There is no doubt that within Norfolk itself, there is a wide variation.
The further NE you go, the more snow events you get - because
"Northerly" outbreaks are inevitably "North Westerly", and North Sea
showers clip the coastal area. However, the SW of the county tends to be
colder - not only because it's further from the sea, but it's Breckland
and the sandy soils aid cooling.

It's harder to find explanations for:

1. Sudden warmings during cold spells. This happened on several
occasions last winter when snow that was fairly widespread over the
region, turned to rain in Norfolk and parts of Suffolk and Essex. These
warmings seem to be quite transitory. Even today - it was warmer in the
early hours than it is now - and the earlier rain has turned back to
snow (though still mixed with rain - Norwich airport won't need to close!).

2. County-sized immunity to showery streams. I likened it to a
force-field in previous posts, because that's exactly how it looks on
the radar animations. In the showery weather at the beginning of the
month, there were several days when Norfolk was sandwiched between a
flow of showers to the north, passing along the coast and into
Lincolnshire, and the showery flow running into the Thames estuary. It
looked like the flow literally split into two, and flowed around the county.

I'm not a cold weather fan really, and find this interminable cold
unpleasant and expensive. But I don't mind a decent dump of snow - but
that does seem to be more of a rarity hereabouts.

FWIW - the last time our lane filled up with "proper" blowing snow was
February 1996.

Chris
Nr Swaffham, Norfolk



On 22/12/10 10:41, Dave Cornwell wrote:
Further to Chris's post above it shows that the last two years and this
year's cold spells have shifted the emphasis on cold further west. As I
recall these spells have largely come from, especially snowfall, Arctic
derived cold air entrained in low pressure systems. Once again, although
sometimes shown in the models, there has not been a Scandinavian or
Siberian HP positioned such to bring long track Easterlies or N.E from
Siberia and Northern Russia for long periods. The blocking has been to
the North or in the Atlantic not from the continent. Continental air has
been relatively mild as can be seen at the moment. These were the text
book cold spells which lent said books to quoting East Anglia as cold in
winter (I think Norwich used to be the snowiest)and the SW having mild,
wet winters.
There are not many contributors here from Suffolk and Norfolk but I
wonder if that is there perception.
Londoners and further west have seen these as exceptional spells. There
is no doubt that this one in particular has been cold and lengthy here
in Essex, and exceptional for December. But it would only beat those
since the early eighties. The snow depths are such that not once have I
driven down a lane where the snow is piled as high as the hedgerows and
walked in fields with thigh deep drifts, a relatively common experience
in East Anglia through the 50's to 80's. (Although I was shorter for a
good deal of that period!)
So for this part of the world this spell has been exceptional,
especially so early, but not historic although the winter has only just
begun so plenty of time to make it so!

Dave (S.Essex} 1.6C DP 0.3C