I thought I would start this thread as cold zonality with numerous snow opportunities are now set to dominate the next fortnight.

How much snow and where is clearly open to debate but clearly the further north you are the better and any altitude will assist greatly.

To kick off snow showers are now falling to low levels across Cumbria and a recent heavy one here left a slushy covering on grass and the shed roof, another is coming through now with hail and snow blowing horizontally in the wind.

I can not decide how much potential this spell of cold zonality has given that most over the past few years have delivered little even in the north, but let's be optimistic and hope we get 20+pages in this thread with some posts from the south as well.

Andy

PS Shed roof gone white again.

Had a snow shower about 30 mins ago, stuck to the cars.

I think my area will have about as much snow input into this thread as it has the last nearly two years

Mostly dry here and, when PPN does fall, it's of the completely melted variety

If this is as good as it is going to get in terms of proper wintry weather this season, I'd say roll on being able to feel the first real bit of warmth come Spring (chances are that's when we'll get the most wintry weather!).

   

No lying snow on the webcams at Buxton, Cat & Fiddle or Flash Bar

Slightly chilly zonality here.

Went for a drive last night and the only lying snow was above 300 metres. It will have all melted now though , as up to a mild 6.3c here .

Great thread and perhaps one to archive for future years. It will hopefully give people an indication of what to expect from 'cold zonality'. Personally the only thing I remember from January 1984 was seeing lots of snow in La Plagne in the French alps. I can't recall a flake falling in York where I lived, although it may well have done. 

All depends (as ever) on where you live Brian. I lived in Glasgow in 1984 and it was the 'holy grail' for cold zonality with 20 days of lying snow. But there was a huge north/south divide in terms of conditions and for the southern half of England it was not noteworthy at all.

This winter's cold zonality completely pales in comparison - there is yet to be any significant lowland snow in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. Of course that may all change but thus far it's been unremarkable and certainly not fit to be mentioned alongside 1984!

January 1984 was epic in Penrith, Cumbria and was probably one of the snowiest spells in the last 50 years.

The towns modest height of 150meters probably helped as most of the snowfalls were at or just above 0c.

It all started on the evening on the 13th January with a weekend of frequent snow showers before a heavy fall from a small low on the 16th, further heavy snowfalls occurred from fronts and showers over the next 2 weeks and by the 26th level snow was 32cms deep although much more than this had fallen. One estimate was that 50cms had fallen on the town over the two week period which sounds about right as much compaction would have occurred between falls as a slight thaw occurred on several days. The snow didn't melt until early February.

Unlike this current spell after the 13th there were no warm sectors in the westerly flow from Northern England northwards.

Anything this week will be pathetic in comparison.

BTW how do we know that sea surface temperatures are higher now than then?

Andy

There was snow on the morning of 22nd January 1984 in Kent, I have my old weather diaries from then.  That was the only occasion that month we saw laying snow.  The newspaper reports show that wintry conditions far exceed anything seen so far this month, and also included 100mph winds.

Since we are reminiscing, I remember the blizzard of February 1969 - what a humdinger that was and it seemed to come out of nowhere. We lived in Redditch a the time and the local council were certainly caught hopping, since none of the roads had been gritted and the gritters and snowploughs were stranded in the council garage so were useless, since men with spades had to dig their way in. My mother being my mother insisted that we still had to go to school (me and my two sisters) and I remember walking down the middle of the main road and it being eery and silent, since no cars were moving - after all, we were walking along a pedestrian trench and the snow was a level 2 to 4 feet deep - naturally we got to school and found it was closed as we know all along it would be, so we walked home and enjoyed the rest of the day helping to dig our road out and then sledging down the result

[edit] got my decades mixed up - was 1969.

The 1960s appear to have been a good decade for proper English winters.

Well here in Lincs, all I can say is that January 1984 was very much a snowy month, as well as very stormy initially.  Here's a brief rundown of the highlights for that month:

Jan 13th - very high winds causing structural damage (nearby wall collapsed, roof slates blown off).  Wintry showers.

Jan 14th - high winds with vicious showers of hail, sleet and snow, coverings at times.

Jan 15th - windy, heavy snow showers, 1 to 2cm coverings.

Jan 19th - snow showers, coverings.

Jan 21st-22nd - heavy snow arriving overnight and lasting to mid-morning.  Up to 12cm of lying snow.

Jan 23rd - continuous snow, becoming heavy for several hours later.  Up to 18cm of lying snow, with drifts much deeper. Snow was so deep on the house roofs that there were occasional massive collapses of snow from roofs into back yards.  

Jan 25th - snow overnight (last snowfall of the month), followed by a slow thaw for the rest of the month.

So it was a pretty exciting month at times here, and would put it as the second snowiest January of the 1980's in my location (behind 1987).

Thanks, WI, that puts that one to rest! Interesting that you mention 100MPH winds too, sounds like that month had a very active jet as well.

How Euro 4 sees things.

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=ukuk&MODELL=euro4&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prty&HH=48&ZOOM=0&ARCHIV=0&RES=0&WMO=&PERIOD=