Snow risk for Friday morning’s rush hour

Yesterday I explained the difficulties I faced with uncertainty in the forecast for Thursday night into Friday morning.

Well, 24 hours later the models have remained consistent in taking the stormiest weather with severe gales across the English Channel, Channel Islands and northern France.

However, this leaves a tricky scenario of rain turning to snow early on Friday morning, which will mean a challenging rush hour for some parts of England and Wales.

At the moment, the areas at greatest risk of seeing snow tomorrow morning are Wales, the Midlands and central southern parts of England. Even here though, there’ll be a marked variation, with some places just having sleet and cold rain.

In this scenario, elevation is key. Settling snow will mainly be confined to hills, where 2-5cm is possible. However, even in the areas that have just falling snow there’ll be poor visibility because the snow will be very wet, with large fluffy flakes.

Motorways that could be particularly wintry tomorrow morning are higher parts of the M4, M5, M40 and M50.

The tough challenge for gritting vehicles overnight is that rain preceding any snow could wash grit off the roads, so when it starts snowing, roads could potentially become treacherous very quickly.

At the other end of the UK, southwest Scotland and the east of Northern Ireland will also see some snowfall overnight, with a few centimetres possible.

The wintry mix of rain, sleet and snow will clear southern England early on Friday afternoon. Sunshine and wintry showers will follow, accompanied by a cold wind.

Don’t forget, weather warnings are always available online at channel4.com/weather and keep me updated with weather reports and pictures via Twitter – @liamdutton