Leg 4 - Very Heavy Snowfal

This is the first time I have ever seen a flash warning for very heavy snow in my area.

& South East England: Hampshire Oxfordshire W Berkshire	Very Heavy Snowfall	2000 Tue 5	1100 Wed 6
	There is a high risk of an extreme weather event affecting parts of Southern England this evening and overnight. A period of exceptionally heavy snowfall is expected with accumulations of 15-30 cm and perhaps in excess of 40 cm. This is expected to cause widespread disruption to the transport network and could lead to problems with power supplies. The public are advised to take extreme care and refer to the Highways Agency for further advice on traffic disruption on motorways and trunk roads. Issued at: 1633 Tue 5 Jan

Extracted from the met office website at 1855 hrs on 05/01/10. Please check the website for further details as it may have been updated since then.

Chek it out "accumulations of 15-20 cm and perhaps in excess of 40cm", I so want to see what "excess of 40 cm" means, that is heading towards a foot and a half of snow which is half way up to my knees. I have having a snowtasm here.

To update on the history of snow in Oxfordshire for today. I was at work just north of Oxford and it started snowing lightly at 1530 hrs approx. This continued and become what can be described as light but persistent steady snow. Given that the ground was already frozen it was settling happy, even with just a few flakes. I left work to drive home when the ground was lightly covered with no sign of a let up. Better to be safe than sorry. Driving home was cool, no one told me that driving in snow is like being in star wars as the snow flakes come from a point of origin towards you. Driving home was a bit slow as a lot of people probably had the same idea as me and one or two people refused to go above 4o miles an hour. The roads were completely clear and I got home safely.

Since then it has continued being light but persistent and is slowly building up on the ground. On the ground now is approx 0.5 cm. It is expected to snow for at least the next twelve hours but at current fall rate I would only expect 3 - 5 cm. However the weather warning is in effect from 2000 hrs tonight and if the rate increases then accumulations of the sort they talk about in the weather warning above are very possible.

More updates as they come in to the snow desk here in Chadster, North Oxfordshire.