It’s just typical southeasterly muck. A long sea track and “marginal” upper air. You would need a proper cold easterly not the current setup. It has been around 1°C with rain for the last day or so. 

My sister lives 7 miles away in Ashfield, near the Derbyshire border and they were snowed in.  Today, they still have a good depth of snow that has frozen overnight.  

The highway authorities must be expecting some snow on the leading edge of the oncoming front; the gritters have been out on high-level roads.

Out of interest, do you have all-season or winter tyres? I know down here they're regarded as an oddball choice but perhaps up where you are they're more common?

The reason I mention them is because in the "beast from the east" in 2018, I had a Corsa with Michelin Crossclimate tyres - I figured I might need to drive in the snow at some point. They proved their weight in gold, as on the 28th Feb I hadn't heard that the school I worked at was closed, so ended up having to drive in. At no point did I see even a square inch of tarmac, the roads were all covered with snow or compacted snow - and it was below -10C, for added fun, so grit wouldn't work. 

I didn't get above 20mph for the whole journey (including on the A249 ), but the scenery was amazing. I arrived at the school, to find locked gates, got out to check and my phone went off - school closed. Pah. One three point turn in 4 inches of snow later and I was on my way home, but I stopped off at a Tesco en route (where there were several staff members outside the main entrance - they stared at me as I went in!) and half an hour later I was back home, where it was now -14C (so I had to do the "boiling cup of water in the air" experiment - half froze, half went "plop" into the snow). Checked the news, and it was full of "southern Britain grinds to a halt" type coverage. Not for me and my Corsa it didn't! 

Mind you, I suspect you've got a bit more than 4 or 5 inches up there! 😁

I do hope we get this beast this year and today seeing small icicles forming from my conservatory roof which reminded me of your dream to see those so i hope we see this happening this winter.  Still lot of snow left here but all icy surface now.

We had some decent icicles for a while earlier in the week.

https://i.ibb.co/RGkFXtrm/IMG-4394.png 

About -4 mid-morning with patchy fog drifting about.

It was above freezing in early hours but never above through day so very little thaw except on south facing roofs etc.

Used to have up to 1m long overhang the front door area and we had to break this off to prevent it falling over our head when go outside in the 1980s.  My old school some metal down pipes completely iced over too likely blocked from top and water flow froze instantly. 

Covered all surfaces . Around 1cm.  May turn to freezing rain or ice pellets soon. 

Drifts of 3-4ft Gusts of 56mph.

Do they give you much for the old "new summer tyres" otherwise it seems very expensive for a one in ten year experience as it would be here?

Kwik Fit will put your “summer tyres” into a tyre hotel. IIRC, the cost is £30 per tyre, and you can change back whenever you want. IMO, it’s actually quite a good deal if you’ve got expensive tyres, because effectively you’re only paying the storage cost. That said, they didn’t have run-flat winter tyres (we don’t have a spare, so they’re essential) for our car, so we ended up going with snow chains and snow socks to cover all bases. The chains are tricky to fit and remove, but they do give the best performance. In fact, we were able to drive safely after a fall of about 40 cm, with only moderate compaction on the side road.

0.6c moderate snow , very wet, slushy covering in grass and favoured surfaces.

Shame the precipitation is fragmented or could have been a decent fall.