South East and East Anglia Weather Discussion January 2021 onwards

[dubmuffin]

There seems to be little sign of an escape from this weather - just above freezing and grey for the foreseeable, and no chance of a quick break in the canaries to alleviate the misery. Sorry - just looked at eh met office forecast in search of relief

[yamkin]

Sleet here now. Temp is 3.7C

[TROY]

Well we did get sunshine for nearly half an hour here , but its clouding over again.

[danm]

I'm assuming all of those showers piling into Suffolk, Essex and Kent and pushing SW are of the rain variety? 

[paget]

The suns trying to poke through the clouds at the moment, it feels cold out there, just bitter! 
 

temp 3.8 

dp 1 

Temps here (Farnham, Surrey) are meant to be dropping tomorrow night and staying cold till Friday, hopefully If there’s any precipitation it will fall as snow! 

Sue x 

 

[terryall]

Around here at Whitstable there’s more chance of flooding than anything else. Now had 2 solid days of rain to add to all the other wet days so all that water drains down the hill behind me and into our garden on its way to the beach. Never seen it so wet but the good thing is I have many free duck ponds!

[Blazerblue]

Is there any end to this relentless rain coming anytime soon? Flooding again here, after the weeks before flooding had finally receded. Just keep piling in off the sea

[Southender]

11 minutes ago, danm said:

I'm assuming all of those showers piling into Suffolk, Essex and Kent and pushing SW are of the rain variety? 

Correct. Dew points and air temps too high for any snow on low ground. Perhaps a sleety shower if you are really lucky

[snowrye]

Another spitting image, john major sketch, grey grey grey, miserable, where's the peas

[Nimbusman]

9 minutes ago, Southender said:

Correct. Dew points and air temps too high for any snow on low ground. Perhaps a sleety shower if you are really lucky

Yup same here again today, 3°C is our favourite number at the moment (not the magic number as Del la Soul would have you believe!). Seems like we’ve had more days of 3 degrees and dank greyness than anything else the past month. Totally wasted synoptics... actually that sounds like a good band name that! 

[Daniel*]

Typically the heavier showers come my way now T 3.4C, DP 1C, frustrating as if we knocked 1C off on both it would be snow. Well I saw some snowflakes earlier this morning, hopefully that’s not the last of it! It’s pretty unbelievable this isn’t producing wintry weather in early January, while easterly isn’t coming from Siberia I think it’s clearest evidence yet something has changed. If we saw this pattern 4 weeks later, I wonder if things could have been markedly different. Even the convection has been lacking but given coldest 850hPa temps were -7°C perhaps not overly surprising but given warmer sea it sorts of offsets that.
 

It does seem generally true in SE, we rarely see proper cold weather in first half of winter so expectations are always low, our region really does deserve something spectacular and for us only, every other region of U.K. has seen snowfall including Cornwall, the Midlands continues to strike lucky, what does it take to see a decent spell of snowfall down here a blood sacrifice? 

 

[Captain Shortwave]

A nothing day here. A lot of mid/high level cloud and a little sunshine.

Despite 850s of -9c last night, the showers that did pass through were all rain.

[Met4Cast]

1 minute ago, Daniel* said:

. Even the convection has been lacking but given coldest 850hPa temps were -7°C perhaps not overly surprising but given warmer sea it sorts of offsets that.

Has it? We've been seeing showers across the whole of eastern & SE England for the last two days now, generally non stop with streamers setting up in quite a few areas, convection has been aplenty.

The issue is the lack of cold across Europe + air sourced originally from the Med rather than Siberia. The slightly warmer N Sea SST's have also helped to modify not very cold air to the wrong side of marginal, indeed it was obvious as early as Friday that many areas would be seeing rainfall rather than anything of the wintry variety, especially across the SE, areas further north faired better. 

This week never looked favourable for our region. 

[Country Boy]

2 hours ago, lambgregg1977 said:

I'll give that a bash, cheers

Why not try.

www.raintoday.co.uk

I have used this for years, it's in real time .

[Country Boy]

44 minutes ago, danm said:

I'm assuming all of those showers piling into Suffolk, Essex and Kent and pushing SW are of the rain variety? 

Correct all showers are of Rain.

Some heavy

[Daniel*]

14 minutes ago, Met4Cast said:

Has it? We've been seeing showers across the whole of eastern & SE England for the last two days now, generally non stop with streamers setting up in quite a few areas, convection has been aplenty.

The issue is the lack of cold across Europe + air sourced originally from the Med rather than Siberia. The slightly warmer N Sea SST's have also helped to modify not very cold air to the wrong side of marginal, indeed it was obvious as early as Friday that many areas would be seeing rainfall rather than anything of the wintry variety, especially across the SE, areas further north faired better. 

This week never looked favourable for our region. 

It’s a whole lot to do with the North Sea it’s a blessing and a curse the warmer SSTs and modification, the warmer dew points which are the result of that it’s been critical problem. The uppers are satisfactory -7C from east, for snow to fall inland no powder snow, and you won’t see widespread laying snow but the precipitation should be wintry especially in January. 

Edited January 5, 2021 by Daniel*

[NewEra21]

When an easterly is cold enough it's magical with those snow showers piling in off the north sea. But on the flip side like today when it's cold, but not quite cold enough. It's absolutely miserable and there's nothing worse than a cold, wet easterly imo. 

If it's gonna rain I'd rather it was just the mild SWly muck.

[alexisj9]

Dover has been dry, cloudy with sunny spells for a while now, I've no problem with that continuing, as it's just not cold enough to turn the shower train white 

[NewEra21]

2 minutes ago, Daniel* said:

It’s a whole lot to do with the North Sea it’s a blessing and a curse the warmer SSTs and modification, the warmer dew points which are the result of that it’s been critical problem. The uppers are satisfactory -7C from east, for snow to fall inland no powder snow, and you won’t see widespread laying snow but the precipitation should be wintry especially in January. 

Yeah this week really does feel like such a waste for us in the SE & EA. Almost perfect synoptics, showers and streamers not a problem. But the depth of cold just isn't there from the east, and what is there is just being moderated by the North Sea.

Hopefully we still get another chance this winter, but I can't help but feel this week was our big chance and it's just slipped through our fingers. 

[Coopsy]

I’ve been watching with interest the set up there for the last few days. I’m sure it’s been said but a slight tweak in temps/DP and this probably would have been up there with 1987. (For snowfall not extreme cold)

Almost three days of sustained NE winds and showers relentlessly coming ashore. 

I’ve a friend who lives up at blue bell hill. Just text her to see if she had snow. She sent this from this morning. Moderate snow at 200m.  I’m assuming that’s the most anyone has seen from this. 

[snowspotter]

I can see a basic chart for sea temperature on this site under data . Can’t see an anomaly chart though . Is there one we can see that backs up the ‘warmer than normal’ sea comments ? 

[Jason M]

20 minutes ago, Captain Shortwave said:

A nothing day here. A lot of mid/high level cloud and a little sunshine.

Despite 850s of -9c last night, the showers that did pass through were all rain.

Its a truly horrid airmass isn't it. With 850s of -6 off the continent in early Jan, once imbedded it would normally be snow but this airmass is just a soup of modified layers and high dew points. At -9C its not often you see rain in this country and you must have been knocking on the door of freezing rain last night with those uppers.

[Daniel*]

Just now, NewEra21 said:

Yeah this week really does feel like such a waste for us in the SE & EA. Almost perfect synoptics, showers and streamers not a problem. But the depth of cold just isn't there from the east, and what is there is just being moderated by the North Sea.

Hopefully we still get another chance this winter, but I can't help but feel this week was our big chance and it's just slipped through our fingers. 

The southern North Sea is more than 2C warmer than average in places, it’s no surprise we’re struggling more.

OSTIA

GHRSST-PP.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

 

[danm]

26 minutes ago, Daniel* said:

Typically the heavier showers come my way now T 3.4C, DP 1C, frustrating as if we knocked 1C off on both it would be snow. Well I saw some snowflakes earlier this morning, hopefully that’s not the last of it! It’s pretty unbelievable this isn’t producing wintry weather in early January, while easterly isn’t coming from Siberia I think it’s clearest evidence yet something has changed. If we saw this pattern 4 weeks later, I wonder if things could have been markedly different. Even the convection has been lacking but given coldest 850hPa temps were -7°C perhaps not overly surprising but given warmer sea it sorts of offsets that.
 

It does seem generally true in SE, we rarely see proper cold weather in first half of winter so expectations are always low, our region really does deserve something spectacular and for us only, every other region of U.K. has seen snowfall including Cornwall, the Midlands continues to strike lucky, what does it take to see a decent spell of snowfall down here a blood sacrifice? 

 

It’s just bad luck surely? There’s nothing particularly different about the climate of Worcester or Wolverhampton, both of which have seen snow over the last week, and the SE? We missed out on the showers and the troughs that passed over the Midlands/North/SW a few days ago and right now the air we are sourcing is just the wrong side of marginal. Not all easterlies produce snow. In 2010 the cold and snow started with an E/NE airflow in late November. We had 3/4 days of snow showers in that spell. 

[Jason M]

23 minutes ago, Met4Cast said:

Has it? We've been seeing showers across the whole of eastern & SE England for the last two days now, generally non stop with streamers setting up in quite a few areas, convection has been aplenty.

The issue is the lack of cold across Europe + air sourced originally from the Med rather than Siberia. The slightly warmer N Sea SST's have also helped to modify not very cold air to the wrong side of marginal, indeed it was obvious as early as Friday that many areas would be seeing rainfall rather than anything of the wintry variety, especially across the SE, areas further north faired better. 

This week never looked favourable for our region. 

I suspect the issue for most is warmer layers higher up rather than SSTs warming the surface layer. That's not to say SSTs have no relevance but i suspect its not the key factor this time. Even on the other side of the water its been wintry mix away from higher areas.