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.

As long as our ski hills are significantly snowy then that's fine 😄

So am I having snow in Manchester for my birthday on the 16th? .. please please please

it's possible sweetpeas, but I'm not going to go into details yet :D

OYBK- I'll keep watching and hoping then! Seriously I think I live in a microclimate were it never snows! 5 years ago was the last time we had any

Where

It's the battle of the models at the moment! ECMWF is going for proper cold and potentially proper winter. GFS has gone all mardy and is going for very mild and very very wet. We need to see where Sunday's high pressure ends up. Sunday will be cold though!

They're too technical for me! I'd been looking at metcheck which was giving snow for my area but which now seems to have turned to sleet. Not sure how accurate that is anyway though...

Metcheck uses just one weather model. As the major models are in violent disagreement with each other, absolutely no one knows!

Sounds interesting!

Think this is a pretty good summary here of the way things stand when it comes to the possibilty of cold/snow for next week.

If that is correct then it is looking rather warm up in the north of Scotland 😢 Unless I am reading it wrong?

Sometimes I wish Express forecasts were true! We would have nice snowy winters and lovely hot summers 😄

Picture (stolen from a Facebook page ) of what the side roads and paths are like around here. They've been like this for a week or so.

Well I'm getting 15-20 inches today. Do I win?

Said the actress to the bishop 😉

So envious - we just have ice ice ice 😟

imyourgirl ~ I'm thinking you're in Canada/North USA?

Forecast from the metoffice ~ sort of a mix of all things for the rest of the month...

Outlook for the UK over the next 6-30 days
UK Outlook for Monday 8 Jan 2018 to Wednesday 17 Jan 2018:

On Monday and Tuesday we see colder conditions established across the UK, bringing plenty of dry and bright weather, but also some wintry showers for eastern areas. Strong winds are likely in places, especially the south and west, making it feel bitterly cold here and it will be frosty for many overnight. As we go into the second half of next week we are likely to see frontal systems make erratic progress into the west of the UK, bringing with them the threat of some snow. There will still be plenty of dry weather, perhaps with some sunshine, though wintry showers may continue in the east. It will stay generally cold with overnight frosts, but temperatures may recover closer to normal at times from the west.

UK Outlook for Thursday 18 Jan 2018 to Thursday 1 Feb 2018:

During the second half of January a return to more mobile weather looks likely, with Atlantic systems returning to influence our weather, but exactly when this occurs is still subject to a lot of uncertainty. As changeable conditions become re-established we will see spells of rain, showers and strong winds moving across the country, along with a risk of one or more significant snow events, especially at the start of this period. It is likely to be windy at times, with a risk of gales. Temperatures are likely to be cold at first, but return to near normal, again with the timing of this transition still open to a lot of uncertainty.

This is what we do know: That into this weekend temperatures are going to drop significantly. It will become much calmer and drier.

This is what we think may happen: we may get short notice bands of snow showers coming in. These may become persistent in the east. We may get some significant accumulation on high ground.

This is what we have very little knowledge about: how cold it actually will get, whether snow showers will affect lower ground, how long the cold will last for.

@GloriaSmud yes coastal Maine.

@SinceWhenDid don't be. We'll probably lose power for over a week and it's going to be -30 on the back of this storm. I ducking hate living here sometimes.

The metoffice should have just put what you've written!

I think it'll just be a question of taking it 3-4 days at a time on this occasion. The models are finding it hard to get a handle on this cold snap after that.

@imyourgirl hope you are all OK. Storm looks wild!

We didn't even lose power!

It sure how much snow, I'll take a picture when it's daylight.

Did you get a photo?

We are due snow tonight but probably not much.

A little something to cheer a chilly January evening ~ Animals enjoying the snow (I love the dog with the sledge!)

There isn't much to talk about here is there? It's a bit of a rubbish cold spell. It's just well.... cold. And that's it, until it stops being cold then goes back to wild and wet later on in January. I hope the models change!

Cold but blowing through either that horrible greyness or a sudden respite and hint of blue, before the grey again. Clear tonight and freezing, as in 0°C but not as in USA/Canada freezing!