After the (predicted) little flurry of snow this morning, the Met Office have sent an update. Here you are:
'General weather commentary:
The band of rain and snow duly marched NE’wards across the Northwest in the early hours and into this morning, giving several cm of snow across parts of inland Cumbria and towards/amongst the Pennines. Falling snow is now becoming confined to the far N/E of Cumbria and the higher trans-Pennine routes with scattered rain showers draped out across the rest of the Northwest. The amber snow warning was updated earlier this morning with the far E of Cumbria included in the update but this will expire at midday. Through the rest of today and this evening/overnight further areas of showery rain, occasionally heavy, will push NE’wards across the Northwest with any additional snow becoming confined to ground > 200m in the far N/NE of Cumbria together with the N Pennines where the colder air will hang on. Further south an ingress of less cold air plus the rain will encourage a thaw of lying snow as temperatures nudge upwards.
Tomorrow, something of a N/S divide across our region with a good part of Cumbria experiencing further rain at times (still cold enough for some further snow across the higher N Pennine routes) whilst the rest of the Northwest see some respite with a fair bit of drier weather through the daytime, the next band of rain then spreading NE’wards across many parts during tomorrow evening and overnight into Thursday morning. This could also fall as snow over the N Pennine routes and perhaps also the higher Cumbrian passes.
Current severe weather warnings/Flood Guidance statement:
Hence the next few days are clearly unsettled in nature, although after this morning the threat of disruption to transport from snow looks to diminish (except perhaps along the aforementioned higher level N Pennine routes for which the existing yellow snow warning remains valid through tomorrow and Thursday, see above). The threat from rainfall is more marginal with the successive bands of rain crossing the region, combined with some snowmelt, posing possible risks from both rivers and surface water. This morning’s Flood Guidance Statement (above) is very much as per yesterday’s with the whole of the Northwest contained within a green Area Of Concern (low likelihood of minor impacts for both rivers/surface water) for today through Thursday and much of the Pennines at a higher likelihood of surface water excess and thus yellow (medium likelihood of minor impacts) on Area Of Concern Map 2. Yesterday’s low impact yellow rain warning for just the Pennine spine remains in force (copy above).
Friday and the weekend:
From Friday onwards things start to change as the cold air starts to nudge back southwards. Further pockets of precipitation will still be occurring across the region, nothing particularly disruptive initially. However, as we progress into the weekend the beginnings of a very cold E to NE’ly spell start to emerge, meaning that precipitation will turn more and more to snow but also become mainly focussed down the Pennine chain with the western half of our region trending dry. How this spell pans out remains open to question (the weather forecast models tend to become very volatile whenever serious cold threatens) but it will doubtless become a talking point on social/broadcast media in the next few days if the signal persists. The most likely scenario to emerge would be several very cold days (max temps not much above zero), largely dry towards the west coast with the best of the sunshine but with the potential for snow showers to occasionally infiltrate into the more eastern parts of the region, perhaps threatening some disruption if anything organised develops. Any warnings for this period will probably start appearing from tomorrow onwards.
And there we currently stand. A messy picture but with a potentially more straightforward set up emerging by the weekend'