Snow and gales in eastern England fronn a North Sea polar low: 6/7 January 2010

摘要

While many people across the British Isles were digging out cars and gritting driveways on the morning of 7 January 2010, a mesoscale low was bringing gale force winds and snow showers to the Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts. The precipitation at thistime was illustrated by the 0630 utc radar image from the Met Office network (Figure 1). The mesoscale low was one of many wintry weather events in the winter of 2009/2010, and, at the time it formed, 22 people had already died in the UK due to car accidents, avalanches, and ice-related accidents (Times Online, 2010). Impacts of the severe winter weather included shortages of road grit, widespread workplace and school closures, and severe disruption to travel (BBC, 2010). Because attention was directedelsewhere, the media barely mentioned this mesoscale low. Although the snowfall and winds that affected the Norfolk coast added to the disruption, they were not explicitly addressed in meteorological reports (for example, Brugge, 2010).