The Great British Weather Debate

[Hugo]

I'm a bit confused about the weather forecast for tomorrow as BBC North West Wales has said that Colwyn Bay will be sunny with a maximum temperature of 2 degrees and wind speed of 9 mph.  My wife was watching ITV and tomorrows forecast for this area is snow!
A bit of a difference, so as we have had enough snow up here I'm going to settle for the BBC's weather.
 D)

[Ian]

Hugo:

Weather forecasting is a black art, and the best bet is to take several views of the weather and deduce what's likely to happen yourself.

Try these:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/loutdoor/mountainsafety/snowdonia/snowdonia_forecast_radar.html

Pretty good forecast for Snowdonia itself

http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/4

The Beeb's own site.  Notoriously inaccurate, but gives a general trend.

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/today.asp?

World wide weather drawing on different sat systems

http://www.raintoday.co.uk/

Where it's been raining recently

http://www.metcheck.com/V40/UK/FREE/jetstream.asp

What the jetstream is up to - the cause of most of our current woes

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/wl/wl_forecast_warnings.html

Weather warnings for North Wales

If you read them all, you'll see they often seem contradictory, despite the fact that they all draw their data from the same source.  Snow is coming in on Boxing Day, BTW....

[Bellringer]

It really is 'deep and crisp and even' this evening, currently -9C here in Conwy.

Happy Christmas to all   VV I*

[Ian]

Met office issues a level 2 warning:

In addition, there is a risk of snow, heavy at times and accompanied by drifting in strong winds, spreading slowly across western parts of the UK through the day. At this stage there is considerable uncertainty regarding this aspect.

Starts warming up from Wednesday, though :-))

[Ian]

Met forecasters haven't enjoyed a perfect record this year, but a lot of that is down to trying to understand fluid dynamics.  The Navier-Stokes equations - the basic governing equations for a viscous, heat conducting fluid - were defined in the 19th C, yet we still don't comprehend them and they're part of the Clay Institutes's millennium project, which also offers £1m to anyone who can produce a Mathematical proof.

I'm not defending meteorologists, but having a younger son who's a fluid dynamics specialist has made me a little more tolerant of their failings :-))

[Nemesis]

This was this morning. The Lions Club said the sea temp. was minus 18 degrees.
Congratulations to the brave souls who slid along the prom and into the sea.

[Ian]

   
This was this morning. The Lions Club said the sea temp. was minus 18 degrees.

In either C or F that would have produced a large, Irish-sea-sized block of ice 

[Nemesis]

MMMM I thought that too, think someone made a boo boo with their figures !
Didn't see any icebergs!

[Merddin Emrys]

yesterday we bought some of the snow / ice grips for our shoes at £14.99 from JJB sports

http://www.yaktrax.co.uk/yaktrax-shop/yaktrax-walker-pro/walker-black

truly remarkable, but most places have sold out, but after struggling on very icy pavements yesterday to see the swimmers we had to do something!  and now its all thawing out 

Now why could'nt the Royal Mail have bought some for the postmen?

[Hugo]

Thanks for that info Merddin Emrys, I never thought of JJB.    I had been putting off going to the Cotswolds Outdoor place in Betws Y Coed because of the weather but as I'm going to Llandudno tomorrow I'll pop in to JJB'S.
The rain has washed a lot of snow away but what's left will probably freeze tonight and the Yaktrax will come in handy again anyway.

[Merddin Emrys]

Cunningham's in Betws y Coed had them in stock today, we were getting loads of bargains in the Hawkshead shop  D)

[Hugo]

It was pouring with rain last night and the snow was melting very quickly. We were watching TV and could hear the snow sliding down the front roof and falling on the ground.
When I went out later to investigate I found out that it wasn't snow but chunks of ice, massive pieces in fact!
My thoughts were then about the rear of the house where we have a glassed roof conservatory!        but we were lucky there, as no ice fell on it.

[Nemesis]

Just come back from Betwys-- weather down there was quite nasty, mist and heavy drizzle. Very icy underfoot as well. The poor folk being shuttled off the coach trips were all trailing hopefully across to the loos, but they were shut-- frozen up.

[Hugo]

Those old folks have got my sympathy, this cold weather would make anyone want to go to the loo.  I bet they all had their 20p ready too!     
I had a walk by the boating lake on the West Shore today and there is thick ice over most of it.  Some kids must have chucked some large rocks on the ice because the rocks are all still there.

[Hugo]

According to the TV news December 2010 has been the coldest December for 120 years!      But the world is having weather extremes everywhere. This afternoon on the TV news it mentioned Australia and said that an area the size of France and Germany had been affected by the floods in Queensland and showed Rockhampton under water. 
Jas has just come back over from that area and I wonder if the place that she had over there had been affected and like wise if my cousin Binky was affected too.