Met Office dismisses reports of '475-mile snow bomb'
The UK's national weather and climate service has explained why headlines about a huge 'snow bomb' could be misleading.
Headlines warning of a 475-mile-wide "snow bomb" extending all the way from the Scottish Highlands to Norfolk are way off the mark, according to the Met Office.
The reports, based on data from WXCHARTS for 22 December, suggested areas of Norfolk could see up to 2cm of snow per hour.
However, the Met Office dismissed the reports, saying there is nothing in its current forecast about a "snow-bomb" heading for the UK – not that that's the sort of terminology it would use.
"These excitable headlines occur all year round. Literally, come rain, shine or snow. But they often use one-off, individual forecasting model runs to suggest what weather ‘might’ be on the way," the UK's national weather service said.
"However, the truth is that single model runs are not reliable enough to work out a detailed forecast, they are just one part of the wide range of information needed to provide a full forecast picture."
Met Office Meteorologist Aidan McGivern said: “What meteorologists actually do, is rather than cherry pick one computer model run, the computer models are run lots and lots of times and then we can pick out areas where they are agreeing and areas where they are disagreeing.
"Then we can talk about likely weather patterns and less-likely weather patterns, common themes and so on.”
Will it snow at Christmas?
In reality, the weather for the Christmas period is likely to be a lot less exciting, according to the Met Office's long-range forecast for 22-31 December.
It said the weather during this time will start off “unsettled" with a north/south divide splitting the country up into wintry and milder weather, depending on where you are.
The forecaster added: “Gradually turning more settled… with cloud, stronger winds and outbreaks of rain increasingly becoming confined to northwest Scotland, as an area of high pressure becomes established across at least the south of the UK.
“It may even become settled here too, but confidence in the north/south boundary between settled and unsettled gets steadily lower through the period.
“Becoming widely mild, perhaps exceptionally so in some places, although clearer spells overnight may lead to localised frost and fog.”
Any snow will "most likely be restricted to high ground in the North" – not something that is uncommon for this time of year – with a mix of rain, sleet, some hill snow and soft hail being driven in by a strong to gale force northwesterly wind on northern areas. Southeastern areas will be “most sheltered from these“ In the run up to Christmas – though it is likely to be very cold.
Whether or not it will snow on Christmas Day itself is traditionally difficult to predict far in advance.
The Met Office said the “chaotic nature of the atmosphere” stops it from committing to accurate forecasts more than five days in the future. This means a proper, more localised forecast for 25 December can be expected on 20 December.
When was the last White Christmas?
The Met Office can only declare a white Christmas if a single snowflake falling is observed by either an official Met Office observer or a Met Office automated weather station on Christmas Day.
So while snow may fall in some remote areas, it would still have to be officially observed for it to count.
Because only one snowflake has to fall, a white Christmas may not seem particularly snowy for most people.
The last official white Christmas in the UK was in 2023, when 11% of stations recorded snow falling somewhere in the country. However, no snow was reported lying on the ground.
A white Christmas was also recorded in 2020, 2021 and 2022 – but only 1% of stations reported snow lying on the ground, the Met Office says.
In 2010, snow was more widespread on Christmas Day, with 83% of Met Office stations recording snow on the ground – the highest amount ever recorded.
Snowmen and snowball fights are not a common sight at Christmas in the UK – but the Met Office say that more than half of all Christmas Days are expected to be technically a white Christmas, based on patterns going back to 1960.
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