Dave Ludlow wrote:

On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 17:16:16 -0000, "Col"
wrote:

Quite.
There were warnings of snow of course but they were of
the order of 5-10cm, 15cm on hills.
Well I got almost twice the 'hills' forecast total and I'm
at just 500ft!
In that respect it was a very poor forecast, a relatively
normal snow forecast for NW England ended up as
an exceptional snow event.
I think the problem lay in that the snow band didn't
move south as fast as was envisaged, so once it was
stuck over you it just snowed and snowed and snowed.

It looked like a kind of Lake Effect snow to me, as I watched it
develop off the Irish sea and continue all night, on the radar.

Can any of our Met professionals comment on this?

There's been a few "Lake Effect" snow events in NW England in the past 4 weeks.
With W-NW winds covection over Morecambe Bay and Liverpool Bay has produced
streams of showers brought inland on the wind. Here in Tideswell these events
have produced continuous snow, sometimes heavy. A lot of the snow we have had
during the past 4 weeks has been generated by this mechanism. It was certainly
a contributory mechanism last night though broader-scale dynamics were also
involved.

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.