Isn't it time we had one of these, to keep the general chatter, ramping, speculation & IMBY forecast requests in one place?

I'm expecting 2-3 feet of lying snow....................................... When I view this site over the next 24 hourshttp://www.earthcam.com/usa/massachusetts/boston/?cam=boston_hd

You may have read elsewhere recently, that I have a pair of unused snow shoes for sale. That was a typo.....it should have read "NOT for sale"!....

That's the weather here, for now

Im actually far more interested in this than I am for here at the moment. As the missus is out I'm going to spend the evening setting up multi browsers with multiple cams for the NE states

You're a real party animal!

Typically it would be a curry, a few beers and back to back Buffy The Vampire Slayer - or is that just me? :)

I sold my Betamax video player 30 years ago 

LOL. I had the vision of realising VHS was the future. Still got it and still working actually!

Can I come

I thought that view looked very familiar! I used to stay regularly in the Royal Sonesta when visiting our Boston office.

I almost froze my nuts off one morning on the short walk from the hotel to the office not realizing (due to lack of white frost!) that it was actually minus 20C.

I'm not particularly optimistic about this upcoming spell in terms of snow for round here. Looks far too marginal and, whilst I think Pennine & Peak areas will do fantastically well out of it (I think some upland areas will get +20cm by the end of Friday), lowland areas in the NW of England will struggle to achieve & retain any covering. I think the detail for NW England will be something along the lines of:

Wednesday

Rain during the day turning increasingly to sleet/snow in the late afternoon/evening, but struggling to stick away from hills

Thursday

Snow am, away from hills turning sleety/poss to rain, then fizzling out. Showers of rain/sleet following

Friday

Wintry showers (snow on hills) and some sunny spells

Saturday

Occasional snow showers

Looks like a repeat of the recent, extremely lack lustre cold spell. The circumstances in which we get lowland snow in the UK are as rare as hen's teeth. Come back 1947, all is forgiven!

As I said in my post on the MO thread, after having a year when it wasn't even worth checking the parameters when you do you realise how  hard it is, we just can't get it cold enough and for precipitation to be there at the same time!

We have a 6 hour window down south in this upcoming spell with very little snow around, you just wouldn't believe it would you!

Expecting just light falls between  Late Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. In N. East Somerset. Probably enough to say we had some.   

Not expecting so much as a flake here. The Welsh mountains wring out any moisture on northerlies or northweterlies, even on more established features like troughs. 

As as noted above, the Pennines will likely get buried!

Tomorrow probably offers the greatest potential for snow to low levels in Scotland and Northern England, though Thursday may deliver for some Southern and Western areas.

 With the event starting with rain it will be a major headache for the councils as any grit will be washed off just in time for the snow to get going.  I'd be surprised if we don't see some negative coverage in the press on Thursday. 9-5'ers in Central Scotland have some reason to be concerned about the journey home tomorrow, I'll be planning for a long and uncomfortable one - and may be time for a little winter kit in the boot. Likewise for the Penninies later on in the evening - certainly a day for reconsidering any plans to take the cross Pennine routes and to be prepared to spend the night if you do travel!

At first it looked like there was potential for the cold snap to keep the snow on the ground for quite a bit, but  the milder spell on Friday and any rain may put paid to that in some parts. The dusting of snow we had on the 16/17th managed to last a full 6 days on the ground before it warmed up.

Southern areas may also see a greater chance of some snow into next week, though I expect more northern areas (away from higher ground and north western extremes) may see less. As always with this setup, though one cannot rule out showers peppering into the eastern side of the country - that will depend on the fine details of the wind directions.

Proof positive of the [censored]ness of the UK's weather

I don't think it's looking any more promising than the last cold spell. For NW England the WRF model shows mostly rain/sleet away from the Pennines. At best I might get a few dustings like last week, better than nowt I suppose,

Exactly! It's all down to what you are used to.

Serious (by our standards) snow is the humdrum normality of a NE USA winter. When you can go for several years (as we can) with little more than a sprinking, eought snow to cover the grass is a bit of a novelty for most.

http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/euro4/2015/01/27/basis12/ukuk/prty/15012912_2712.gif

I'm fairly confident I may actually see some falling snow for the first time in 2 years

I think you're being a little pessimistic.

Don't get me wrong, January 2010 this ain't. But I do think there is a moderately good chance of snow accumulation overnight Wednesday into Thursday morning.

Positive number 1 ---> http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn421.gif This is a near perfect wind direction to push big showers across much of Greater Manchester and North Cheshire, with the potential for thunder

Positive number 2----> Dewpoints are comfortably below freezing http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/2015/01/27/basis12/ukuk/taup/15012906_2712.gif - nothing marginal about those

Positive number 3-----> with dewpoints like the above, 2m temps like these are very very allowing for snow http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/2015/01/27/basis12/ukuk/tmp2/15012906_2712.gif (remember if you add together the dewpoint and air temp, if the answer is below zero, it'll almost certainly snow)

Positive number 4 ----> wet bulb freezing levels look ok http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/2015/01/27/basis12/ukuk/thfr/15012906_2712.gif 

Positive number 5-------> the oh so accurate GFS snow accumulation charts say it's gonna snow loads http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/2015/01/27/basis12/ukuk/weas/15012906_2712.gif haha

In all seriousness, this is not nailed on, but this is the best chance my patch has had for a long time, and has way more potential than the last cold spell IMO.

A few flies in the ointment -

1) EURO4 has the bulk of the showers missing G Man altogether. Based on past experience, I think this is wrong. http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/euro4/2015/01/27/basis12/ukuk/pr06/15012906_2712.gif

2) NMM/WRF has 2m temps a little too high, with rain/sleet for much of the region away from the Pennines. I'm hoping GFS and Euro4 are closer to the mark.

OVERALL, my hunch is cold with snow lying on Thursday morning, turning to rain and melting by about lunchtime. Possibly turning cold enough again overnight Thursday though.

According to my good friend at the Met Office (hi Rob Snowman), what matters most to the MetO re. snow prediction is the wet bulb freezing level.

For somewhere like Manchester, this level needs to 300m or less to allow for snow, and the forecasted 100m is actually quite promising.

http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/2015/01/27/basis12/ukuk/thfr/15012906_2712.gif

I don't pretend to understand much about this though!