Is Snow On The Way?

[Eve]

Out of curiousity, I've heard it said many a time that the weather on the east coast of the United States tends to come over here although not quite as bad.

Given there are snowstorms said to be heading to the east coast, is it, therefore, likely, that we will get some - more generally, is there some merit in the saying?

[maggiebee]

Sidlaw Hills to the north of Dundee are white with snow. None lying here yet though.

[boxtops]

It's not forecast for most of the UK, the weather forecast earlier only mentioned RAIN.

[gen2]

Depressions certainly track across the North Atlantic from W to E. All those hurricanes eventually finish up over here as deep depressions (Lows).

To get heavy snowfalls though, the warm moist air (in depressions) has to run into cold dense polar air. That is happening in the east of the US where the cold polar air is coming down from Arctic Canada.

When the depressions (with the moist air) reach the UK they will only form heavy snowfalls if they encounter cold polar air here too. Our cold air masses come from Arctic Scandinavia and Russia and they are not directly tied in to the Canadian airflows.

[Eve]

None round Manchester either though I imagine some higher up though on the hills.

I really hope the rain gives it a rest soon, just causig so much misery for people.

[Eve]

Thanks gen, really interesting, I always wondered. I really appreciate your help.

[baza]

I think the expression is,,,,if the gritter lorries are still in the depot then we will have blizzards, if the lorries are out then it must be a bank holiday.

[cupid04]

Just lots of rain here. went to my sisters on boxing day and saw 2 swans swimming in a big puddle in a field. There definitely weren't a pond last time I looked!

[Eve]

Lots of flooding round Shrewsbury too, the river was worryingly high roud town when I was back over Christmas though it is an area prone to that, especially with the main town being in a loop of the river and ot very high banks.

[shoota]

I thought it was seven swans a swimming......

[Peter Pedant]

no that was a stock market tip

when new york gets a cold
London gets pneumonia.....

but still it could apply to the weather as well

[Clanad]

Ah, ha! A returning rose among the thorns... a diamond in the rough... Mr. Peter Pedant! Noted from here in the US, Mr. P was always refreshingly candid and thoroughly knowledgeble about a wide variety of subjects. Gone for years now to reappear... Mr. Pedant's moniker is one of my favorite (if overused) words thought to be thoroughly English in origin... however, on further reflection we find... “The word "pedant" comes from the French pédant (used in 1566 in Darme & Hatzfeldster's Dictionnaire général de la langue française) or its older mid-15th Century Italian source pedante, "teacher, schoolmaster". (Compare the Spanish pedante.) The origin of the Italian pedante is uncertain, but multiple dictionaries suggest that it was contracted from the mediaeval Latin pædagogans, present participle of pædagogare, "to act as pedagogue, to teach" (Du Cange).[1] The Latin word is derived from Greek παιδαγωγός, paidagōgós, παιδ- "child" + ἀγειν "to lead", which originally referred to a slave who escorted children to and from school but later meant "a source of instruction or guidance".

It is with some misfortune that the term in English is typically used with a negative connotation, indicating someone overly concerned with minutiae and whose tone is perceived as condescending. When it was first used by Shakespeare in Love's Labour's Lost (1598), it simply meant "teacher". Shortly afterwards it began to be used negatively. Thomas Nashe wrote in Have with you to Saffron-walden (1596), page 43: "O, tis a precious apothegmaticall [terse] Pedant, who will finde matter inough to dilate a whole daye of the first inuention [invention] of Fy, fa, fum".

None of which is applicable to our respected Peter (in my opinion)… welcome back!

(Apologies for the mini-hijack Jenna).

[Sir Alec]

We had a short hailstorm about half an hour ago, here in South Yorkshire.