Indeed, a recent comparable being March 12 2004 - 6-8+ inches of snow for a large swathe of South Wales and the West Midlands >200m asl. Some of the highest snowfall rates I have ever seen and the fastest I have ever seen lying snow of that depth melt! We would've had significantly more lying if it wasn't for rate of melt and compaction!

Looks like the low pressure system may well now track in towards the SW:

Cold but not cold enough:

Bookmark this as a nationwide snow event (except coastal areas) because this chart will not last:

This morning's GFS certainly an upgrade for snowfall potential here in the south, with another bout of cold air early next week and potential widespread snowfall mid next week. We shall see.

6z GEFS update looks pretty cold into March

God this is frustrating.

Back in January we had bitterly cold air next door but insufficient synoptics

Now we have insufficiently cold air next door but perfect synoptics.

Goddam this, can we not get a single ice day or more than widespread snow event per cold spell; you'd think the EU is regulating against them or something (it wouldn't surprise me).  

/rant 

Seriously though, this is not anywhere near as good as it looks. A good lake effect snow event (snow showers) requires the following:

0) Deep cold air in place (zeroth because this is just obvious)

1) High thermal gradient 

2) Low directional sheer

3) Low speed sheer

4) Long fetch (and obviously it needs to be blowing from the sea in the first place)

5) Cold air advected (note this is independent from 0, you can get WAA while it is cold)

6) Moderate wind speeds (not too high or low - level is irrelevant due to the restriction imposed by 3)

7) Relatively low pressure

So lets examine this. I'm going to rate on the following scale:

Excellent - conditions very favorable

Good - conditions favorable

Marginal - conditions just favorable

Poor - conditions unfavourable

Terrible - conditions very unfavourable

0)Excellent  outside the boundry layer itself we are not even marginal - its easily cold enough.

1)Marginal/Good 850hpa-surface is broadly 13C-16C. This is acceptable, 13C is getting to the point where it is marginal, 16C is quite good. Overall acceptabl

2)Terrible-Good Highly variable. Frontal activity moving in after midweek causing cross winds. 

3)Terrible-Good As above, highly variable. 

4) Good/Excellent most of the time the wind is blowing from the north or north east with an effectively infinite fetch. Marginal at times in the south east as the wind turns SErly

5) Marginal/Good most of the time there is weak CAA with some strong CAA at first, some weak WAA possible midweek. Generally good though and occasionally excellent.

6) Terrible-Excellent ridiculously variable; sometimes the air will be virtually static (and therefore terrible) and at othertimes especially later it may even be slightly too high. 

7) Marginal/Good/Excellent most of the time it will be good or excellent but occasionally in the west the pressure will rise above 1020mb which is getting marginal.

So my overall assesment is very mixed. Please keep in mind that cold air and a roughly NE wind is NOT the only criterion for lake effect snow. Honestly I think it could be alot better than it is; in the south especially it will be so marginal I think we can rule out impressive streamers. Hope for frontal snow (Harry rather than Sally), its far more low maintance and really only cares about how cold it is (and its easily cold enough). 

If anyone is going to Spain this coming weekend, i think that's the place to be if you want to see snow, as it looks like they will get a right old dumping, while we get just a few dribs & drabs. (Based on this morning's GFS run of course).

I think I may have to go for the dry and cold theme as being the form horse for this weekend as far as this neck of the woods is concerned. The latest ensemble does show nicely the fairly cold uppers but precipitation rates seems to be very sparse. May have to rely on a surprise Kent Clipper to provide the goods in terms of wintry weather, but at this point it's more a "you never know" thing rather than being forecast.

I've noticed posts appearing in triplicate in TWO lately, server acting up or Mr Gaze used to work for the civil services?  Also it takes ages for posts to be sent off (up to 30 seconds when it used to be quite instant).

My parents are going to Marrakesh, Morocco this weekend and the temperature there is 13c to +15c this weekend with heavy rain in the forecast. This would mean snow for the Atlas mountains. Well considering it was 16c here and dry but overcast yesterday and dry this weekend albeit colder they wouldn't be happy to go on Holiday to be greeted with rain.

From IF

Met Office assessment remains consistent:

- A protracted period of below average temperatures (ie most extended period of such seen for some time) remains key message from longer range output

- Timing of any return to mobility after end of this week remains very uncertain

- However, persistence of any blocking becomes much less pronounced through early March as mean NW flow becomes more dominant in extended range products

- GloSea5 takes us through mid-March on a wetter than average, cyclonic-dominated signal. EC Monthly does likewise, but retaining colder than average conditions

- Further transient blocked periods are possible

- Self-evidently, 'below average' for late Feb-early March must be interpreted relative to normal seasonal trend: so, that does NOT equate to what it would mean in e.g. mid-Jan!! 

• Finally, EC Monthly updates again tonight and the UKMO Seasonal Team will shortly update probabilistic expectations for March-April-May.

EDIT

As mentioned earlier today, for those interested, this is now available on UKMO website. It includes discussion re the anticipated SSW early in March (signposted for some time in GloSea5 and now appearing in other models) and potential subsequent impacts; plus El Niño and other factors.

Got home yesterday from a week's holiday in Lanzarote.  We experienced quite unusual weather for the Canaries whilst there, with initially a strong and chilly Nly wind (up to 40mph) and temps about 18C and then (Thurs / Friday) heavy rain, and strong winds (50mph) and temps no higher than 12C.   It snowed on both Gran Canaria and Tenerife both Thursday and Friday. 

Suffice the say the family were not happy with our winter sun holiday.

Very good ukmo. We'll be unlucky if we don't see at least some snow from this set up.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rukm961.html

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rukm1201.html

It all looks rather marginal unless cold air is already established by that point.

GFS 12z has lots of diving lows with a snow risk remaining and cold at times to.

To far away to put detail on these things though.

Its definitely marginal but at night, inland with a bit of height it could be a decent set up.

that first chart has miserable and wet written all over it, the second is marginal to say the least? If it were the beginning of January with already entrenched cold it would be game on, but sadly it's all a bit too late now. 

Still, should be some bright sunshine and sharp frosts to enjoy in the next few days 

It is a time to feel optimistic based on the charts we are seeing. However, for the south at least it feels very much a repeat performance of what we saw last weekend whereby a cold easterly flow established with cold rain and hill sleet followed by a NE'ly that was not cold enough.

Time for change of course but not feeling it at the moment.

I've corrected your conditions for you :)

Looks promising for hillier areas of the West Midlands and mid-Wales.

These things can be so marginal. A few years back, it was raining where my daughter lives 20 miles to the east, whilst we had heavy snow because we are about 200 metres higher in a more hilly area.

LOL.

maybe I'm being too optimistic. We'll soon find out.

Keep it up Ally- it's all good fun 😀

Most definitely. I am not intending to supress a bit of optimism, just suggesting that expectations should be kept realistic.
Still, we have another possibly stronger strat warming and maybe SSW level event starting later this week so maybe we should look to mid-March for heavy snow