The first snow of winter arrived on 22nd January 22nd, an unexpected snowfall which was one of the quickest to fall since 2010. In the space of 4 hours, there was a thick covering of 8cm. With some of the biggest snowflakes, I have seen since 2010 snowfall.
We were in the luckiest place for snow today. Or unlucky if you hate snow!
One of the reasons I think for the high snowfall rates was the mini low pressure stalled and intensified over the Chilterns and Watford area. There was no wind so evaporative cooling took place. It started off as sleet for a few minutes and then turned to heavy snow. It started getting bigger flakes and the intensity increased dramatically.
Below is a timelapse of the snowfall over 3 hours.
Before the snowstorm, the temperature was a barmy 7.5c and then dropped by 5c in 20 min. It then continued snowing for 4 hours to give maximum depth of 8cm. The snow stayed for 2 days before all melting on 25th January. It was an interesting weather event because it was so marginal for snow. we usually don’t get good snowfalls from a North Westerly air flow. Also, the snow only settled by this much in a small area around the Chiltern Hills.
Below is the temperature graph from my weather station for the 24 hour period, show the sharp temperature drop.
As usual for me on a large snowfall, I go out and capture it. The nearest place to me with beautiful scenery is the Grove Hotel, less than 5m away. This shot below is the favourite that I took with the direction of Sam my neighbour we went on the road towards the hotel itself. I took a long exposure shot of 30sec towards some magnificent trees covered in snow, just when I took it the Hotel’s minibus came by as you can see from the traffic trails. Certainly, an opportune moment which made the shot.
With all major weather events, I normally send in a weather report on the BBC weather watchers. This I duly did together with this photograph and was surprised to see it got featured on the BBC London Weather. Below is the clip, thanks to Kate Kinsella for sharing.
There was an awful lot of ‘weather’ around yesterday ….. here’s the forecast for today! For @BBCLondonNews #weather #snow pic.twitter.com/BLDWKnC4eg
— kate kinsella (@Kate_Kinsella) January 23, 2019
It was also published in the Watford Observer, which will be added later.
More interesting winter weather should occur in the next 2 weeks, February is looking much colder although the computer models don’t have a clear handle on what will happen as yet.
The following day I took a lot more photographs along the canal and through up in the woods and towards Cassiobury Park. Some shots can be seen below with lots more on the Flickr link below.
Photographs
The night time shots were taken a few hours after the snow fell at the Grove Hotel grounds and the rest of were the next morning. On a walk from the Grove along the canal via the golf course and then onto Cassiobury Park.
Lots more photographs can be found on my Flickr link below. Thanks for reading, leave a comment below if love taking photographs of snow and you can share your own photos.
Links
Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/alalchan
Flickr Winter Pics – https://www.flickr.com/photos/alalchan/albums/72157678128602638
Weather Watchers – https://www.bbc.co.uk/weatherwatchers/
