UK set for ‘600 mile’ snow in March with exact date flurries hit announced

UK weather maps show exactly when huge 600-mile wall of snow and rain will hit the UK ^[1]. The charts show rain across a swathe of western Britain, stretching from the tip of Scotland to Land’s End in Cornwall at midnight on March 8.

On March 8, swathes of the south will be hit – from Devon to Cornwall – as well as the North East and Cumbria. Wales and Scotland won’t be spared, either, with Northern Ireland also looking set for a dusting as weather maps turn purple.

Purple, representing heavy snow, has been forecast by WX Charts, which uses Met Desk data.^[2] Up to a centimetre of snow is set to fall in central Scotland, including Inverness-shire, western parts of Aberdeenshire and north Perthshire.

In an outlook from March 7 to mid-March, the Met Office says: “An initial continuation of unsettled conditions is most likely in this period, with low pressure systems likely to continue to cross west to east over or close to the UK, with mostly short-lived spells of drier and brighter weather between times.

“Temperatures are likely to be near or slightly above normal overall, with occasional night frosts, but values will fluctuate as weather systems come and go. From mid-March, the chance of a longer period of more settled and drier weather increases.”

And the BBC ^[4] Weather team says of March 4 onwards: “The outlook for the first half of March has a high degree of uncertainty, with even lower than usual confidence for this forecast range. We could see a milder period as the broad pattern changes a little but it’s likely to stay unsettled with further periods of rain. Scotland could still have some wintriness over higher locations.

“Approaching mid-March there is more of a possibility of some chilly outbreaks returning as the pattern switches again, with temperatures most likely near seasonal again but with a risk, albeit a low one, of something colder developing.

“This could be partly dependent on how the atmosphere reacts in three to four weeks’ time to an ongoing disturbance of the stratospheric polar vortex. This doesn’t always have an impact but can steer developments that cause winds to come from colder directions. Longer-range models are also hinting that this might be possible.”

References

^{^} snow and rain will hit the UK (www.birminghammail.co.uk)
^{^} which uses Met Desk data. (www.birminghammail.co.uk)
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