Going by member reports during a snowy spell, the Wirral is definitely (but not surprisingly) the poorest place in the North West for snow. I've only been posting on weather forums since 2014, but I don't think I've seen a report stating anything more than a slight dusting at best.

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Chichester is unsurprisingly a bit of a snow desert....however the South Downs are close by so a slushy 1 cm here can often mean a 4-5 inches up on the Downs, I have lived here since 2002 and I can only recall 3or 4 decent snowfalls since then...Not the worst place,but definitely one of the poorer places in the UK.

Thanet is pretty poor... Streamers go up the thames and miss us... The last massive dump Dover had, we had nothing...

The Isles of Scilly (having lived there) are definitely not a place to be if it's snow that you're after. But if we're looking at the mainland only the Angle in the far west of Pembrokeshire must be a strong contender.

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The Cumbrian coast is pretty snowless.

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Yeh the wirral is on here... but must say the problems isnt so much lack of snowfall. We always see something.. whether it be a shower or a bit of sleet... its rare to go a winter and not see wintry stuff... its the lack of anything more than a dusting. Even in the most severe setup.

It seems alot of people see a failure of winter if they dont see anything less than 10cms ... people get snowfall of 6 inches and comment that it wasnt a bad snowfall, or not as good as 2010... like its almost semi common. Id be delierious.

even from places that dont really get snow... im sure depths wise, areas like cornwall and devon jesery etc have done better than us... which is just bonkers

I dont know if its just bad luck. Heavy rain finds us easy. But never anything heavy snow wise. Its such a rarity.

Its baffling.

The wirral is to britain as to what britain is to europe for snow.

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I agree. They may have had snow from the Beast from the East, but lying snow is very rare there.

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I know what you mean WRT the depths.

I consider the benchmark for a very good snowfall to be 10cm; that tends to cover everything. 

Oddly, I never used to measure snow depth when I was a kid, it just never occurred to me (I'd use my ruler to measure other things.... "grow, goddammit, grow!!!). And it was only after joining here I started.

I can remember two distinct snowfalls from my childhood in the 80s that were at least 6". One was Dec 81, the other somewhere between 1 and 3 winters later. Have a feeling 78/9 winter also had one. We also had one in the 90s after the 93/4 winter.

Other than that, the Jan 10 and Dec 10 falls. So 5, maybe 6 snowfalls of 6"-plus in 46 years. 

Plenty of 4"/10cm falls, though.

I often see pics on here with claims of 15cm or 20cm and I'm left wondering if they live in a land of oversized objects. 

 

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Certainly in this area they would be down but not by much as the average would be warped by the high figures in 2010, early 2011 and 2013 so maybe not by very much.

Indeed for my home area in the Southern Highlands the official snow lying average for the last ten years is up from that in the eighties probably again influenced by the 95 days in 2010. Av there in the last ten years is forty compared with thirty in the eighties. 

Meanwhile less snowy areas up here include the far NE of Aberdeenshire, the East Neuk of Fife, the coastal parts ofSouth West Scotland and the Southern outer Hebrides as well as the previously mentioned Mull of Kintyre.

 

Er no not even close.  Cumbrian and Lancashire coast by far.

The worst place for snow is where I live...Withernsea in South East Holderness...! the flat corner of the East Riding bordered by the North Sea to our north and east, the River Humber to our south and to the west and north west there are the Wolds, so far this winter we've had a dusting of snow a week ago, the BFTE last year produced 2 days of snow showers that gave a brief covering of a couple of cm yet 20 miles away over in Lincolnshire they had blizzards for 2 days and roads/schools closed and 15miles north and west they had 10cm, during the great winter spell of 2010 we had heavy snow showers that gave a covering of 5cm at most which lasted 2 days then we had sleet and it melted while most of the country ground to a halt, during the nineties and noughties we had a few of winters that produced covering but the last good fall of snow here was in 1987 when after 3 days of heavy snow all the roads were closed by huge drifts and the army had to bring supplies in to our town...but I was in Scotland as myself and two other snow loving friends were so pigged off by the snow avoiding our region decided to go and see some proper stuff, which we did but returned to find we couldn't get back home for 3 days...!! Back in the late 70s early 80s I can remember getting 10cm of snow form northerly winds in November on a few occasions but these days we're lucky if it even snows atall...!!

I think the Fylde coast/Cumbria coast has to be one of the most snow free areas. Walney Island for example.

However, rarely, if a stalling front pushes against an easterly airflow, these regions can get an exceptional amount of snow - e.g. Feb 1996. 

https://youtu.be/V73h4TOMCBw

Where I live isn’t the worst for snow, and we received an unexpected pasting on Wednesday, but the setup to deliver decent lying snow is quite difficult to achieve. We need a genuinely cold westerly, which rarely lasts for longer than 12 hours or so. I can’t imagine having a freezing westerly for lasting days on end - it just wouldn’t happen. Frustratingly for here we never get “big snow” events. The ones where the army would need to get called in, for example. The classic setups just don’t deliver here - due to localised topography. When the wind from the east/SE it is impossible for us to get meaningful frontal snow, which means our opportunities for big events is more limited. 

For this reason, 1963 and 1947 weren’t very snowy here by all accounts. 

I think the biggest snow maker here is a low pressure (with NW’ly winds), easing into a bitterly cold pool over the UK. Such a situation is vanishingly rare. Deep snow cover (more than 6 inches) in Manchester City Centre which lasts over a week must happen once every, say, 30-40 years. 

It’s poignant to think I probably won’t see snow here like I did on Wednesday morning for another 5 years or so. This is why I desperately tried to make the most of it, but in a weird way this made me feel quite stressed. 

Agreed. (1) Too far east for North Sea streamers and (2) too far west for Atlantic fronts running up against a cold block, plus (3) always the risk of some milder sea surface air creeping in. Witness the latest situation where serious snow is reported from Portsmouth (2) and inland near Haslemere (3) but only just a covering here. Last year's Beast was an example of (1)

I've also been here since 2002, having moved from mid Kent, and by Kentish standards I'd only rate one good snowfall here, Dec 2010 (and that only lasted 4 days).

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Leeds city centre is probably no better to be honest - the combination of low elevation (as low as 20m asl) and urban heat makes it pretty rubbish for snow accumulations.

Things are much better outside the city centre though. I think we do well for snow here on average.

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So basically it's a map of high ground because in every region the darker blues are not surprisingly on the high ground.

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You really have to go with that UKMO map with 30 years of data as it would take that long to sift fact from perspective in a discussion 😉

On the subject of perspective, Portsmouth has to be up there on the list of the least snowy cities in the U.K.

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Is it my imagination or does the map show the Eastern tip of Thanet (Broadstairs) in white? There certainly seems less snow from Deal northwards, IMBY. 

 

On the other hand, the Besat from the East did deliver to Thanet while we got 1cm from Beast 1 and 2cm from Beast 2! (Not enough seaward wind track to pick up much moisture for the coast from Sandwich to Hythe).  

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Along with Bristol, Plymouth, Central London, St David’s, Southampton, Blackpool and Preston. 

The up side for these locations, is that on the rare occasion when we get a truly spectacular winter setup, these rare snow locations are the same places that get an absolute epic snow event, much more than others. Think January 1982.

Compare Bristol with Manchester for example - yes snow may be more unusual than it is here, but when it snows in Bristol, it REALLY snows in Bristol. 

On paper, snowiest cities must be Aberdeen, Newcastle and Sheffield. According to the map, Edinburgh must rank quite highly too, which surprises me (away from the immediate coast). 

 

 

Aye. Definitely the same for here. Once you get out in the suburbs towards East Manchester it’s a totally different world. 

Personally I’m keen to move to Buxton in a few years. Reliable, significant snow nearly every year. Plus it’s a nice town! 

No there is no comparing Southampton to Portsmouth.. many many a time it's snowed in Southampton and yet been rain or sleet in Portsmouth.

I’m going on the map, I’m not doubting what you’re saying. 

I remember reading a while back that Gosport is even worse for snow than Portsmouth... something to do with the way water surrounds it.  Not sure why it should be worse than Portsmouth though.

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I remember 1996 - Chester had really deep snow, and Chester after the Wirral could be one of the more snowless parts of the NW along with the places you mention! Looked like a surprise event for South Manchester the other day - certainly you picked up more than Saddleworth, I've not measured but we've probably had 2-3 inches in this cold spell. It'll be melting in the sun today but I'll be getting out walking in it! 

Basically the snow map intersects rainy areas (high ground) with cold areas (north, away from the coast) = snow. Nowhere in the south is going to do well out of that combo 🙂 But even in the north, most uk cities have been developed naturally in areas that are as opposite to this as possible. You can see Glasgow fits snugly in a little parallelogram of 5-10 days snow surrounded by much snowier areas, that might be UHI given it's only 1981-2010 though. Carlisle sits in the snow free area at the mouth of the solway surrounded on all other sides by snowmageddon.

 

 

Edinburgh can get snowy in parts because the city ramps up in altitude quickly from sea level. Poor John C in Leith is in the strip of 5-10 days, I'm up in the 10-20 day area on the map. However for both of us, today is Day 1 of lying snow for winter 2018/19 (or maybe Day 2 if you count it happened last night). 

 

Anyways, Truro is my guess for least snowy uk city

 

 

I was going to say Cornwall - as always the cast but many places even coastal areas of S and N, Cornwall got plastered in snow and wasn't expecting it and parts of Bobmin moor got 15cms of snow. - bare in mind rain/sleet was only forecast for Cornwall on Thursday. NOT 4-5" of snow in 1hr with traffic pile ups and road closures etc!

 

As things stand - re this snow Event I thin places along the S. Devon coast including riviera has missed out on snow and also Dawlish, Exmouth and maybe Topsham - it's only been rain or sleety rain there and a little further inland snow - I know of a fact 2 miles outside of Exeter in countryside or inland there has been 5-10cms of snow: Dunkeswell had 15cms of snow and Ottery St Mary had 10cms. Taunton hand 12cms and Bristol had 23cms. My friend in Keynsham had 20cms of snow! DARTMOOR got covered of course - so you didn;t need to go far to see snow and in fact this is the photo i took today from Haven Banks Exeter looking across Exwick hill and Sylvan heights - shows the snow still covered in distance and this is only a few miles away yet here in Exeter quay /Haven banks/Marsh Barton any of that snow/slushy deposit melted yesterday.   at best Exeter got 2cms of snow but difficult to measure as it was more of a slushy deposit and snow settle on top of puddles and rain which turned to slush and then more snow fell and settled on top of that too. But over hills and not so far away you can see white hilltops. So Exeter Quay has done pretty poorly for snow but not as poor as others.

 

 

  

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