Has the snow gone for good now Moley ?

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I do not suffer fools !!!!!

Not quite, I've still got a pile in my front garden

Looking like it could get into double figures at the weekend so that should see the end of it in the short term.

However, having done a few hundred miles on the salt and sleet laden M25 my car is now a little grey dirt ball. You can't even read the front number plate now

Therefore it gets a wash either tomorrow or Sunday and that should kibosh anything pleasant

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Lets be careful out there !

Nooooo! DON'T do it Kremmen! You know it makes sense!

I think it has for the time being Jane. I haven't posted much because Ive been quite busy so my apologies for that, but it has at least given me a chance to get some up to the minute information on the prospects for tonights precipitation.

With the Atlantic fronts heading in from the west, tonight was always going to be a tough one to call as to whether we would get rain/sleet/snow or a combination of all three here in London and The South East. After a bitterly cold day here on the South Coast temperatures and dew points are rising quite rapidly, and this rise is spreading towards the London area as I type.

So for tonight I would say the South Coast will see rain only, further inland and further north it will begin as a mix of rain/sleet, and to the north of London ( Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, The Chilterns ) this event may well begin as snow, turning to sleet later. Some areas may wake up on Saturday morning to freshly accumulated snow ( depending on how intense the overnight fall has been ), but any precipitation still falling by then is likely to be rain only right across Southern England.

SATURDAY will still be a chilly day, but milder than it has been for a while with a day time maximum of around 5-6c. SUNDAY will see temperatures edging up further, to 9-11c, but it will be wet and windy, and this looks likes being the pattern for much of next week: Mild and windy, with frequent showers or longer spells of rain.

Thanks for reading and posting, and have a good weekend, whatever the weather.

Moley

NB: Kremmen. I know what you mean about the state of your car, and I thought long and hard before deciding not to waste time and money having mine cleaned today, Im waiting until all the salt and grit on the roads has been washed away at least !!

Thanks Moley ..... in which case I will head to Swindon tomorrow

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I do not suffer fools !!!!!

Unfortunately got to be done. A Honda dealer near Woking wants to give me "the deal of a lifetime" on the latest Civic. I thought she was going to have fit when I said that I would likely be changing this year.

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Lets be careful out there !

Well it was a glorious day down here on the South Coast with blue skies and sunshine for much of the day. It felt almost Springlike after the last 2 weeks and temperatures were slightly higher than I had predicted as well, reaching 8-9c (46-48F). I spent a very pleasant few hours with my friends and their dog at Dungeness and Camber Sands. The ideal cure for Winter Blues, and another reason I want to re-locate down here.

Tonight however I can hear the wind howling outside and its raining. This spell of weather is likely to last for a good few hours in London and The South East, probably well into SUNDAY morning, before clearing away to leave a mainly dry and bright afternoon.

The beginning of next week is showing signs of being very unsettled, and I am trying to keep a close watch on at least 2 vigorous Low Pressure systems which are currently out in The Atlantic. One of them is currently reporting near record breaking Pressure readings (922 mbs ). Although it's expected to track north eastwards somewhere between Iceland and Scotland, it is still likely to pack quite a punch over much of the UK.

As always with these things, the track and timing are extremely difficult to predict but for now I am pretty certain that MONDAY and TUESDAY will see the week get off to a very wet and windy start, and I don't see much in the way of change later in the week to be honest.

So while London and The South East will avoid the very worst, expect some fairly heavy rainfall and strong gusty winds
( gale force on the South Coast ) until midweek at least. Temperatures will be fairly mild...8 -10c ( 48-50f ) but it won't feel particularly pleasant. I will try and update this developing situation as often as possible, but time constraints may mean the updates will be brief.

For now though The Atlantic Storm Train is back on the tracks with a vengeance, so batten down the hatches and hang on for the ride.

Moley

**UPDATED SATURDAY JANUARY 26th 2012 @ 2355hrs**

I was just about to switch off and retire for the night when a rapid increase in wind strength and rainfall here had me looking to my usual sources for weather reports. Some very intense thunderstorms with torrential rain and hail are being reported in Wales and The West Country, and these are expected to head east overnight.

The synoptics at the moment are quite exceptional for January, with a plume of very warm air being drawn from the tropics, into the previously mentioned Low Pressure system out to our west. This really does need close monitoring.

Moley

Yesterday was fine and the car got it's first years wash.

Up in Shropshire however this was posted on a forum yesterday morning:

"Well what a covering we had. This morning I was lifting frozen snow off the car in huge slabs 3 feet across !"

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Lets be careful out there !

Put next Saturday ( February 2nd ) in your diary Jane. Some interesting synoptics have been cropping up on the models for a few days now. The same models have also been showing a major Low Pressure System just to the south of the UK on Friday, and if it were to happen on anything like the scale they are currently showing, the gales we have had down here on the South Coast for the last couple of days will seem like a gentle breeze in camparison.

Moley

Oh my word .... thanks Moley, I will do. I will make sure everything in the garden is bolted down !! xx

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I do not suffer fools !!!!!