http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11460906/The-big-dump.html

 

That would be a dream to receive that sort of snowfall. Even better if it was UK-wide.

 

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Anyone up for the challenge of drawing a fantasy synoptic chart of how the UK might receive that amount? 🙂

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Can't recall the exact synopics suggested, but it forms the basis of the late Nigel Calder's 1974 predictions of an imminent, catastrophic ice age detailed in his book The Weather Machine (which also featured in a BBC documentary, and helped create the myth that this is what all climate scientists were predicting in the 70s, before they decided to invent global warming) and, also Robert Felix's even more incredible imminent catastrophic ice age predictions outlined in Not by Fire, but by Ice.

In the real world, not sure it's possible (outside of the Highlands perhaps) as you need the right combination of cold and a lot moisture.

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A good start point would be posting up the charts of what happened in Italy.

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Hasn't there been some spectacular snow events in Devon in the past? We had family friends who lived in a village not far from Exeter and they told me about being totally cut off with snow drifts in the lanes being 6'. Would have been sometime around 1980. And I know our very own Retron, Gusty & others from the Kent Posse recall similar conditions down there (1987?) when they needed food drops by helicopter.

Obviously not country-wide snowmageddon scenarios, but it is possible.

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100% Agree

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That's virtually only down the road from here.

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Funnily enough, I actually know that area quite well. I've stayed in one of the villages mentioned, Pescopennataro, a few times. I've only ever visited in summer - hard to imagine what it's like at the moment.

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Cold & white?

 

 

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 Now that you mention it, it's probably not that hard to imagine what it's like at the moment...

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http://www.weathertoski.co.uk/our-blog/italian-village-breaks-world-snowfall-record/ 

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I still have that book by Nigel Calder, It`s well worth reading.

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Looking at the SSTs for the region:

(Found via http://ghrsst-pp.metoffice.com/pages/latest_analysis/sst_monitor/ostia/sst_plot.html?i=34&j=2)

 

We see that values of 13-14*C existed upwind of the impacted area, which are the sort of values that often cease to exist around our (usually southwestern at the latest) shores sometime in November, maybe early December at a push.

This implies that with the right setup, a similar weather event would be just about achievable... at the summit of Ben Nevis 

For the air to be cold enough to bring snow at low levels, the capacity to hold moisture is drastically reduced.

Never mind, I reckon I would be okay with something like the Blizzard of '78 

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