No, not localised at all - in fact I think it was pretty widespread over most of the country.
I think the timing caught many unawares, as you say - I certainly was. We'd just had a great spell of winter weather in the lead-up to and into Xmas, with snow on the ground from 19th Dec through to 28th with several falls adding up to around 10cm (the thaw had set in on the 27th here). I was more than happy for that to be it - after all, we'd got the nirvana of Xmas snow. I didn't give the charts more than a brief look over Xmas and expected no snow whatsoever. I wasn't really expecting such a quick return of colder conditions, either.
So when my missus got out of bed on the Tuesday morning and told it was snowing, it came as a surprise - and I had no idea if this was going to be a brief shower or if it were localised or what. As an aside, I think I prefer the 'not knowing' way!!
As I'd not bothered clearing paths of snow in the pre-Xmas snowfall and they'd become frozen solid ice-rinks which took a lot of effort to belatedly clear, I decided to get up straight away and clear the snow. It was about 5cm deep by this time (7am) and still falling heavily. My daughters came out to 'help' me and we set to work. Then we made a snowman. And had a bit of a snowball fight. The upshot was that by the time I came back into the house, it was getting late and the snow was up to around the 10cm mark. A quick shower and dressed, then out at around 8am. The drive to the M62 normally takes me 8-10 mins; that morning it took 20. The motorway was crawling. I called my boss to tell him I was stuck on the motorway inching along but would be in, albeit a little late. He asked whereabouts I was and I fibbed to make it seem I was further along than I was to give the impression I'd set out earlier than I had. I said I was just past j11, which is the last junction before a stretch of around 8 miles that takes you to the outskirts of Manchester. "Oh, that's a shame; if you hadn't passed it, I'd have told you to turn round and go home, there's hardly anyone in the office and they might shut it. I'll let you know if anything changes).
It was made worse when, about 15 mins later, having genuinely just passed j11, he called back to tell me the office was shutting and I should turn round when I could. I had to struggle on for the next half an hour, stop-start, heading away from home, seeing the westbound carriageway moving OK. The missus then called me - the eldest's school was shut and she'd had to book a day's 'emergency leave' with her work.
I got home around half-9 and the snow was still piling down. It actually got even heavier for a spell, then stopped about 11am. In all, the level depth was 17cm, the deepest I've ever measured - although I think we've had deeper a few times when I was a lad and never used to measure depth.
The snow stayed on the ground for a few weeks, too, until the end of Jan. On a couple of local supermarkets, they'd used a digger to clear the car park and created huge snow piles; these lasted until well into Feb. For Manchester, it's the deepest I've seen snow in the city centre.
In terms of actual snowfall here, it was the best one of my adult life, and probably top 3 in my whole 46 years. The Dec 10 snowfall was only 1cm less deep, and happened it the absolute best time during a superb spell of weather, so beats it for overall superbness.
But the Jan 10 fall was amazing, and gave me my first (and only, to date) snow day off work ever.
Originally Posted by: Saint Snow