Essex 17 - Kent 8

No kidding here - almost 7 inches

Would have made a decent rugby score wouldn't it.........but no, on this occasion it was the depth of snow in centimetres lying on the ground after the first snowfall of 2012.


After a relatively mild winter so far, with no snow and a handful of frosts, a mass of very cold air moved in to Eastern Britain thanks to a large High Pressure system sitting over Scandinavia and dominating north west Europe.

During Saturday the 4th of February, an Atlantic weather system with rain bearing fronts pushed in west to east.  As it came up to meet the cold maritime air mass, it's rain readily turned to snow and began falling in Essex around 8pm. The wind increased and was gusting to 25 mph, bringing intermittent blizzard conditions. The snow increased in intensity and I believe it continued until around 3 or 4am.

Look at the depth of snow on those plant pots !

When looking out of the window on Sunday morning, I was amazed at the amount of snow that had fallen.  Research has shown that we had around double that of the residents in North Kent (Dun Ya).


I don't blog often, and cba to do LRFs, but this year's snow event was certainly in need of a mention.

Sunday's temperature remained above freezing all day and night  bringing with it the inevitable thaw.

Roads and pavements turned slushy overnight and it looked a complete mess during Monday rush hour.

I look forward to the next event with renewed vigour.

Saturdays' Snow Storm

It was all quiet at work, frozen ground outside from the previous nights mercury reading of -6.7 degrees.
The forecast was equally as benign.

Then it came, around 11am, the sky blackened, the birds retreated to wherever they go when its about to get bad.....gently at first it fell, snow pellets for a while (some say the resemble soap powder), then it stopped. But the sky turned even darker, the street lamps came on, no wind though, strange..........and then those tiny flakes began, barely visible unless looking against a black background, but they grew and they grew, the northerly wind increased, and it threw it down, and I mean threw it down, the visibility dropped as fast as the flakes arrived, the ground was covered in no time, and it kept going and going, heavier and heavier. I think we must have had four inches of it over a couple of hours. Its the heaviest dump of snow I've ever known over such a short period in all my life. Increddible !!




A view from the office


Fortunately, I was alowed to leave work early, best get home before nightfall. But what a journey, motorways down to one lane, traffic travelling at a crawling pace, and they were the lucky ones.



'Slip' road to the motorway

 





Another View



Off we go then

 

Forget the handbrake



Almost at the motorway



Depth of Snow, Kent v Essex

My brother over in Kent sent me a pic of his snow, in fact a foot of it. Well we had several feet here in Essex

Where I grew up

A panoramic view of my mum's and surrounding gardens. In the early 70's we had so much snow that I remember building a snow castle in that very garden. I doubt we've had anything like the current volume of snow since that time. Awesome.

Even my mum didn't escape

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So much snow

It's unusual to have so much snow in a relatively sheltered part of the county, I'm glad we didn't miss out as is usually the case


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