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!function(n){if(!window.cnx){window.cnx={},window.cnx.cmd=[];var t=n.createElement( iframe );t.display= none ,t.onload=function(){var n=t.contentWindow.document,c=n.createElement( script );c.src= //cd.connatix.com/connatix.player.js ,c.setAttribute( async , 1 ),c.setAttribute( type , text/javascript ),n.body.appendChild(c)},n.head.appendChild(t)}}(document);(new Image()).src = https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=8b034f64-513c-4987-b16f-42d6008f7feb ;cnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({ playerId : 8b034f64-513c-4987-b16f-42d6008f7feb , mediaId : 4c5f98a0-7797-445e-8854-83b7e52bcbc7 }).render( 690dbd03e4b094b50cf960cd );});I’ve seen lots of snow predictions in the past month or so, though personally, I’ve yet to see a single flake. Of course, that’s partly because I’m in the warmer South. In fact, we’re currently experiencing unusually balmy temperatures.But no matter where we are in the UK, predicting snow here is uniquely challenging. Working out whether we’ll have a white Christmas or a snow-sprinkled November is hard, because of the forces that bring in both cold air and percipitation (things like rain). In fact, Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern explained: “What meteorologists actually do is rather than cherry-pick one computer model run for more than two weeks’ time, 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”.Why is it so hard to predict snowfall in the UK? Per the Met Office, for snow to fall, “We need the air to be cold enough, and a supply of moisture”. For the first part, that’d usually mean winds from the North and/or East. These carry cold air from the Arctic or from across chilly seas. We can also sometimes, though more rarely, get cold enough air from a period of high pressure, where there’s not much wind at all.But there’s one big windy problem with those: predominantly, our breezes, though more moisture-laden, come from the warmer South-West. With North-Easterly winds often carrying “very little moisture in it to form the snow,” we usually end up with crisp, cold mornings when the cold wind blows.Only in some harder-to-predict cases, like when the colder wind meets a rain-bearing weather front or can “pick up enough moisture from its short journey across the North Sea,” is snow likely to happen. Crudely put, in the UK, the cold wind’s not that wet, and the wet wind’s not that cold.That’s one of the reasons why predicting snow is so tricky.Even rain that falls while frozen does not necessarily become snow The University of Reading wrote that, “A lot of the rain that we see in the UK, at all times of year, was snow when it started falling, but has fallen into air that is warmer than 0⁰C and melted”. This is usual, notwithstanding the it can happen in summer. But even during optimal-seeming conditions, it can be very hard to make an exact call.“When your baseline is 0⁰C then a rise of 2⁰C will mean the snow melts and we get rain. But 2⁰C colder and it’s just snow. Somewhere in the middle creates sleet,” the institution shared. That means making a call on whether snow will fall or not an extremely delicate operation.I think I’ll go a lot easier on my weatherman having read that...Related...8 Rules To Follow When Dressing For Cold Weather RunningHere s Why Cold Weather Can Make Joint Pain WorseThe Most Accurate Weather App Has Finally Been Identified

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