osmposm

My late father was born in 1920 in London, and lived most of his life there. He was always convinced that White Christmases were the norm when he was young - quite untrue, of course, they were rare in the south even in the earlier 20th Century. I'm quite sure the reason was the 1927 blizzard, which must have made a huge and indelible impression on a 7 year-old's mind and memory.

Thanks for that - the last 15 mins are amazing, and it's hard to believe how differently things were handled just a few decades ago. Men (dare I say it) were allowed to be men, then - physical strength, bravery, initiative, quick-acting no-nonsense practicality. A bit mad, perhaps...but I agree with marksp when he says he can't help thinking we've lost something along the way. I hope those qualities still lie within us (of either sex), however deeply buried by modern sensibilities. If not, when the internet completely crashes one day, along with all the things dependent on it (which by then will be literally everything), and people have to live once more by their own wits, knowledge, courage and physical capabilities, we really will be completely stuffed...

A webcam view of Cairngorm from Loch Morlich on Sunday afternoon.

Well, I'm nearly 67 years old, and I have NEVER seen and heard anything remotely like that in the UK (and possibly anywhere) before. Quite extraordinary - for the first SW London hit we had (as well as some pretty torrential rain) 35+ mins of intense activity from 11 pm or so, with continuous thunder and almost continuous lightning during the middle 15-20 mins. And then a shorter-lived action replay about an hour later - a mere 40 strikes a minute during the middle of that one.

Freezing rain falling here in Wandsworth (inner SW London), though showing as snow on radar - temp still @-1C. In answer to someone above mentioning snow falling but not showing on the radar, it can take surprisingly long for very small snowflakes to fall from radar height to ground level - for the same reason the radar often shows snowfall overhead, but nothing's happening on the ground.

The Queen said, "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day." Once again the cold eastern air's promised arrival has been pushed back to an eternal "tomorrow"

I can confirm the Heathrow gust subjectively. I'm 10 or 11 miles almost due east of Heathrow, and just before 4 am yesterday the wind suddenly strengthened dramatically for a few minutes, with a huge amount of noise from the trees and the smell of mashed leaves - loads of them on the ground when I was up later, plus twigs and a few small branches. The noise and smell reminded me of the great Oct 1987 storm (though nothing like as strong and shorter-lived), when I was also up and about in the small hours. As in 1987 there was no accompanying rain at all, so presumably not a squall line or anything - quite surreal, actually. But to put it in perspective, in '87 London recorded gusts well over 90 mph.

Unbelievably the absurd Nathan Rao is now getting the Mirror to pay him for his b*ll*cks: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/theres-every-chance-white-christmas-9468502 Note the first sentence, apparently written by a computer: "Britain is set for snow in the run-up to Christmas as a bitter blast sweeps in from the North Police." EH???? The 'bitter blast' will consist of night time mins of, um, 0 to -2C. Wow, that'll threaten some December records...or would do in Lisbon. Aha...rant on ** [**in case you didn't spot it, an anagram of you-know-who!]

Nice Thames streamer at the moment, pumping a long string of heavy showers in from the estuary - if only this were mid-Jan instead of mid-Oct!

A perfect Thames streamer here overnight - unfortunately a month or two late, and 5oC off the money. Grrrrr.

V intereresting report, Mike, thanks, and most of the translation is good...but I strongly suspect that L'Independant de Perpignan is a newspaper!

Yes, here in the foothills of the Jura (at about 500m, the other side of Geneva from the Alps) we had much more settling snow than had been expected by the authorities. Most - but not all - forecasts, including the official Meteo Swiss site, suggested that below 700m Saturday morning's snow would be transient, and turn quickly to heavy sleet/rain around 7 am, dying out by 10 - then the temp would dip below freezing again after 4 pm with a bit more light snow. In the event significant snowfall and temps near 0c continued till midday, by which time we had at least 20 cm (8") lying. Temps then rose well above freezing, with sleet/wet snow showers of varying intensity, and stayed above zero well into the night. Later on it finally cooled, and we had a further 5 cm in dribs and drabs during the early hours and into the morning. It just goes to show how even in places thoroughly used to snow, it is incredibly difficult to predict marginal snow events accurately. P.S. As the last of the flurries fade, the skies are set to clear as some seriously cold air moves in from the NE this evening. Earlier predictions of night-time temps below -20c in the next few days have now been moderated, but -11c to -13c still seems very possible tonight into Monday, and Wed into Thursday.

Extraordinary example of an inversion as my plane descended towards Geneva a little after 9 this morning (local time). According to the video screen (which unfortunately up to that point had been showing Mr Bean, not the weather), at about **5200 ft the outside temp was +12C, despite a heavy frost visible everywhere between the Jura mountains and the lake. I thought at first it was an error, but as we dropped so did the temp - to 10C, then to 8C...and by the time we landed the reading was -2C (later confirmed on the ground). Perhaps this is a commoner set-up than I realise, but I had no idea it could be so warm at that height during winter-time. (**I presume this was above sea level - if so, Cointrin airport being about 1400 ft ASL, our actual height above the ground was probably more like 3500 ft.) The tops of the Jura, incidentally, had as little snow on them as I can remember on any of the eight or ten occasions I have flown in to my sister's for Christmas.

In which case, my apologies, MB.

If I were Irish I'd get so irritated by being continually lumped in with the UK by lazy Brits. If you mean the British Isles, do try and say so. And most of Ireland is even milder and less snowy than most of the UK at the same latitude.