Courtesy of Mark Vogan
Harsh winter conditions are whipping across Germany, the Low Countries, Britain, France and Ireland with biting 40-50 mph winds blowing straight from the Scandinavian ice box. Along the boundary between mild and frigid, heavy snowfall is breaking out, bringing crippling snowfall to Germany yesterday and now bringing blizzard-like conditions today to Northern France where as much as a foot of snow is expected. This snowstorm now impacting the North Coast of France as well as the Channel Islands could end up being one of the biggest in several years, perhaps one of the biggest for March.
The below image is something not seen often even in mid-winter, even rarer in mid-March. The red on this chart, coruest of MeteoGroup represents snow and you can see the high concentration of snow bands working northeast to southwest from central Scotland to Southern England, caried in by powerful ENE winds blowing at all levels of the atmosphere straight from a bitterly cold Scandinavia. Note the solid band extending from the South Coast of England over to the Normandy coast of France. That’s the snowstorm models have shown from the best part of a week. It’s looking like it will clip the South Coast of Britain but hammer the North Coast of France. While several inches may fall through the rest of today along the coast of Britain, we may easily see a foot or more of wind blown snow through the Channel Islands and along the French side of the channel.
Courtesy of MeteoGroup
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Monitored all week, this air mass can be considered as the coldest yet with the coldest 850 mb or 5,000ft temperatures we’ve seen all season. The combination of cold air temperatures and howlling ENE winds is making it feel more like a mid-winter rather than mid-March arctic blast.
The North Sea has cooled as it naturally does through the winter months and so the mechanism of cold wind blowing over relatively warm water, picking up moisture.. (sea-effect snow showers), usually becomes less effective at this time of year. Often the air isn’t cold enough but this air mass is exceptional with stronger than normal winds blowing from an unusually cold Scandinavia. Snow showers will continue to blow in fast, frequent and heavy with significant blowing and drifting over higher, exposed ground throughout the rest of today.
Snow showers were off and on throughout the night, bringing additional accumulations to many but with the slightest clearing of skies. The bitter air mass in place along with fresh snow cover allowed temperatures to plummet. This allowed both Aboyne, Aberdeenshire and Kinbrace, Sutherland to plunge overnight to an impressive -13C or 8F. Amazingly this marked the second coldest UK temperature of winter, just shy of -13.4C recorded in Suffolk back in January.
Here are some bitterly cold 1pm temperatures across the UK
Glen Ogle, Perthshire -5.7C
Spadeadam, Cumbria -4C
Shap, Cumbria -3.5C
Kenley, (just south of London) -2.7C
Lake Vyrnwy, Powys -2.2C
These would be impressive for this time of day even in mid-January!!
Winds have and continue to howl across Southern England and especially across the channel.
Here are recent gusts according to WeatherOnline
62 mph Alderney Channel
58 mph Culdrose
58 mph Mumbles
53 mph Jersey Apt
50 mph Guernsey Apt.
More updates to come later!
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