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

[cornish snow]

Watching BBC's weather for the week ahead,has left me underwhelmed, to say the least.

Temps never go below 8c,(even thurs and fri) with periods of rain.Not exactly what i would call winter.

Never mind,had a heavy Hail shower this morning which briefly turned the drive white,probably as good as it will get.

 

[knocker]

Getting a decent snowfall in Cornwall is always a tricky business except on occasion on Bodmin Moor. The ideal situation is already established cold air and then a front approaching from the SW very similar to the 1955 episode I posted in the history thread yesterday. The situation we have now with a complex system off lows floating around mainly from the NW isn't going to do the business as it simply isn't cold enough down here.

[Stormyking]

Another very cool morning with Hail Showers, this area moving towards us now is popping and im keeping an eye on it

 

Oh by the way here's another from last night just as it was moving off, one of the multi strikes we had...

 

[Blue max 90]

Sleety showers on and off today. Max temp of only 3.5c recorded. Dew point 2.8c. Certainly felt more seasonal. Watching for showers overnight possibly turning more wintery!?

[fromey]

Can help but feel it's going to be limp wristed affair! Cold rain doesn't really float my boat.

 

fromey

[khodds]

yes, I'm certainly not getting my hopes up on this coming week. 

[jtay]

Popped down to Highcliffe today and walked up to Mudeford. We got caught in a decent hail shower on the way back, but just missed the really heavy stuff that passed to the North. Back home now and it's blue skies above. Chilly though.  

[William Grimsley]

A very sharp but severe hail storm has just moved through Plymouth. A good inch of hail has settled on the A38!

[cornish snow]

1 hour ago, knocker said:

Getting a decent snowfall in Cornwall is always a tricky business except on occasion on Bodmin Moor. The ideal situation is already established cold air and then a front approaching from the SW very similar to the 1955 episode I posted in the history thread yesterday. The situation we have now with a complex system off lows floating around mainly from the NW isn't going to do the business as it simply isn't cold enough down here.

Depends what you mean by decent.

Have seen snow settle lots of times in a north west flow.

Far more common here than snow fall in any Easterly set-up. 

[Andy Bown]

1 hour ago, Stormyking said:

Another very cool morning with Hail Showers, this area moving towards us now is popping and im keeping an eye on it

 

Oh by the way here's another from last night just as it was moving off, one of the multi strikes we had...

 

Wow that is awesome! Reminds me of those pics you took from those surprise storms on Friday night last summer. What a great thundery period the IOW has had.

[knocker]

The main difference between this morning's fax chart and the GFS is the position of the low west of Ireland. The GFS then takes it ESE into the North Sea which isn't conducive to snowfall in England.

[Stormyking]

1 hour ago, Andy Bown said:

Wow that is awesome! Reminds me of those pics you took from those surprise storms on Friday night last summer. What a great thundery period the IOW has had.

Cheers man! I remember that night very well, infact we actually run our own local forecast page on facebook which we have recently became Isle of Wights number 1 and most reliable forecasting team, theres only 2 of us but everything is our own work, that friday night we were the only people to manage to pick up the thundery potential, they were very dry storms, hardly any rain at all, extremely rare type and very local, had a couple right little beasts that evening,

The last 24/48 hours has been non stop and pretty awesome, we had some also Lightning earlier shooting out alsorts of CGS and Crwlers which we could see in the channel. This definatly makes up for the lack of snow

 

[jethro]

When you know you've crossed the threshold into seriously sad person territory...

Conversation with hubby earlier.......

Pondering what's on the telly tonight he announces 'we've lost our Sunday night drama's' my incredulous response of 'you're kidding, Countryfile forecast may say SNOW!' was met with just a roll of his eyes.

[Tattooed Fox]

Hi Boys & Girls,

Just seen Country File  weather and the only mention for 'POSSIBLE' snow is for South West on Wednesday evening due to the low pressure system coming in off the Atlantic and hitting the cold air over the South West.  Is this what is classed as a 'Snow '  (everything crossed).

[Daniel*]

 

Miserable in knocker land.

[knocker]

I'm trying to think where that's taken from.

[fergieweather]

2 hours ago, Sonnia said:

Hi Boys & Girls,

Just seen Country File  weather and the only mention for 'POSSIBLE' snow is for South West on Wednesday evening due to the low pressure system coming in off the Atlantic and hitting the cold air over the South West.  Is this what is classed as a 'Snow '  (everything crossed).

Ha! Err, no. But it's too early to rule out some wintry precipitation. There remain a number of complexities making our forecast tricky at a regional/sub-regional level. However, we have some gradually increasing confidence (it's all relative in current situation!) of higher pressure forming into next week - within colder air - to settle everything down for a while, as temperatures return to become essentially akin to climatology. The Met Office Seasonal model, GloSea5, has hinted at this sort of outcome into mid-Jan for a while and interestingly, in latest runs it also has the UK remaining under an above-average mean sea level pressure anomaly for the rest of the month and into early Feb. That said, the signal from its ECMWF 4-week counterpart is unusually bland (ie not distinct from climatology) across the same extended forecast period, but we will see another update of that model tomorrow evening. GloSea5 takes the MJO into Phase 2 in about 5 days time, supporting - say UKMO - the broad notion of a return to a +ve NAO phase as this month continues, albeit with uncertain longevity.

EDIT attached latest UKMO-GM for early Weds, showing how WBFL (wet bulb freezing level: critical component in forecasting snow to different elevation) has fallen overnight through radiative cooling to under 400m, ahead of advancing precipitation from west... This the basis of the SW snow signal mentioned on Countryfile. 

Edited January 10, 2016 by fergieweather

[Mapantz]

Huge flash of lightning and a massive bang here!

hail as well..

[karlos1983]

Christ on a bike, instant lightening deafening thunder and substantial hail storm. Was having a pee, could have ended badly! 

[Mapantz]

24 minutes ago, karlos1983 said:

Christ on a bike, instant lightening deafening thunder and substantial hail storm. Was having a pee, could have ended badly! 

I was just having a smoke in the porch when it happened! I now realise, it was exactly where my webcam is facing. I should've set it to snap an image at set intervals- I'll do it when the next batch arrives later, see if I can get a lucky capture!

Edited January 10, 2016 by Mapantz

[Dorsetbred]

5 minutes ago, Mapantz said:

I was just having a smoke in the porch when it happened! I know realise, it was exactly where my webcam is facing. I should've set it to snap an image at set intervals- I'll do it when the next batch arrives later, see if I can get a lucky capture!

Ahh so it was over your way was it? Decent couple of flashes there, and some decent hail. So 2016 is off to an early with t-storms. Took the dog outside and he ran back in as he was being hammered with the hail, not keen on that..

[fergieweather]

PS It'll be interesting to see if we get some hill snow in parts of W Country/SE Wales/Cotswolds tonight, as per some MOGREPS members. It's not a firm signal but sufficient members of that suite have it for us to be watchful. 

[bellanite]

http://www.lightningmaps.org/realtime

This is a good site for tracking lightning (case anyone doesn't have it already) 

 

[khodds]

2 minutes ago, fergieweather said:

PS It'll be interesting to see if we get some hill snow in parts of W Country/SE Wales/Cotswolds tonight, as per some MOGREPS members. It's not a firm signal but sufficient members of that suite have it for us to be watchful. 

blimey! You could have given us some prior warning 

[knocker]

57 minutes ago, fergieweather said:

Ha! Err, no. But it's too early to rule out some wintry precipitation. There remain a number of complexities making our forecast tricky at a regional/sub-regional level. However, we have some gradually increasing confidence (it's all relative in current situation!) of higher pressure forming into next week - within colder air - to settle everything down for a while, as temperatures return to become essentially akin to climatology. The Met Office Seasonal model, GloSea5, has hinted at this sort of outcome into mid-Jan for a while and interestingly, in latest runs it also has the UK remaining under an above-average mean sea level pressure anomaly for the rest of the month and into early Feb. That said, the signal from its ECMWF 4-week counterpart is unusually bland (ie not distinct from climatology) across the same extended forecast period, but we will see another update of that model tomorrow evening. GloSea5 takes the MJO into Phase 2 in about 5 days time, supporting - say UKMO - the broad notion of a return to a +ve NAO phase as this month continues, albeit with uncertain longevity.

EDIT attached latest UKMO-GM for early Weds, showing how WBFL (wet bulb freezing level: critical component in forecasting snow to different elevation) has fallen overnight through radiative cooling to under 400m, ahead of advancing precipitation from west... This the basis of the SW snow signal mentioned on Countryfile. 

The EPS has the NAO going positive around the 18th