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

[MidnightSnow]

Thought I'd join in with the bodge-job MS paint estimations 

 

[SteveB]

Should break my min temp record tonight, set in December 2016 at - 4.6c.

Already - 3.3c

[Nick Croker]

10-15cm of powder snow with a strong breeze will cause chaos on the roads with very large drifts forming quite quickly, it's gonna be fun and i'm looking forward to seeing a proper snow drift something i haven't seen for many years.

[Somerset Squall]

Heaviest snow shower of the day so far just passed over and left a dusting :).

Well, it's a start haha

 

Tried to upload a pic but it isn't working

[Wiltshireweatherwatcher]

24 minutes ago, AWD said:

Too be honest, I think he was rushed a bit so just gave some quick broadbrush values to cover the whole region.

Still uncertainty on how far north and west the first system will track.

Going to be a nervy 48hrs I think.

Yes Ian was rushed tonight. The producers of Points West obviously felt a story about knitted knockers (see Points West FB page) deserved more airtime than the forecast for the potential of quite severe weather in our region over the next few days.

As always, Ian was a true professional and did his best to fit as much in as he could in such a short space of time rushing through tomorrow’s forecast to get to Thursday.

Sadly this happens all too often on Points West with Ian given little time to deliver his forecast; even at times of severe weather. I like Points West but sometimes the program can be a waste of half an hour apart from the weather forecast.

[jtay]

2 minutes ago, bathweatherwatcher said:

Yes Ian was rushed tonight. The producers of Points West obviously felt a story about knitted knockers (see Points West FB page) deserved more airtime than the forecast for the potential of quite severe weather in our region over the next few days.

Our knocker?

If so, I think that's understandable. That short-term thread is great.

[kernowman]

First post of the winter, dare I say it after watching yet another snowless winter pass we down here in the far west are going to see some proper snow for the first time in nearly 10 years? Getting the camera ready just in case.

[divadee]

-4.1 temp and -6.4 dew point. It' a cold one. 

No more snow flurries here. I just need to get through till Thursday and keep the Faith! 

[ptow]

-5.6 here in Reading. Slight snow cover 

[A.J]

1 hour ago, karlos1983 said:

Here’s my rough guess  

 

 

Just kidding 

This is my take on events..

[jethro]

Evening all, had a couple of beefy showers at work today which left a dusting, got home to a more complete covering and it's currently snowing now :-) Don't know if you've all seen it or not but Fergie tweeted earlier today about the amounts of snow over the next few days, standard conversion rates for rain to snow in mm is 10:1 so for every mm of rain, you get 1cm of snow, however because we're talking continental air, very cold and dry he reckons conversion rate will be more like 15:1, a little rain goes a long way with these synoptics :-)

[audiotech]

Lucked out with a heavy snow shower in south Oxfordshire. Approached with really dark menacing skies like an April shower thunderstorm. Great seeing the snow flakes falling about 20 metres in front of you and advancing towards you. Using car thermo, temp dropped from +1 before the shower at 4:30pm to -6 at 6:15pm. Barely a 50% dusting when I got back home though and a balmy -3. Hopefully see some much bigger and more widespread inland convective showers tomorrow with the super cold uppers at their coldest.

 

The shower approaching and the resulting snow:

[Wiltshireweatherwatcher]

9 minutes ago, jtay said:

Our knocker?

If so, I think that's understandable. That short-term thread is great.

A different kind of knocker ?

[Frosty hollows]

1 hour ago, MrNooo said:

-3.2C here, what do you reckon you'll get to??? -10C?? What is your record, sure it will be pretty extreme tonight!!

Our record is -17.7 in Dec 2010. Now -6c. It's very very clear so maybe we will hit -10c. That'd be the record this winter I think. We've had several sub -5 nights with -8.2 being the lowest.  I actually like cold crisp weather, but this winter has gone on long enough for me!

[dec10snow]

Had some flakes drifting in the wind a couple times today, but just had a slightly heavier one leaving some snow dotted around, layers on cars etc, however with temps and DPs below freezing I would have thought it would have settled everywhere but that’s not the case, odd... Maybe just didn’t have the intensity?

[Singularity]

Well then. I finally scored one of the heaviest showers in the region... during the evening rush hour! The snow stuck right away to the roads, leading to some hairy driving conditions. I live at the bottom of a hill and for a while had a bunch more vehicles than usual milling around outside; where cars had driven over the fresh snow, it had compacted into slick ice. Took some 4x4s with hot exhaust fumes to sort that mes out!

So at last I have the snow cover needed to lock in some deep surface cold. Already down to -6*C and falling steadily under clear skies.

 

Looking ahead and the ECM 12z makes for alarming viewing; while 2-3 cm of snow on Thursday is nice, some 9+ hours of freezing rain (7-9pm Thu to 6-8 am Fri), with ground temps of -2 or below predicted, is not!

Even more extraordinary is how that gets followed up by 3-6 hours of heavy snow as the temps aloft drop back below zero.

I am rather suspicious though of how the run gets a pretty wide area above zero at the 850 level despite substantial disruption of the trough; this ought to hold up the upper flow enough that the above zeros are mixed out within less than 6 hours and having not much much inland of the S Coast... in theory. 

Reality sometimes plays a cruel card against theory though and I am starting to resign my expectations to a very hazardous Friday with a high chance of power outages that could be prolonged. Freezing rain mixed with snow is many, many times more dangerous than snow in isolation.

The UKMO 12z looks supportive of largely or even entirely snow from the event, so I for one am hoping it's on the money and not ECM! Worth noting GFS is all-snow once a few miles inland of the coast so ECM is the odd one out at this time.

[warren]

Can’t believe how lucky we were in Weston-Super-Mare today. 

[jtay]

6 minutes ago, bathweatherwatcher said:

A different kind of knocker ?

I getcha. 

Currently -3.6C.

[Frosty hollows]

6 minutes ago, audiotech said:

Lucked out with a heavy snow shower in south Oxfordshire. Approached with really dark menacing skies like an April shower thunderstorm. Great seeing the snow flakes falling about 20 metres in front of you and advancing towards you. Using car thermo, temp dropped from +1 before the shower at 4:30pm to -6 at 6:15pm. Barely a 50% dusting when I got back home though and a balmy -3. Hopefully see some much bigger and more widespread inland convective showers tomorrow with the super cold uppers at their coldest.

 

The shower approaching and the resulting snow:

Ooh a local. Not many of us on here!

[MP-R]

A nice 1-2cm here in Yatton that must have fallen from that big shower a few hours ago while I was in Bristol.

-2.6C already so looks odds on for the coldest night of the winter, on the last day of it too!

[CheesepuffScott]

Looks quiet.

[Frosty hollows]

Temps now in freefall. -8c already. DP -9c. Beautiful ice crystals forming on the pavement even as I'm watching! Never seen that before. Really should be a warning for ice here.  The untreated roads are lethal

[EllyTech]

13 minutes ago, audiotech said:

Lucked out with a heavy snow shower in south Oxfordshire. Approached with really dark menacing skies like an April shower thunderstorm. Great seeing the snow flakes falling about 20 metres in front of you and advancing towards you. Using car thermo, temp dropped from +1 before the shower at 4:30pm to -6 at 6:15pm. Barely a 50% dusting when I got back home though and a balmy -3. Hopefully see some much bigger and more widespread inland convective showers tomorrow with the super cold uppers at their coldest.

 

The shower approaching and the resulting snow:

Great pictures. 

[Bazray]

28 minutes ago, bathweatherwatcher said:

Yes Ian was rushed tonight. The producers of Points West obviously felt a story about knitted knockers (see Points West FB page) deserved more airtime than the forecast for the potential of quite severe weather in our region over the next few days.

As always, Ian was a true professional and did his best to fit as much in as he could in such a short space of time rushing through tomorrow’s forecast to get to Thursday.

Sadly this happens all too often on Points West with Ian given little time to deliver his forecast; even at times of severe weather. I like Points West but sometimes the program can be a waste of half an hour apart from the weather forecast.

Yea we have amber warnings over our region, and they are chatting about knitted boobs (apparently they use them to teach expectant mothers how to breast feed, I mean it cant be that difficult right?)and KFC running out of chicken! could not make it up ?

Edited February 27, 2018 by Bazray

[jtay]

5 minutes ago, CheesepuffScott said:

Looks quiet.

Too quiet...