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Latest news and views from Brian Gaze, TWO's founder.

Snow this weekend

Posted Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:05:10

Still looks this morning as though much of the country will see a spell of snow this weekend, but it is a ‘nowcast’ situation and the best thing is to follow your local weather forecasts, travel information and look out of the window! The overnight GFS run seems quite keen to turn the snow back to rain the further west you head, and it had been quite consistent in showing this. So it still looks as though eastern parts of the country are more likely to keep the snow. http://www.theweatheroutlook.com

Weekend snow prospects UPDATE 3

Very short and final update from me for the moment. It’s looking like much of the country will see snow this weekend, although it still seems as though the greatest risk is in central and eastern areas. In the west snow will probably turn back to rain, and even further east there is a chance of this happening at times too, although in the far south eastern corner all of the precipitation may fall as snow. Snow depths are tricky to forecast, but for some places 10cm is a distinct possibility, and locally – perhaps in parts of the Midlands – there could be more. In the UK snow is often marginal, and I’d not be surprised if come Sunday some people who were hoping to see deep powdery snow cover end up disappointed because with temperatures rising above freezing and the possibility of some rain before it clears, things could become slushy in parts. Anyway we”ll soon be at the stage where the best way to see if it’s going to snow is by looking out of your window rather than at a computer screen, so don’t miss it!

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com

Posted at Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:51:29

Have an ice day….or not

Despite being much of the country being under bitterly cold air the days are now getting longer and the sun stronger. The temperature here in the Chilterns fell to -7.5C last night, but despite that it has risen to above freezing in the sunshine this afternoon and is currently +1.2C. It will quickly start falling away again as the sun begins to set, but it shows just how difficult it is in southern Britain to get an ice day even in early February. What would help would be snow cover to reflect back the sunlight or cloud cover at the right time of the day to block out the sun, although with cloud cover things become more complex because it can stop temperatures dropping too low in the first place.

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com

Posted at Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:01:50

Weekend snow prospects UPDATE 2

I’ve just been looking at the GEFS 6z run which is the latest computer model data available to me, and things still look interesting for this weekend, but also marginal. The last couple of runs from the GFS/GEFS have been less favourable for snow than the previous few, but remember that it is only one of a number of computer models, and it isn’t in my view always the best for picking small scale changes. Nonetheless it shouldn’t be ignored, and based on this I still expect a spell of snow for many, but away from the eastern fringe there does seem to be a greater chance of it turning back to sleet or rain and becoming a slushy affair. I’ll post another update later today when the data from the afternoon computer model runs comes in. As I said before, keep your fingers crossed if you like snow, and keep them crossed if you don’t!

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com

Posted at Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:15:01

Weekend snow prospects UPDATE

The general picture for this weekend is still the same as it was when I last posted, but confidence on the details remains low in my view. A weather front will push in from the west with precipitation on its leading edge turning to snow as it meets the cold continental air over the UK. Much of the snow could turn back to rain during Saturday night and Sunday morning in central and western regions before it clears away. Further east a longer spell of snow looks more likely, although the weather front may well start to fragment as it moves south east reducing the intensity of the precipitation before it fades away. I’ll post another update later today, but it could be that areas to the east of London keep the snow, whilst elsewhere sees some rain or sleet before it turns drier. The weather during the last few days has been distinctly continental, but the snow event this weekend is looking a very British affair – in other words marginal and uncertain.

Posted at Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:18:30

Next week’s weather

A couple of days ago I was highlighting the prospects of a return to milder conditions next week, so I think it’s now worth providing an update on that. I’ve pasted in a chart showing forecast 850 hPA temperatures for London for the next 16 days produced from the GEFS computer model a couple of hours ago. [If you read down you can find out more about the GEFS and 850 hPA temperatures.] The key thing is that from early next week there is a lot of scatter on the graph, with each line representing the solution offered by one run of the computer model. When there is good agreement between the model runs the lines are tightly packed together and confidence in the forecast is usually higher, but we don’t have that at the moment. The other thing to take into account is that the GEFS a couple of days ago was more confident about the medium term prospects, suggesting a return to less cold weather from the west during the first half of next week. The conclusion to draw from this is that milder air may well have more difficulty pushing across the whole of Britain keeping it colder particularly in the east for a time as the decaying cold pool of continental air proves difficult to shift. The outlook all looks quite messy to me, but to boil it down to the simplest level I think it would mean the best chance of further snow would be in the east, with an increasing risk of rain or sleet the further west you go. That’s a simplification and it doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t rain in the east, and wont snow in the west because there are a number of possible outcomes for the weather this weekend let alone next week.

Posted at Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:50:16

Weekend snow prospects

There’s some uncertainty about the rate at which the pool of very cold air of which we’re currently on the western edge will sink south and decay during the next week, and I’ll post about that later today, but in the shorter term the interest is focused on the possibility of a spell of snow this weekend. A rain bearing weather front with will and push in from the west – behind this is milder air – and as it hits the cold air across the country rain will on its leading edge turn to sleet and snow. As the weather front extends further south and east it will eventually start to decay and the precipitation associated with it will become lighter. It’s often a fine line in Britain between wet and dry weather, let alone rain and snow, and this weekend brings these variables together meaning different scenarios are possible. One is for the weather front to push right across Britain bringing some leading edge snow followed by rain and rising temperatures, with the south east probably most likely region to see significant snow. A second scenario is for the weather front runs to stall, with areas to the east of it remaining under the cold and dry air, areas to the west of it milder, and an area in the middle where there could be significant snow. The second scenario now to me looks more likely than it did at this time yesterday but there’s still time for change, so if you like snow then keep your fingers crossed as you could be in luck, but do the same if you don’t because it could still be your day! I’ve pasted in the precipitation forecast chart for 9pm this Saturday from the GFS model to give an indication of where snow could be falling, but remember this is subject to significant change still . If you are travelling this weekend my advice would be to keep checking the local forecasts and travel information.

Posted at Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:00:47

Less cold weather likely

There’s good agreement this morning for temperatures to begin rising at the weekend as the cold block pushes back east allowing the Atlantic to have more of an influence of the UK’s weather. I’ve pasted in a graph showing the overnight run of the Global Ensemble Forecasting System (GEFS) for London. The GEFS is made up of the control and 20 member runs which have the starting conditions fed in to them varied to try and account for uncertainty. The thick white line shows the average of all the GEFS runs, the top one for 850hPA temperatures, and the bottom one for precipitation (as the outlook is quite dry this is scraping along near the bottom of the graph and isn’t very distinct). The key this morning is the steep rise in 850hPA temperatures beginning on the 4th Feb because this indicates a change in air mass taking place. Remember that the 850hPA level is about 1500m above sea level, so it isn’t subject to day / night variations in temperature making it a good tool for looking at changes in air mass. What’s not clear from this chart is whether there will be a spell of transitional snow as the mild and moist Atlantic air tries to push back in. This possibility needs watching, but as I pointed out yesterday the best chance of a classic snowy breakdown is when weather fronts push up from the south west and this isn’t the case here.

Posted at Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:30:07

Increasing chance of breakdown

It’s increasingly looking as though milder air from the west will be able to push across the country through this weekend and into the early part of next week. The details do need watching because with cold air over eastern Britain there is the chance of some snowfall before it warms up. You can see on the GFS t+96 (96 hours ahead from the 0z today) that the cold and dense air is still hanging on in eastern areas, and past experience shows it can be sticky and quite difficult to shift. However, it doesn’t look like a classically snowy breakdown which would usually need low pressure pushing up weather fronts from the south west in following negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) spell. There is still time for change though, and the cold air may well remain close to Britain next week.

Posted at Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:37:02

Cold to breakdown this weekend?

There’s now a fairly strong signal from the computer models for milder air to try and push back in from the west late this week after the initial cold wave from the east has run out of steam. There’s a lot of uncertainty though about how quickly this will develop and whether the cold can then return from the east next week or later in Feb. My take is that this week will bring the coldest air mass the UK will see this winter, but that we wont have seen the back of the cold even if the Atlantic does gets through. At least not in the east of the country where the cold may well take another bite next week, although I’d not be surprised to see milder weather becoming more persistent further west. It’s very difficult to say whether we’ll get snow from this set-up, but if we do see the battle lines between cold and mild moving backwards the chances will increase, particularly in the east. Mid-February often brings some of the most wintry weather to Britain, though at the moment my guess (too early to be confident about this) is the second half of the month may see milder conditions for many.
http://www.theweatheroutlook.com