Snow and Cold Weather Cancellations!

The last three days seem to have been a series of cancellations, due to the prospect of bad weather and snowfalls.

On Sunday, after reading the weather forecasts for the Bingely Area for Monday, I took a straw poll of some of the members of the Eldwick & Gilstead Male Voice Choir, and the overwhelming result was "Cancel tonight's practice" It was probably the correct decision, as when I came to take Ruby out for her final evening stroll, the snow was falling quite heavily and she came back blond and I came back looking like the Abominable Snowman!

I looked out of our bedroom window about 4.30 am on Tuesday morning, and the road and pavement could barely be discerned. Nothing had been along the road, not even a gritter or a snowplough, so when I got up at about 7.30 am I decided that I would cancel my visit to Crossflatts Primary. It seems I was not the only one to make this decision, because both Bingley Grammar and Beckfoot were both closed!

According to the Met Office internet weather forecast for the Bradford area, we are due for heavy falls of snow at 09.00 and 15.00. on Wednesday. I am supposed to be doing my stint at Skipton TIC tomorrow (between 10.00 and 16.00), but having heeded the weather forecast I have phoned to say that I will probably not be going. I don't fancy getting stuck on the Aire Valley Trunk Road, and having to walk back to Cottingley!

I have a wedding to play on Saturday morning -the wedding is due to take place at 12.00, but as they are having the Aire Valley Singers, and a trumpeter, who both require me to accompany them it means I will have to be down at church by 11.00 at the latest to run through their music with them. It could be intereting if it decides to snow heavily on Friday night....... Oh! I gather the heating failed in All Saints on Sunday, so if it is still out of action there might be some lusty singing to help keep the congregation warm!

'Sno(w) Use Complaining If it's Going to Snow it will Snow

I don't know if you ever follow the weather forecasts (I only tend to do it if I think the weather is going to affect my plans) but just out of interest today I thought I would have a look at all the ones I have saved on my computer. (I have a practice scheduled for the Eldwick & Gilstead Male Voice Choir at St Wilfrid's Church Hall tomorrow night, and I don't want to be caught out if there is to be a bad fall of snow.) Also some of the members travel from Otley, Eccleshill, and Idle so it only seems fair that if the weather is due to be bad we will cancel the practice.

So how do they compare???

These are the results for BD16............

Sunday pm Monday

Yahoo Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy

GMTV Sunny Sunny Intervals

BBC Sunny with light snow 18.00 Sunny with heavy snow 03.00

Met Office Light Snow Shower 18.00 Light Snow Shower 03.00

Met Office Invent Heavy Snow showers S and W Yorkshire up to 10 cm on hills

TWC Partly Cloudy Light Snow at Night

Met Check Cloudy Light Snow at 18.00

Accu Weather Cloudy 4.6 cms snow at night

The general concensus of opinion seems to be that it will be cloudy today and there will be some snow tomorrow. As I am typing this (16.10) the snow has blown in from across Bingley Moor and it is snowing in Cottingley right now! A few minutes ago you could see right up to "Dick Hudson's" and the caravans on Shipley Glen. Now there is nothing beyond the local house rooftops!

Snow - What Snow?

For the past 48 hours the weather forecasters have been warning us that we were in for heavy snow. I even heard the word blizzard mentioned in relation to the Yorkshire area!

Well for two days we have been happily watching the snow in other areas - Aberdeen, Newcastle, Alnwick, Morpeth (the temperature in Morpeth has been reported as -16C!) Some areas of Northumberland have reported 14" of snow, but this morning we got our first taste of real snow.

There wasn't too much of it, but enough to cover the ground and make the view up the fields look quite picturesque.



Certainly we have had some quite low temperatures. Yesterday I took Dot to work and noticed that the temperature on the car thermometer read - 4.0 C.

This morning I heard the forecasters predicting that we could have more snow, and the temperatures would be staying below zero for up to ten days.

This prolonged cold spell is due to the wind direction changing, and we are now benefitting from cold winds from Siberia!

According to my reckoning this means that the prolonged snow and cold weather will last until next Monday. Isn't it just my luck that I have two concerts booked for next weekend (at Wrose and Heaton) - and both have to be approached up hills!

Snow, Snow, Snow.

Isn’t it amazing how a fall of snow changes your perspective on everything?

We had had the grandchildren (Mollie & Tom) spending the evening and night with us on Saturday, and when I took Ruby out for her final walk at about 9.30 pm it was extremely cold and frosty. The ground sparkled like precious jewels, the grass crunched underfoot and there was a definite crispness in the air.

The grandchildren were awake at about 7.15, so I got up, and had a look out of the window. Everywhere was covered in a sheen of white, and there was a sense of peace and calm, that you get when the snow absorbs the usual sounds (although at 7.15 am on a Sunday morning there is usually very little in the way of ambient sound around.)

Collecting my camera I took a few shots of the white world outside.

Garden trespasser

I had left the camera in my pocket, and when I arrived at church is was fairly obvious that the congregation was not going to be very large, so I took the opportunity of taking some shots of the church before all the footprints appeared in the snow and spoilt the view.

On the way home from church I passed a young couple busily engaged in constructing a seated snowman on a seat outside the Bradford and Bingley Building Society Offices, and I couldn’t resist a few shots of that too!

Me 'n' my snowman


It raised quite a bit of interest from passers by who were busily reaching for their mobile phones to take a shot of the snowman!

As an interseting little aside.......

Did you know that Wilson Alwyn "Snowflake" Bentley (February 9, 1865 – December 23, 1931), born in Jericho, Vermont, was one of the first known photographers of snowflakes? He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they melted.