Firmly excited - Gavin. I agree with the last few posts, we have seen false dawns, though this has been modelled for some time and is getting more consistent. It looks like the ingredients are there. It is remarkable how rare these Scandinavian high pressures are these days. They come in all shapes and sizes and not all deliver cold to all of the UK. Some are dry and some bring moisture along on their southern edge. When the southerly wind pushes all the way to Svaalbard - this pattern develops, whether from the warm air advection then cooling as so setting up a clockwise spin, or whether mechanical, I am not sure, but this is all but nailed on to occur. It’s less certain how large the anticyclone will be and how pervasive.
It reminds me of the 1993 November Scandi-high. Of course seas were cooler then, but after a stiff easterly was set up by a super Scandi-high, it seemed to take an age for the cold air to be dragged across Russia to the Baltic’s and to us, turning rain fronts to sleet and finally to snow, dry frozen and real-deal snow. It lasted a week, but the set up as a whole was 12 days, so much of the set up was “wasted” in the advection of the cold clockwise around the high.
Not so sure if the shape is going to be right for this one, except Scotland, but if it was, I am also not sure if the warm sea temperatures would allow snowfall in the UK, low dew points or not. However, I would love to be proved wrong on that and wake up to a morning blanket of snow, from an easterly bearing cold front.
At school in the 60s - there were frequent Scandi highs, and often a snow flurry would occur in November - in the afternoon, not settling necessarily. Those east coast snow flurries were so common as to be incidental. They simply served to warn of the More significant snow to come in Jan’ and Feb.’
They are soooo rare these days, that I confess to being excited to seeing this one, though not expecting anything from it. I just like the drier air from the east and the light, the rustle of leaves in a lazy east wind, that whisper the hinted promise of potential transformational snow. We took it for granted in the 60s, but I cant remember doing so afterwards, even in the (at times) snowy 80s.
Brecklands, South Norfolk 28m ASL