South West and Central Southern England Regional Weather Discussion 03/03/2018 Onwards

[Man With Beard]

I think it is actually all over?

[lettice]

Had a bit of a lull for an hour, but just started snowing again, only lightly but the bigger flakes.

[karlos1983]

2 minutes ago, Nights King said:

Is it premature to change to my spring avatar... 

ECM having none of it I’m not sure I’ve got the energy to urge another cold spell in. Was watching this one for what felt like 2 weeks to arrive lol 

but if needs must 

[*Stormforce~beka*]

7 minutes ago, Leon1 said:

"Great ! And so the theme continues

Every bit as bitter as the current Beast but direct Arctic northerly at the time of year when the Arctic is at it's coldest.

Widespread snow / blizzards across the Nation.

A cracking Easter weekend if it verifies and GFS pretty damned consistent across several runs now."         THIS IS FROM THE MAD THREAD AND IT LOOKS GREAT! 

Oh sod it!! I've given up on spring!!!! Bring me more ruddy beasts!!!!

[Nights King]

2 minutes ago, karlos1983 said:

ECM having none of it I’m not sure I’ve got the energy to urge another cold spell in. Was watching this one for what felt like 2 weeks to arrive lol 

but if needs must 

Perhaps next time ill have the luxury of snow free roads with higher ground temperatures 

Roads are carnage out there.

[*Stormforce~beka*]

Plus if the beast comes I might get away with not driving north to my Mother in laws! *Shudder*

[Nights King]

I might go build a snowman and see if he survives until the next beast... 

[The Weather Yoda]

[*Stormforce~beka*]

15 minutes ago, Nights King said:

I might go build a snowman and see if he survives until the next beast... 

I shall do the same with the kids tonight in the garden!

[*Stormforce~beka*]

-0.2c :-( My ice is about to go

[Guest]

A QUICK FINAL ROUND UP AND SOME MORE PICS     

Well that was all a real treat for those that love the snow and did not suffer any hardship or disasters. I'm snowed in at the moment as I live at the top of a low hill and I do not have snow chains or winter tyres. The warm ground should melt the snow in the road during today especially if we get a little sunshine but the temp is still -1c here. I expect it'll get up to 2c or 3c by lunchtime unless that small area of light snow reaches south Devon. Just one final look at a few charts:

                    Live UK Radar                                           Live France Radar                                              Live Satelitte                                     Live Infra Red Satelitte

                     

                   Live UK Pressure                                       Live Euro Pressure                               Last 24 hours Euro Pressure            Fronts & troughs at 0600 GMT Mon

                     

         Live UK Temps Last 24 Hours                        UK Temps Last 24 Hours                        Euro Temps Last 24 Hours                  UK Ground Temps at 0900 GMT Mon

                   

There is still a little mostly light snow shower activity revolving around in the LP circulation coming out of France and in the Channel and some of this on its northern edge is brushing the far south. Here's a snip of the NetWeather radar at 1015:    it's moving south-westwards and the whole area of precipitation is being dragged away southwards and south-westwards leaving the UK.

Apart from that there may be the odd snow flurry but I feel that the proper snow in "this" spell is now over. Those, like me, who saw a lot of snow, would have seen it finally accumulate on the roads and pavements yesterday. Apart from the power of the sun, the ground temps are still around +2c to +3c throughout our region (see the last chart). So, apart from anywhere that saw some larger drifts, the roads and footpaths will be clear later today. With the temp only rising slightly above zero for a few hours, the general thaw will be quite slow today in shaded parts and on grass. As in the last "beast" spell, we've had very dry, powder snow. This contains less than 10% of the moisture compared to our usual wet snow.  So, it will disappear quite quickly, especially tomorrow and will add very little melt water to those areas that were seeing some flooding last week. Tonight will see some particularly dangerous conditions when the temp falls well below zero with a very hard frost - I predict a -6c somewhere in the snow fields (near Liscombe for example). Any melt water will freeze and leave a lot of black ice patches from around 1900 onwards. I should all be clear again by 1000 tomorrow.

Now for a few pics:

                     

It was difficult to measure the depth. There had been some sublimation overnight (sinking and compacting of the snow cover under its own weight). Maximum level depth were 18 cm to 20 cm. More like 15 cm  now. There are some drifts down the road of over 50 cm (no pics).  I must dig out my car later on.

                    

The daffs are buried with just one bravely poking through - looks like it's regretting that   

              

Should I have put the bins out? 

                   

Icicles everywhere - some are over a foot long now. There is one outside my bedroom window which is about 30 cm long. I couldn't get out there with a ruler but I've annotated two chart s(very crudely). From the same window you can see my faithful lamp post. So it has been watching snow overnight and watching iclcles grow in the day light

I do need to catch up with a lot of work now. So, I'll sign off until the next extreme weather event. There's likely to be some northerlies, north-easterlies or even a beast 3 in about 10 days time. Any beast will be tamed as the source region of Russia and Siberia will warm up rapidly during the next few days. A north-easterly from the Arctic and tracking over Scandi can still produce unusually cold weather as it did in late March and early April 2013. I'm not predicting a repeat of that but it's possible. With La Nina steadily weakening, ENSO neutral conditions usually favour some settled spring weather with very weak jet streams. So it might be a quick change during April from cold to warm.

David   

 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Guest
Correct typos and check charts

[EllyTech]

Roads good. Snow hanging on well. Dry, partial Sunshine.

Temp 1C  Humidity 61%  Dewpoint -5C 

 

[Nights King]

6 minutes ago, *Stormforce~beka* said:

-0.2c :-( My ice is about to go

Mine is holding on for dear life -0.01c 

Not used to these mild spring days. 

[Lyn-M]

Very little extra overnight here, possibly 2cm, roads are clear in the village and in to Sherborne.  The icicles on our summerhouse roof are small compared to others on here but I also have foxy footprints in the snow! 

 

 

[EllyTech]

Its been an absolute pleasure having you around and reporting, Bring Back1962-63, David.

Beautifully caught icicle there. Thank you so much. Frost watch tonight then. 

[matt111]

The thaws already started here, although I did have a head start here with a less snow than most.

Still snowing very lightly at the same time but the temperatures on the rise. 0.5°C  

[Leon1]

anybody else want beast no. 3 'cos i do!

[divadee]

I don't know if I can cope with beast 3. Part of me is craving some warm weather and sun. Another part is wanting the last hoorah of winter. 

[TropicThunder]

43 minutes ago, Man With Beard said:

I think it is actually all over?

Yes sadly looks like the end of it now, but what an epic few days it's been even surpassing what we got two weeks ago. March 2018 will be remembered forever more in here. It actually feels normal now looking out the window and seeing several inches of lying snow!

Next winter has a lot to live up to.

[wiltshire weather]

Some excellent analysis and reporting from all over the past few days, great regional thread to be a part of unlike some others it seems!

Glad everyone seems to have got at least some snow, managed around 14cm overall here I think when I measured it on top of the wheelie bin this morning!

Temps here up to +3degC now and snow is rapidly melting off roads and cars etc although not much sunshine yet to melt it on the grass.

Some great snow drifts on my walk with the dog this morning from the extra snow last night and laying stuff blowing around. Will post some pictures once my phone line is fixed. Its been down all weekend so have been burning through my mobile data rather too much!

 

[Mapantz]

Current obs:

Temp: 1°C - hum: 72% - Dew: -3.5°C - Wind Chill: -3.4°C - Apparent Temp: -4.6°C - Bar: 1014.46hPa - Wind: NE ~ NNE @ 10mph.

[Dean E]

Snowfall amounts last night was around 4cm on top of the 8cm we had from Saturday night. 12cm in March is unheard of here!

Seems the snow is shrinking from wind evaporation rather than melting as temperatures are still below freezing and there is a lack of puddles that you would normally see from the melting snow. 

What a weekend its been and a great March so far! Its possible that Easter week could be another blast, but with the ever strengthening Sun at this time of the year, I think this will be more limited.

Current conditions:

Temperature -1.0c Dew: -4.8c Feels like -5.9c Wind now NE.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Dean E

[MP-R]

What a great winter overall it could've been if we'd had December then February as January and March as February. If we were a month earlier I'd be up for a third beast but now I really hope we progress into spring. Doesn't have to be full on summer mode but after last week I've got the convective weather bug.

[TropicThunder]

Temperature is still just below freezing here too, crazy.

[Guest]

OK, just one more thing. Some impressively low dew points - this will dry things out rapidly where there's any melting. My icicles are still growing in the shade but melting in the sun. I'm still at 0c - the "albedo effect" of the deep snow cover reflecting the sunlight is really working hard today. Snow on the grass, even in the sun will only sublimate and evaporate but barely melt if the air temp remains below 4c. With these dew point reading and with clear skies tonight, I expect almost everyone to see below -3c tonight, -4c to -5c over the snowfields (including Exmouth as the winds will be a lighter north-easterly overnight) and -6c or even lower in the frost hollows such as around Liscombe and near Dunkeswell Aerodrome + many others. This may be setting an new record low min for second half of March in the south-west.

Dew Point Temps:               Live UK                               UK Last 24 hours to 1050 GMT Mon                         Live Euro                             Last 24 hours Euro 0910 GMT Mon

                            

                                        Live UKTemps                                       Live Euro Temps

                         

  Finally, I'll sound the "all clear"    Goodbye for a few days, at least.  Thanks for putting up with me   David

Edited March 19, 2018 by Guest
Correct typos and check charts