Snow watch 2017/18

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I wish you could have joint thread starters! Gloria and I will be hosting this years snow watch and tag teaming with amateur weather forecasts. When reading them, please bear in mind that we are both amateurs with busy day to day lives, but we will do our best.

Please remember snow is notoriously difficult to forecast in this country as it often falls under marginal conditions.
When a forecast matters please do check with the Met Office first.

After a taste of winter already for some in the east, this mornings GFS model sticks with the winter weather theme we’ve been noticing for a few days for late Thurs 7th onwards, with a significant low pressure looking to bring in some cold and potentially rather snowy weather. Indeed, there is the potential for this to be accompanied by some very strong winds.

At the moment GFS plays around with the exact location of this low pressure, so it is too early to say where any snow may hit, but most places away from the far west seem to be in the potential firing line at the moment.

If some of the charts come off, the weather could be quite disruptive next weekend.

ice warnings

I hate ice.

titsy, snow does look likely tomorrow morning for you. I'm unsure as to how much will settle for you.

Nothing here - South Downs near Brighton, disappointed

I'm trying to work out how bad it has to be before we close school...

Who gets to decide that Moody?

I'm not even sure! The head and I have been texting...she is expecting to hear something from our local authority but nothing so far. It's the first time either of us have had to deal with the possibility!

Who gets to decide that Moody?

Used to be head and caretakers whilst discussing it with staff too.

Not got above freezing all day, but not a hint of snow in Edinburgh

I am wondering if we will be in tomorrow as the Welsh Valleys are covered in snow. Some major roads have had problems. Some staff were unable to come in on Friday. I was unwell and have been all weekend. I hope I am off tomorrow so I wont feel guilty if I have to phone in ill again. It is supposed to snow again later tonight but then sunny tomorrow but obviously the sun wont melt anything before school is due to open.
I live further afield and have not been affected by the snow at all.

Its a different scenario, but I remember telling the HT of our local school that the heavy snow that was happening was going to get much heavier. He didn't or wasn't able to listen and so part way through the day we ended with stranded children, a closed school and parents struggling to get in to get them and getting stuck.

Fortunately you have more warning this time. I think my general rule of thumb is that if highways and local police are warning people to stay off the roads, then that especially applies to school kids. Are buses running in your area, if you have them on a Sunday...

Hey Kitten what do you think of me driving from South Midlands to Sussex tomorrow? Unlikely? We've had about 6 inches today (yay) and it's not going anywhere. If snow is forecast for the south tomorrow that's a double whammy!

Car thermometer read 1.5 degrees when I passed Gatwick just now.

Can't believe it'll still be rain if we get precipitation at these temperatures.

Nothing here. I live in one place and keep my horse in the other and the weather is basically
Entire U.K. clear = horse area under a foot of snow
Entire U.K. has snow = where I live is raining

Are you going on main roads? It would be best to follow the highways twitter feeds list and local bbc radio stations.

I can only ever offer advice as to what I would do when it comes to travel and my acceptable risk limits may be different from yours. If you can travel out of your area safely tomorrow, then if it were me I'd go for it, given that by the time you get to Sussex hopefully the gritters will be on top of things.

Today what I saw was a fairly useless bit of gritting though! But it was a rain to snow scenario and the problem with that is that the rain just washes it all away.

It managed to rain at 0.5C Bishop, which I thought was quite an impressive feat!

OYBBK sheep were absolutely fine but very happy to see the jcb come down the field with hay on the front!

We left the sheep at about 11 to drive the 7 or so miles back home - only got in about 10 minutes ago - trying to clear snow off a particular hill near us which is an A road and one of the main routes between Oxford and Gloucester. Obviously the councils don't consider it important enough to send the snow plough in - I think we pulled somewhere in the region of 30 vehicles up to the top and finally amazed to scrape the snow off enough to get down to the tarmac - had the police and all there directing traffic as there were cars stuck everywhere and no one could get up or down.

Completely frozen so sat with a whiskey coffee trying to thaw out! Am also really disappointed with the attitudes of people - very few thankyou and a couple even blamed us because they couldn't get through - like I wanted to spend my Sunday digging people out of situations they should not have got themselves into - there is a reason for travel warnings

Still snowing here but it's that really fine snow so not building much more depth - feels like the temp is dropping though so fully expecting dangerous conditions in the morning.

I can't believe we have NO snow, so disappointed

A cross-post from the Oxbridge thread for anyone who's looking here instead (or travelling to Oxford for any other reason!)

Right, bearing in mind that there's still a chance of snow in Oxford between now and tomorrow and there's a yellow weather warning for ice:

Oxford Bus Company (roughly half the city centre services plus all Park and Ride buses) are running limited services - updates here www.oxfordbus.co.uk/serviceupdates/snow-updates/ or by following @OxfordBusCo

Stagecoach Oxford (the other half of city services) have started running some limited services, their website is rubbish so best updates are from @Stagecoach_Ox

Oxford Tube (Oxford city to London Victoria) were running hourly services til it got dark, expected to start running again early tomorrow - @Oxford_Tube

Oxfordshire County Council have had gritters and snowplows out all day trying to clear A & B roads round the county - check @OxfordshireCC

Good luck to all, and don't worry if you can't make it to your interview, University departments and Colleges do make contingency plans!

Thank you for helping out those who thought they knew better and ignored the warnings whojamaflip. Farmers around the UK risk their lives, their machinery, to help others in snow/icy conditions and get little to no thanks. The police I expect were very thankful for your assistance, they too get little thanks for being out in all weather coming to the aid of people who get themselves in bother.

Snow here now! It wasn’t forecast. It laying and I don’t want to drive in it with my silly car. I’m in South Tyneside.

Ilikesweetpeas none in the village I am in either... it teased for a while but it stopped. Might get some tomorrow looking at the forecast.

Dh will go out a bit later and check if anyone's stuck on the hill before bedtime - the gritter has gone through so fingers crossed the road should be ok - he just would worry if he didn't check.

Just heard our secondary school is shut tomorrow (yay!!!) and keeping my fingers crossed the primary is as well - mind you looking at the road through our village I don't reckon I would get out in anything less than the tractor!

Snow is forecast here until 10 am tomorrow with no break so will have to do the sheep run in the jcb again tomorrow by the looks of it

Still snowing in Wolverhampton. My kids schools are closed tomorrow.

Still snowing here.

Not sure about schools. Some authorities have blanket closures but not ours.

blimey whojam. You need a medal for all that effort. Well done!