biscay that prolongs the warmth in the UK. I presume that the British Forecasting Systems (Metoffice/BBC) aren't using the ECM based on their current forecast for the week ahead... Who's the form horse to back? Edit - looking at the ECM that would still have VERY high temps in London/SE even on Thursday - high 20s.

Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense. So we picked a bad spot to go on holiday next week then?! (Newquay). Only chance now is for the low pressure system to move further west and allow the warmer/drier air to move with it then I presume? Chances of that happening - who knows.

Er... ok. Doesn't really explain much, but fair enough. I presume this is for geographical as opposed to poltical reasons? ;-)

So I'm only a novice and I don't understand quite how there is going to be such a huge variation in weather over such a short distance. There's all sorts of excitement in the forecast model discussion about upcoming 32C on Tuesday but... As at 10am on Saturday 10th, the BBC forecast has the following for Tuesday: 20C and rain for Newquay 22C Sunshine/Showers for Exeter 26C and bright sunshine for Bristol That's, what? 100km spread approx? In metereological terms that doesn't seem that significant. I realise that with any weather system there's got to be a metaphorical "edge" somewhere but even so, that seems to be an amazing variation in a short distance. Is it purely to do with the positioning of the low pressure off to the SW that is affecting the incursion of warmth from the continent? If so, how likely is it to shift any more? If, for example, it shifts another 100km east, does that then affect the midlands or is it not as simple as that?

Slight correction: looks very summery for most of next week for most of England EXCEPT for the southwest basically. Unfortunately Much of Devon and Cornwall will be under the cold and wet bit. GFS & UKMO seem to be pretty much in agreement on this now.

Interesting day today. Lots of very deep powder around, hard to find the untracked stuff but it's still there. Bit of windcrust in places but generally lovely if you find the small stashes. On piste it's packed powder mostly. Odd icy scraped bits and lower down there is some slush in the afternoons, but at altitude it's very good conditions indeed. Locals are expecting a bit of snow overnight, then horrible visibility tomorrow. Wed/Thu will be really lovely days and Friday should see more snow with Saturday being nice again. Could work out well but who knows in the mountains - we had a mixed bag today of poor light/bright sunshine at times.

Some ominous signs of relatively apocalyptic weather next week in the Milky Way region starting to show up on GFS... I somehow doubt I'll be seeing too much blue sky next week. On the plus side, there should be lots of powder around for me to play in on the snowboard! I'm kind of glad I've just invested in some Oakley Prizm Rose lenses now.

I'm pleased about this as I'm off out there too. 22nd Feb - 1st March. Last week the forecast seemed to predict about 20-30cm for the area (I have a friend living out there) and about 3-4 times that amount fell. Here's hoping the same thing happens again and then the temperatures drop a bit to keep it all in good shape :-)

Enderby, Leicestershire reporting in... it's sleet at best. rain with slush in it more like. Nothing sticking.

Absolutely ZERO precipitation of any kind in Enderby, Leicestershire! Dry as a bone on the road outside.

Well it's going to take the metoffice by surprise then as they don't seem convinced about that from what I can see!

I'm confused. BBC Forecast at 6pm showed very little snow anywhere over the upcoming days. Metoffice only has light snow anywhere in the East Mids and plenty of white cloud... I can't see where this excitement about upcoming events is coming from?

And the latest VAAC charts don't look promising: VAAC charts

Which charts and where please Iceberg?

And even if it moves it all east then it's moving it into France & Switzerland where I'm trying to fly to anyway... so it's game over on the flight I reckon.

Yeah... by Sunday 00 it's looking ok, but there's a 24 hour unknown period in between! Even if it does change to that wind pattern by midnight Saturday, would that be enough to have shifted the ash plume away? I doubt it...