"Col" wrote in message
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*.
--
Col

Bolton, Lancashire
160m asl


In all my memory I do recall once being covered by one of these extreme
weather warnings, on the 27th of February 2001.
We had a 30 hour long snowfall which had bonafide blizzard conditions at
times, by the end of which there was 18 inches (45cm) of snow with drifts
over 6 foot common place.
The windchill was sub -20ºC for a time in the F6/F7 wind. All transport came
to a complete halt... Indeed it was virtually impossible to walk beyond your
front gate. The extreme warning was issued about 2 hours from the end of the
event, by which time it was rather obvious what the situation was by looking
out your window - if you could see out of it! Still, I suppose it warned
others not to travel into the area.
Alex.

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.