It’s a WILD day out there with heavy and very disruptive snow falling across many parts of Northern Ireland, central and particularly Southwest Scotland, northern England extending down through the Midlands, all this snow driven in by a bitter, howling southeasterly wind.

Every day I travel across Dumfries and Galloway and I must say I am glad I’m not down there today as this region is the hardest hit in Scotland with multiple roads closed. However I will be down there tomorrow and with snow continuing into Saturday morning, it’s going to be interesting.

With roads closing, reopening and then only to be closed again, please check your local travel reports to find out whether your route is affected or not. This is one of the worst snowstorms of winter, don’t pay attention to the calender, thinking it’s not that bad. 0-2C air with 25-40mph wind gusts and heavy snow is not pleasant. Significant blowing and drifting could trap you and is trapping folks across parts of Dumfries and Galloway where there’s 100 schools closed.

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The wind and heavy wet snow combination has cut power to some 10,000 people across parts of Arran and Argyll and with further heavy snow and gale-force affecting many tonight across southern Scotland as well as northern and central England, don’t be surprised to hear of many more power outages.

As for the rain, well it’s pouring it down across parts of Northern Ireland, Ireland and southwest England with reports of the Slaney River in the Republic bursting it’s banks and there are oither across southwest England also.

According to the latest information from the Met Office, there are some spots which have now seen as much as 1 foot of snow but drifts may tower 3-5 feet in places, perhaps 8ft or higher over exposed hills.

Here’s the latest snow depth chart off the Met Office for the rest of today into Saturday.

An area stretching from Glasgow all the way to London may see snow overnight but the area most concerning is the western Southern Uplands (Dumfries and Galloway), Cumbria, down the spine of the Pennines as well as the North York Moors. A few inches may fall through the Midlands and down towards East Anglia, perhaps even affecting Greater London. Any sizable accumulations are likely to be in the north suburbs.

Winds will continue to blow hard out of the southeast and so blowing, drifting as well as snow will continue to greatly reduce visibility and could cause further road closures.

Here’s the latest GFS snow projections through the next 30 hours. Note it’s almost identical to the met office map above…

Conditions Calm Slightly By Sunday Into Next Week!

Our wild winter weather should calm somewhat by Sunday, however, I don’t want you to be decieved as although the ‘stormy’ aspect should begin to ease, the cold and icy easterly flow will not leave us and next week will be another very cold week, quite incredible given that we’re edging closer to April. Sure, we can still be fairly chilly in late March, even into April but this is JANUARY-LEVEL cold and in just a week and a half from now we’re going to be in April, a time where we expect highs into the 13-16C range with hefty April-showers. Although last April was a washout, record breaking in fact, April 2011 was exceptionally warm with frequent low to mid-20s across southern England, low 20s up across Scotland. This April is likely to start very cold but I believe this cold pattern finally breaks around mid-month, perhaps ending on a very warm note.

For days now I’ve been watching the pattern for next week and while we continue to recieve a bitter feed of air off Europe, the air mass appears to grow even colder than what we have now believe it or not. That’s in terms of the 850mb temperature. With potentially clearer skies and plenty of snowcover over higher ground, we may see record late March temperatures by night next week. The snow chances should go down as higher pressure builds.

I am optimistic that we should hopefully enjoy brighter weather with winds easing down. It may not turn calm but the easterly flow should become more of a breeze rather than a strong wind or gale.

Will have an update later!

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