Just looking at the highest official snow depths, Little Rissington (Glos) recorded 64cm at 12Z on March 3. Is that a legit reading?

Possible but seems high. It is Cotswolds, but would have been outside the really heavy falls on Thursday, albeit maybe received more on the Friday. With the kind of snow (dry, powdery) you have to wonder if it is even possible to do an accurate level depth?

Rain overnight turned back to snow for a time this morning here but has reverted to steady rain now with lots of surface water. Can now consider this event to be over ( bar the continuing thaw).
For me nothing like the late Nov / early Dec 2010 period in relation to snow depths, longevity or low temperatures. However it was still very decent with the bonus this time being drifting snow which has led to massive drifts once you get outside of the built up areas, even down to sea level. If Feb/ March 1947 was 10 out of 10 this would be 6 or 7.

In reviewing the recent cold and snow and making comparisons I suppose it depends what you are comparing it with. For me my ten out of ten here in south Dorset will always be feb 18/19 1978. Cut off for 7 days by drifts over 5 metres deep and more in places and drifts still on the ground at the start of April.

At my current location 5 miles north of Weymouth March 2018 provided about 10 on the ground with neglible drifting although higher rural locations with 20 miles did see considrable drifting to about 1.5 to 2 metres so probably rates a 6.5 to 7 in comparison with the 1978 daddy of them all for me.

I actually found Nov Dec 2010 far more exciting due to its longevity,exceptionally low minima and repeated heavy snowfalls.

Plus with the recent event it was clear even as the snow started in the south that it would pretty much be gone as quick as it came. Fronts approaching as these did from the south rather than the southwest rarely if ever retreat back south they almost without fail drive on northwards which meant in my case a cm or so of freezing rain rather than another 10cms of snow So all in all march 2018 at my location would rate as notable but certainly not exceptional. especially bearing in mind that I recorded deeper fall of snow on March 5th 2009.

Having said the above I am aware that for locations further north than mine the late feb early March weather has been truly exceptional.

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Still going on for some people!

This article was posted an hour ago on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-43285331-

 

This is a picture near Alston in Cumbria:

 

 

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Yup, it's still ongoing (of sorts) down here - all the other secondary schools in Sittingbourne (4 of them) were closed today due to lack of water, as burst main pipes have effectively cut off supply. The school where I work was unaffected, much to the annoyance of some of the pupils!

There are still a surprising amount of drifts around too, covering the white lines at the edge of the road in places. Even after two days of 7 or 8C, plus 6mm of rain, they perist - up to 3 feet still in places. I'd forgotten just how long the after-affects can linger, although I remember back after the 1997 easterly some snow remained on the marshes for over a week afterwards. I don't think it was as mild as it is now, however!

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Yup, it's still ongoing (of sorts) down here - all the other secondary schools in Sittingbourne (4 of them) were closed today due to lack of water, as burst main pipes have effectively cut off supply. The school where I work was unaffected, much to the annoyance of some of the pupils!

There are still a surprising amount of drifts around too, covering the white lines at the edge of the road in places. Even after two days of 7 or 8C, plus 6mm of rain, they perist - up to 3 feet still in places. I'd forgotten just how long the after-affects can linger, although I remember back after the 1997 easterly some snow remained on the marshes for over a week afterwards. I don't think it was as mild as it is now, however!

I was surprised to still see quite a bit of snow remaining along the edges of the A30 past Blackbushe airport (only 100m asl) an hour or so ago. Here in Yateley I can only see a couple of square feet of icy patches where it had been cleared and piled (oh and the stump of our snowman, who has shrunk from 4ft high to about 1ft!).

Felt amazingly springlike as I did the school run this morning, with some watery sunshine.

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Possible but seems high. It is Cotswolds, but would have been outside the really heavy falls on Thursday, albeit maybe received more on the Friday. With the kind of snow (dry, powdery) you have to wonder if it is even possible to do an accurate level depth?

Seems to be an actual reading (not a false entry) as the next reading was 62cm. I did see a tweet (can't remember who from) saying that many snow depth reports are automated and can easily be fooled by drifts. Even round here it was more or less impossible to take a depth measurement, as it varied from basically zero in wind-scoured areas to 20-25cm against fences etc facing the wind.

That's actually quite unusual for here: it's the first snowfall in a long time where I have struggled to take an accurate reading. Most of our snow is of the fairly wet and sticky kind with not much wind, so it tends to settle on everything fairly uniformly.

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Not sure why there have been so many burst pipes in London. It wasn't that cold

Seems to be supply pipes and mains rather than domestic properties

Perhaps a sign of underinvestment by the privatised companies

 

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Not sure why there have been so many burst pipes in London. It wasn't that cold

Seems to be supply pipes and mains rather than domestic properties

Perhaps a sign of underinvestment by the privatised companies

When I saw this on the front page I thought you were going to review yourself!

Erm, anyway, around here the water companies have blamed the quick freeze (presumably on Wednesday, when in Kent at least it got into minus double figures for a few hours) followed by a rapid thaw (on Saturday) for making the ground move and thus rupturing pipes. There may be something in it, as we didn't have this widespread trouble in the likes of 1986 and 1987, which saw a more gradual easing of the cold rather than a "zero one day, 7C the next" sort of thing. Or maybe we did, and as a kid I just didn't notice such mundane things...

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I'm often amazed by just how different conditions can be just several miles down the road.

It's a bit more than several miles, but just 30 miles away from here, at St Athan, they had over 50cm whilst we had 0.5Cm!

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Pretty decent here in East Lothian and overall I'd give it 7/10. We ended up with ~10 inches of snow which isn't bad considering we're right on the coast at sea level.

Funnily enough the Edinburgh area ended up with less snow than further West in the central belt, mainly because some of the beefy streamers missed us to the North and the South. I'll never forget Wednesday and Thursday though,when we had horizontal snow on and off and temperatures maxed at -3C during daylight, despite an incessant Easterly wind and almost constant cloud cover. It is pretty sad the way it all ended with a whimper; pretty much a non-event with gradually rising temperatures to ~2/3C which have still been enough to start the snow melt from Sunday morning.

Yes, and while those heavier showers were missing here, I can remember that being quite a source of frustration at the time as I mentioned in my own review of this event on this thread. Having said that though, that didn't prevent a maximum snow depth of 22cm from being recorded at Edinburgh Gogarbank so if that is less than what others in the Central Belt further to the west got, I wouldn't like to imagine what their maximum snow depths would have been (of course, Brian started a separate thread for that not too long ago, so I will continue to look at that other thread in earnest to see what those other snow depths were).

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Fantastic photos Tally fab post 

 

Thanks was a memorable one and really lifted everyone's spirits esp the young as it was their first snow and measurable one in Exeter since the December to remember in 2010 - (some would have missed that event!) - as it was over 7 years ago and the snow fell over night back then too! - I have only ever experienced blizzards conditions in maybe mountainous ski resorts. Also once in Toronto and once in New Jersey & NY. This was well over 10 years ago though. Hope we get more of these blizzards' and Biscay Lows - it would perhaps be great if it occurred earlier in season, but on the plus side - having so much snow falling so late in the season can be a good thing - longer daylight hours so more time and chance to enjoy the snow or in our case the blizzard. If snow came down as a blizzard say in December then we would only have a max of 6 hours daylight to enjoy it before it getting dark again - this time we had a good 10.5 hours of daylight to enjoy it and 8 hours of continuous powdery snow falling drifting and blizzards to observed.

No longer a few flakes or flurries or rain turning sleety and or sleet turning to rain again! Long gone here in Exeter! It's good to see the Met Office in snow! Real snow too!

I remember odd flurries and told friends look outside now it's snow and before you knew it - it stopped or turned sleety or was over night etc.- This blizzard effected the whole of the south west this time except perhaps far west of Cornwall, but then again they got snow through that English channel snow streamer that many parts of Devon, esp Exeter missed out on.

My main concern is that we probably won't see this again for a while and if we do we may struggle to get the decent dump' and totals that we saw last Thursday too.

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Hope Solar minimum will increase our chances of proper blocking and give us more Siberian air and snow! More snow Russian after us - more from Russia with love!!!!

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My review of the cold spell;

3 ice days.

Some snow fall but disappointing amounts or rather it just got blown away.

I normally do very well in E/NE outbreaks but just not this time with a max depth of 2cms.

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I'll certainly remember the recent spell although here at least it was not the snowfest it could have been.

Not the deepest snow I've seen here by any stretch but enough to cause issues. About 15cm at maximum depth. Due to the dry nature of the snow it was drifting really badly. The build up was impressive - I remember Brian saying "something didn't feel right" like it did in 2010 but for me, the model consistency was impressive. Although I've seen deeper snow here, I was also impressed at how different locations did well - rare to please everyone of course but deep snow in Central belt of Scotland, SW England, Ireland!

I was out the country in the first half of December so missed that snow and the last few years were pretty low on snowfall here. Therefore this has been the first time my daughter has been out sledging! (aged 3 and a half) so I will always remember that.

Review from a London perspective (north London where I live and central London where I work):

I’d give this spell a solid 8/10.

Pros:

- depth of cold: -16/-17 uppers is rare in this country, especially this late in the season. Daytime temperatures even in the centre of London on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were hovering between -2c and -4c. I had two frozen pipes at home. I don’t remember the last time that happened.
Central London had lying snow that lasted for a couple of days. That in itself is rare. We often get good amounts of lying snow in the London suburbs, but to have it stick around on the ground in the centre of town is rare.

- snow: proper dry, powdery snow that we haven’t seen for a long time. Snow fell on 5 consecutive days which also doesn’t happen very often. It’s difficult to estimate the amount of snow that fell as there was some snow melt/sublimation between Monday and Wednesday afternoon. I reckon we got about 3/4 inches in the north London suburbs.

Cons:

- longevity: 5 days of deep cold is good, but nothing record breaking. We had longer, but less cold, spells in 2010, Feb 2012 and Jan/Feb 2013

- snow depths: we had a decent amount of snow, but nothing record breaking. The less cold spells of Feb 2009, Nov/Dec 2010 and Feb 2012 all delivered greater snow depths. I think Feb 2013 may have also given us more snow. Unfortunately we got a bit unlucky on Monday and Tuesday with wind flows giving places not far away such as NW Kent a lot more snow than us. If winds stayed E/ENE for longer I reckon this spell could have rivalled Feb 1991 for snow depths. Feb 1991 still hasn’t been beaten in this location. Feb 2009 is the closest we’ve come to matching Feb 91.


Overall this was the coldest spell of weather in terms of daytime temps and 850 temps since Feb 1991.

I’d probably rank this in the top 5 cold spells of the last 31 years (incl. Jan ‘87).

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It might be worth noting that the provisional CET maximum on the 1st March of -0.8, if it isn't adjusted upwards will be the lowest March value in a daily record that goes back to 1878. There have only been two other March days with sub-zero maxima, neither of them in 1947 rather surprisingly: -0.7 on 6th March 1942 and -0.1 on 3rd March 1892.

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Bit late posting but for me that was a very memorable spell.

I'd rate it about 8.5/10.

 

Temperatures were below freezing from Tuesday all the way until late Saturday afternoon. I think it was Wednesday which got no higher than -4C! All of the snow was pure powder with no marginality whatsover. I've never seen heavy convective snow falling before at temperatures of -6.5C at just 200 m asl.

 

We had true blizzard condition at times. Two days and nights of truly incredible winds (up to 80mph) which whipped the snow up into deep drifts normally reserved for the highest and most exposed roads around Glossop. We had a proper ground blizzard for a few hours on Thursday evening. No actual snow falling but visability was greatly reduced and previously gritted main roads were re-covered with snow.

At one point there was only one way out of Glossop. All other routes were blocked with drifiting snow. The council and farmers worked hard to dig out the roads by the weekend. Some of the drifts were house height at 400m asl with some cars completely buried in a layby just outside Glossop. Truly incredible scenes.

 

There are still drifts now at town level. Conditions at times were very dangerous with people becoming trapped on county lanes and trees coming down. Mad to think that the worst conditions came just a yellow warning over 12 hours after the severe winds had started. There was a genuine danger to life across the Peaks and Pennines at times.

 

Great to see a return of the huge icicles not seen since the big freeze of 2010!

 

Snowfall was up there with the best Easterlies in my lifetime in Glossop. I'm not yet 30. I was able to record a peak depth of around 25-26cm on my sheltered west facing bin. Elsewhere the depths were all over the place due to drifting.  The heaviest convective snow fell on Tuesday evening/night with persistant light snow for the next couple of days following. Had the intesity kept up we could have easily had 2ft+ of snow.

Extra points also scored for the rapid thaw. From full cover on Saturday night, 90% had vanished by Sunday morning.

 

Deep cold Easterlies can really deliver to these parts (NW England but really close to or in the Pennines). The Pennines actually boost the showers in certain scenarios meaning we get simalar totals to places in the East. Further west of Manchester it's a different story.

 

Now let's see what the next spell delivers....

 

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The Met Office have now put up an interesting report about the Beast (or should I now say Beast Mk. 1?):

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/february2018-snow

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It might be worth noting that the provisional CET maximum on the 1st March of -0.8, if it isn't adjusted upwards will be the lowest March value in a daily record that goes back to 1878. There have only been two other March days with sub-zero maxima, neither of them in 1947 rather surprisingly: -0.7 on 6th March 1942 and -0.1 on 3rd March 1892.

I was hoping that yesterday, the 18th, would manage a sub-zero CET maximum, as that would have made it the latest date to do so by a wide margin. However the provisional figure has now been given as 0.6. Even if the final figure turns out to be reduced slightly, it seems highly unlikely that it will be by enough to give a negative value. I'm a little surprised that the value is so high, as most Midlands stations seem to have recorded negative maxima. (The 2nd March this year came in at 0.3.)

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Still impressive though, 3 of the top 14 coldest March days on record:
2018 1 st -0.8 prov
1942 6 th -0.7
1892 3 th -0.1
1892 2 nd 0
1879 25 th 0.1
1947 5 th 0.3
1965 2 nd 0.3
2018 2 nd 0.3 prov
1879 24 th 0.4
1890 2 nd 0.5
1928 11 th 0.5
1965 4 th 0.5
1917 8 th 0.6
2018 18 th 0.6 prov
1931 9 th 0.7
1942 5 th 0.8
2013 23 th 0.8
1891 10 th 0.9
1931 7 th 0.9
1979 16 th 0.9