South West and Central Southern England Regional Weather Discussion 22/02/2018 Onwards

[Skullzrulerz]

Morning all the so called beast for the east has arrived. If you live in the lands known as the far south west I'm talking to you Cornwall and Devon you most likely have till Friday at best due to the fact that it's raining for the next week :l especially for good old Cornwall if anyone can please give me some information about Cornwall and this beast in the area and late Thursday and Friday as then it may be all over but in the mean time enjoy 

[wiltshire weather]

Some light flurries here. Hoping there will be some more substantial stuff but I'm not holding my breath!

All the warnings seem to skirt round my area, even the one on Weds I'm only just in.

Thurs/Fri still up for grabs but I'm not sure we're going to know how that is likely to pan out until it's actually happening!

[Andy Bown]

Alert! Stop the press! Flurry in Warminster! About 20 flakes on the patio table! Bright sun too.

[MP-R]

Always the test of a decent easterly if snow gets this far west. Let's see...

[Fred Sykes]

First snow flurry here in Warminster

[Polar Bear]

30 minutes ago, CheesepuffScott said:

We are now included on Wednesday warning!

That’s different to the one I have got for Wednesday.... still showing the old one? 

[Mapantz]

Warnings haven't changed for me. They are the same as yesterday on both the app and website. I see a further downgrade to rain for here, too, at the end of the week. Not looking very good for coastal areas.

[Matty-H]

Yeah, Cheesepuffs is a cached copy from yesterday before it was updated to remove that area. The current warning is as per Polar Bear

[jethro]

Morning, beautiful morning here with clear blue sky and very sunny - bitingly cold wind though. I've just checked forecast for here at METO and it says last updated late yesterday. Not too sure I want to see an updated version as it currently says heavy snow for here all day Friday, if it were a game of cards I'd be sticking.

[DanDorsetUK]

Doesn't look great for Dorset with Thursday event diminishing. Wednesday I think could sneek something in. "Maybe" 

[Chul]

Actually met Office now has this for me today.......maybe there is some hope 

[festivalking]

Latest GFS run that low is still not helping the cause for snow especially along the coast. The all important 850 go positive up to the M4 for 12 hours then drift back south again. The low is definitely being forecast to head up to southern ireland then head west. I'd assume we need this low to come up from the south stall and drift eastwards. 

In other news temperature got down to -3.1C this morning really hoping to break -6 before the week is out.

Still got 4 days off ice cold weather though! Enjoy!

Edited February 26, 2018 by festivalking

[Blizzardof82]

Latest output looks good for Thursday/Friday 

[festivalking]

Just now, Blizzardof82 said:

Latest output looks good for Thursday/Friday 

Ha ha classic! two posts next to each other saying the opposite! Mind you Bristol is that much further north then the southern coast so you might well be in a prime spot!!! Its all in the air and thats why i love the weather no one really knows until its here!! 

[Matty-H]

2 minutes ago, Blizzardof82 said:

Latest output looks good for Thursday/Friday 

Depends where you look. UKMO, ARPEGE and ICON are good and show the low disrupting over the south and a period of snow here, possibly turning back to rain for a while on the south coast

GFS has been forcing that low and it's snow further and further west toward Ireland and the Atlantic with every run since yesterday. We all know which one will be right don't we? Law of sod dictates that

[Blizzardof82]

Just now, festivalking said:

Ha ha classic! two posts next to each other saying the opposite! Mind you Bristol is that much further north then the southern coast so you might well be in a prime spot!!! Its all in the air and thats why i love the weather no one really knows until its here!! 

Thought that after I posted, I was going my latest BBC/METO output, still think this wont be resolved until Wednesday IMO.

[Bobd29]

Really hoping we get worthwhile snow before Friday. After that who knows? My feeling is that the models are underplaying the strength of the block and intensity of the cold air. I believe the low will struggle against the block and as it struggles it’s progress will slow and the warm sector will diminish. If it then moves east as it’s progress north is blocked then it will slow more as the block gets reinforced and will eventually stall perhaps around Denmark area. From here the low will retrogress along the Channeland Southern Counties, but with no cold centre all will fall As snow. Not a dissimilar scenario to 62/63, if my memory is correct.

Anyone care to agree or disagree? Be interested to here views before the event, assuming of course that the low even makes it to the Channel.

As I type clouds are now rolling across the Trowbridge snowshield, is it possible that rare flakes will actually touch down here today? Good luck all.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Bobd29
Should have said no warm sector on retrogression

[MidnightSnow]

Hoping more than ever now that Thursday / Friday delivers. From an IMBY perspective, the snow showers that were forecast here tomorrow look like they're gonna miss.  The 06z shows the showers passing to the north and south of us. You can already see this happening looking at the radar now.

All or nothing scenario now. The good news is that Thursday / Friday still looking great.

[kumquat]

5 minutes ago, festivalking said:

Ha ha classic! two posts next to each other saying the opposite! 

Classic!! Thought I was back in the MAD thread for a minute. 

[festivalking]

2 minutes ago, kumquat said:

Classic!! Thought I was back in the MAD thread for a minute. 

Indeed think we should all go back to gin chat because to be honest I know more about the gin than the weather!!!

Edited February 26, 2018 by festivalking

[MidnightSnow]

The 6z also shows snow for the north of our region continuing all through Saturday morning.

[jtay]

36 minutes ago, Andy Bown said:

Alert! Stop the press! Flurry in Warminster! About 20 flakes on the patio table! Bright sun too.

You should have more flurries to come Andy. It looks quite dark North of Salisbury. All heading your way, hopefully.

[MidnightSnow]

Some beefy showers on Saturday morning also. 

[Guest]

Hello everyone, I regularly post on the MOD and on the Teleconnections Learning Thread but so far I've only occasionally been on our regional thread. By the end of this week you may be wishing that I stuck to that as I'll be on here regularly from now on. I thought that I would start an early snow watch, especially as the snow showers are spreading in much more quickly than forecast. Here are a few "live" charts which update regularly (the still ones every 10 minutes but sometime you made need to click on it and press refresh to give it a nudge):

            (Rain and)   Snow Radar                 Infra Red Satellite (colours are thick cloud)            Standard Satellite   

                     

              Live 2 m Surface Temps                             Live Dew Point Temps                                  Live Windchill Temps

            

                     Live Pressure                                  Fronts & Troughs at  0700                              MetO Fax 0600 Feb 26th                MetO Fax T+48 for  0000 Feb 28th  

                

Please note that on the second chart, those deep colours are areas of much thicker cloud and not necessarily precipitation. They do show the small LP moving out of Scandi and south-westwards. I believe that this may behave like a polar low. We may well catch the tail end of that tomorrow morning (give or take several hours) with some early heavy snowfall. With this type of long-fetch easterly with exceptionally low upper temps, sub zero surface temps and extremely low dew points we'll see an amazing amount of low level convection. Much of the lower cloud showing on the standard satellite image is producing an increasing amount of snow showers. Nothing marginal this time, everywhere will see the dry powdery stuff. Note in the first image that the "Channel Streamer" is already forming. The air stream and winds for the next 36 to 48 hours will be perfectly aligned for this "increasingly rare" streamer to develop into a full length/strength one. They were much more common back in the 1960s to 1980s. This will initially favour spots along the south coast from IOW down to Cornwall (and the Scilly Islands) but as it expands the snow showers will push well inland. This is quite apart from any other showers or bands of snow pushing across the country. The 2nd MetO chart shows this streamer perfectly with a trough hugging the south coast. How often have you seen that feature?  

I will be back this afternoon with an update and a look ahead to later in the week. We may or may not see a mighty blizzard late Thursday/Friday and even a very rare "ice storm" (freezing rain) event. I'm preparing a long MOD post on all this right now (probably to go live around 2 pm). 

Although I'm busy running an online business from home, I'm giving myself a lot of time off this week to watch this historic cold spell unfold. So, all coldies and snowies please enjoy it but keep in mind the vulnerable who may need our assistance.

David 

 

[Mapantz]