Still cold but there’s a hint of a change to come

The day started very frosty in Tideswell with an overnight min temp of -3.2°. Before it rose above 0° it started to rain around 7:00 a.m. On the cold surfaces the rain immediately froze and resulted in extremely slippy conditions. The rain continued till about 8:15 a.m. but the last of the ice didn’t disappear till between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. It was amongst the worst conditions we have had for some months and, of course, it wasn’t forecast. Forecasters without intimate local knowledge are on a hiding to nothing when faced with this sort of situation.

Th midday satellite image (below) shows that the western fringes were the most favoured today with only small amounts of cloud and long sunny spells. Central and eastern areas were inder a blanket of cloud.

Br Is satpic

 

In Tideswell, we had fog all day with slight drizzle from time to time. Mostly, the visibility was in the range 500-800m but the fog thickened up considerably after dusk with the visibility dropping to 100m.

It was another cold day in Tideswell with the temperature not getting much above 3°.

Temperature

 

For the remainder of this week, through the weekend and into the first part of next week it looks as though the Peak District will remain in relatively cold easterly winds. It’ll be mostly cloudy with some rain and drizzle from time to time but rainfall amounts will be small. Due to the cloud cover Tideswell will probably be frost-free.

There are hints from the computer models that in the middle of next week there might be a change to more changeable weather as low pressure systems push in from the Atlantic. If this does happen, the weather over the Peak District will become a bit milder with stronger SW winds and it’ll be more unsettled with spells of rain. This isn’t yet a certainty but it is an increasing probability and there is potential for spells of very wet and windy weather later in the week. Watch this space!