Boxing Day snow thread

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

From storm thread which talked about the complexities of tomorrow's weather:

"Merry Christmas will be really interesting to seem where gets snow tomorrow. Hilly parts of Wales, some of northern England, the midlands perhaps at times and I still think the chilterns. It depends on how heavy the precipitation is, the air it falls through and obviously the temperature. I expect some people will have rather a surprise."

And With regards to discussion about NI: "it's going to sound like a cop out but I just don't know 850hpa temps look borderline as does air temp but if the rain is heavy and falls through dry air as it evaporates it can cool the air down allowing snow to fall. ( evaporative cooling)
Often snow in the UK hangs on a knife edge with a temp swing of one or two degrees making all the difference. It makes it very difficult for councils. Put grit down too early and it gets washed away then it turns to snow and everyone blames the councils for the ensuing chaos."

I don't think things have changed since my thoughts earlier today.

Happy Christmas OYBBK!

-2 on our shed this morn; we are in a little micro-climate in N Bucks, frosty and cloudy but bright. No telling if we will get rain or snow later (we can end up with surprise dumpings of snow) but roads need to be clear tomorrow morning for travel.

Forecast is to remain cold through to NY so I'm hoping the cat will sleep on the bed whilst DH and DS are away until NYE, although said cat is favouring a box on the rug at the moment...

Lumpy ~ ours get turned off after 11.30pm so any snow had better arrive before then!

Big lump of rain (probably not a proper meteorological term!) showing up here and you can see where snow has arrived, here (nothing showing at the moment but probably one for later.)

Metoffice has changed the warning area a bit (I think it looks like an oddly shaped crown from a Christmas cracker!)

I finally had a lie in. Yay! So it looks like East Anglia has come into the firing line of potentially disruptive snow.

Grr, we are out of the warning zone now, just rain forecast
Typical as this really would be the ideal time for snow, everyone off school/work, houseful of food and nowhere we have to be until January

Met office are talking about the potential for an amber warning for some of Wales and the Midlands, with several cm forecast even in low lying areas.

Morning Kitten!! Thick frost down here on the Downs, outskirts of Brighton. Brrr!!!

Tomorrow we have a potentially nasty situation for those who end up with heavy rain instead of snow. If the temps fall just a couple of degrees lower than predicted in the early hours (if the skies clear after the rain goes through) then tomorrow could be very icy. Met office haven't any warnings for that, but I reckon its something to watch for.

As long as the M23 is gritted, just need to get up to Gatwick tomorrow morning

My local temp is currently 3c lower than the met office forecast. I wonder if we might see some snow further south.

Oybbk it's always colder by a few degrees than met office say here. I assume it's because we are pretty rural. Funnily enough my iPhone weather is usually more accurate.

Some timings:
12pm rain across SW southern and west Coast Wales.
3pm precip in line Brighton to Liverpool
6pm precip in line between Far East Kent to Manchester.
9pm precip across the UK from Yorkshire down.

I'm saying precip to cover the unpredictable nature. But heavy rain in places will turn to heavy snow at some point so don't in those warnings areas think oh it's raining we are in the clear. You may not be by the time the night is out.
Heaviest snow I think looks to be towards the evening.

Central South East

Sky is very white here. Not sure if it'll be rain or snow?!

The smallest resolution of the met office models is 1.5km which means practically it gives 'accurate' forecast details of a grid box of about 5km I think.
They don't seem to pick up local microclimates very well. We are also consistently a couple of degrees colder, on a frosty night despite being fairly urban as we live in a frost hollow. In the summer we go hotter.

Chipping I wait with baited breath too. May start off as rain and then later turn to snow as the rain gets heavy.

I wouldn't rely on gritting as being a useful panacea. Timing will be a nightmare. If the councils do it too early then the preceding heavy rain will wash it away. Once the snow starts, the traffic slows drastically and the gritters can't get through fast enough to make a difference. Then traffic jams form and that's it, they can't get through. It's a gritters nightmare. It's one reason why we struggle with snow so much in the UK as it's quite a common scenario for our snow.

I've not mentioned the possibility to my DC's.

We will see!

OYBBK we have friends driving from Suffolk to Flintshire this evening, will they be OK do you think or would they be better to leave earlier? thanks

I would be hustling them out of the door with a flask and sandwiches pronto!

Eeek thank you!

Ive just looked at the Weather Warning link someone just linked to upthread, Snow for East Kent, can that be true? Seriously? Wowzers if that the case.

Kitten what time do you think that might be, any idea?

Sorry, another one Kitten Brother is leaving ours (East Kent) and driving to Sheffield today, shall I pack him an emergency bag?

Onestep, if it happens it won't be until at least mid evening.

I wish the met office would refine their probabilities by region, because whilst it now looks pretty certain that there will be some disruptive snow, it's hard for the general public to look at those warnings and discern local risk and areas like east Kent and Essex have a lower probability of seeing snow, disruptive or otherwise than say Wales and the Midlands.

Thanks Kitten I wont dust off the sledge then!