"Pete L" wrote...
snip
Although I saw the snow in the Chilterns I was without the internet.
Did you get a figure for the lowest 1000-500mb thickness recorded
over
Southern England? From the forecast charts a few days earlier I
would
have thought 522 must have been recorded. If so, it must have been
close to the lowest ever thickness for October.....

.... I've gone through the ascents and archive TTHK charts (ex GFS via
wetter3.de), and put up the following page regarding thickness values
during the 28th October, 2008

http://freespace.virgin.net/martin.r...008_OCT_28.htm

we must have been getting close to 522 across the Chilterns at the end
of the day, but as you can see, by 29/00Z, the cold tongue was warming
out, and being eroded from the NW, so whether 522 _as such_ was
recorded *in the south* is a moot point - it *was* further north of
course (see table of data). 6 hr later (29/06Z), the cold tongue was
no colder than ~525/526 dam passing 03882, so a little way away from
the 'extreme' values there.

The extremes were taken from tables that were in the old NMC (behind
the Dep. Chief if you remember them Peter), and aren't exhaustive by
any means. However, presumably they capture the October 1974 events,
another cold such-named month with snow.

Martin.


--
Martin Rowley
West Moors, East Dorset (UK): 17m (56ft) amsl
Lat: 50.82N Long: 01.88W
NGR: SU 082 023