Cold Spell (of depth and duration uncertain!) starting Tuesday 7th March

Getting snow in this country is a bitch. Even when you do, you forget there are lots of types of snow and not all stick! Yesterday I posted loads of charts from hi res models showing snow in south Munster. Met E had a yellow warning for the same area for snow and ice. What could go wrong?

In fact, now that I look at the weather reports issued by Cork airport last night, those predictions were, technically anyway, correct. See the table below of reports issued by Cork airport from midnight to 9am. If you had shown me that table last night at 9pm I would have jumped around the room, assured the kids they were getting a snow day and ran out to the shops to buy salt. The report shows rain / snow (sleet essentially) for most of the night but just snow from 1.30am to 4.30am. It is also showing snow from 8.30am to 9.30am. I was awake for a period at 4am. I live near cork airport (a little lower down admittedly). I was obviously awake from 8.30am to 9.30am. There was the odd swirling tiny flake in amongst sleet but.... alas, not a flake stuck. It was a sleety mix with cold rain and very wet snow all night in truth. Lots fell, it would have translated into a decent depth, but alas, as I say, not a flake stuck.

Bit of a cautionary tale. Just because the weather models show white hatching or pink over your area, it doesn't mean it will "snow" in the sense we really mean. To be fair, Met E's yellow warning didn't mention accumulations. Maybe that's the word to look out for. And to be fair accumulations are mentioned for the northern half of the country tomorrow.

Alas I think this event is over for us down south. We will always have our memories of the snow that technically fell!