Badkitten's 'Will it snow at Christmas?' thread.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Well, the moment has come

The 19th December - when many kids break from school has appeared in the GFS charts.....

I'm going to do my best to update this at least once each day, but bear with me if life interferes a bit. My usual disclaimer: I'm only an amateur and I get things wrong. I dont say this out of false modesty but because its true and for important forecasts and for making decisions please refer to the met office.

Also at this range the forecast will be complete crap anyway and will change daily. As we get closer to the Christmas holidays other models will come into range and things will start to become more accurate - hopefully!

So:

Friday 19th (GFS) - The day starts off cold with temps around freezing. Some precipitation but it looks to err on the wrong side of frozen (ie not). Europe isnt looking cold for this time of year and so we are looking to our north and north west for the cold at this point.
That's as far as the model goes but later in the day I would expect it to end up in single fig temps. Might update this on the next model run.

catslave - even if everyone emailed you snow from the northern hills, according to this mornings forecast it would last about 15 minutes.

But fear not! The latest model run looks a little better. I admit it, I cracked and peeked. Lets see what it says in the morning.....

I did once freeze a little snow man when we went a few years without snow and then got a little, so that I could admire him.

RB, huge differences. One you say its lovely and mild out here, its a shame its wet' the other one you say 'bloody hell its raining again, at least its mild though'

I have promised my daughter that we will do the snow dance as soon as her dad and I have finished work for the Christmas break. Given that our little area has its own micro-climate which is relatively mild, we are going to have to bring down Arctic conditions for the rest of the UK in order to get a smidgen of snow in our garden. I apologise in advance to those of you who will need heavy digging equipment to get out to the shops.

badkitten does the model that is used allow for variables such as "lentil-weaving hippies doing snow dances"?

I don't think so world, its not a parameter I've seen, but with chaos theory you never know....

How's it looking for jersey OYBBK? just out of interest as our weather is boring

Three years since proper snow in s wales too (i see why we're on the same 'bit' of the map). Only i bloody missed it because I'd gone to visit family IN SCOTLAND!!! You think when you visit scotland just before xmas, odds are there will be snow. But nope, it just bloody snowed at home!

Yes to Channel Island weather, please. Snow for Christmas would be good.

Argh, Treelights... nooo!!

I have given up on ever having snow in December - I just don't care as long as it's not 14 degrees and drizzly like last year though I remember snow in November in about 2009 with great fondness...

Looking mild at present in jersey I'm afraid.

Shall we all do a big "fuck off" dance for the Azores High? The Azores can keep it.

Friday 19th (GFS and ECMWF) mild and wet in the south. Cooler and drier further north.

Saturday 20th (GFS ) Cold and showery, showers would be snow over northern and Welsh hills. (ECMWF) keeps the cold further north

Sunday 21st (GFS) Away from SW (mild) cold and dry. (ECMWF) keeps the cold further north.

Monday 22nd (GFS) Mild and damp over most areas (the east clinging on to colder weather)

Tuesday 23rd (GFS) Mild and damp

Christmas Eve (GFS) Mild and damp in the SW, cold and damp elsewhere

Christmas day (GFS) Cold and perhaps damp.

Boxing Day (GFS) dry and cold with a high pressure sitting over us.

That high pressure sitting over us has become a persistent feature in GFS over the past couple of days. If it establishes it would give us coldish, settled weather, but probably lots of grey overcast skies. However, ECMWF does not reflect this change over early in the period.

Its snowing in Nottinghamshire!!

Boooooo I want snow !

Where are you guys who haven't seen snow in three years? We only had a couple of light flurries last year but then every year before that for about 5 years we have had proper sledging snow.

Always the same. Rafa we need to move to Scotland!

Snowing in Edinburgh, proper heavy snow! Lovely....

I realised this morning, i was thinking the last snow was while i was pregnant with ds2, but then realised there is a picture of me with 9m old ds2 in the snow, so i must have been wrong

We had snow when I woke up this morning
Was only a dusting, although it had 'drifted' in the playground so all the dc were attempting to make teeny tiny snowmen before school started this morning It's all gone now though.
We're in the Lincolnshire Wolds.

all the snow has disappeared here in Notts

Sleety hail here in W Yorkshire just now.

I call us Northern

I'm not sure I want too much snow, jingle.

I'm on the south coast of England now so I'm gradually moving further north.

It mustn't snow or do anything that might cancel planes until I get home though.

Where in Notts are you Atticus? I'm just out the city centre and not a whiff of a snowflake this morning!

Ah, 42 I'm out past Redhill towards Mansfield which is always colder than the Nottingham bowl. It came down for about half an hour but didn't settle. The DSs were on their way to school in the city and were very annoyed that they missed it..

Morning all!

Friday 19th (GFS) mild in the south. Cooler further north with perhaps snow showers in Scotland. (ECMWF) rather windy in the north with perhaps some snow showers.

Saturday 20th (GFS ) High pressure sits over us giving a broadly dry, cool and perhaps grey day (ECMWF) cold and unsettled

Sunday 21st (GFS) Dominated by high pressure, cool settled conditions. Western side milder (ECMWF) Clinging on to the cold weather in the east, but mild weather moving in from the west.

Monday 22nd (GFS) Mild in the west, the east clinging on to cooler weather (ECMWF) Windy, cool, unsettled

Tuesday 23rd (GFS) Mild and damp

Christmas Eve (GFS) Mild and wet. The high pressure is shown to slide over mainland Europe in the worst possible position for us.

Christmas day (GFS) mild and wet

Boxing Day (GFS) Cooler away from the SW.

bah humbug.

Bah humbug indeed