Morning Snowstorm, Southampton and New Forest - February 3rd, 2009

This winter has been the coldest in this area of the UK since at least 1995/6, probably 1990/91. Up to February though, little snow had fallen, with nothing in this area at all, just low temperatures. This changed on 2nd February as unsettled weather brought the first snow in the morning, causing travel chaos across the South. We only had a couple of cm in this area, but the following day saw more heavy, convective, snow showers. The first view is at the onset of the heavy snow shower in Southampton just after dawn:

It got progressively heavier - turning into an almost-whiteout for a while:

After the really heavy stuff stopped, I went for a walk around the local roads. It looked to be about 2 inches that had fallen in the space of about 20 minutes:

Roads were becoming tricky again, and this was during the morning rush hour again:

Later in the day, on the way home, I foolishly decided to see what the back roads were like. Unfortunately, I arrived just as another heavy shower started, creating blizzard conditions and giving another inch ontop of the inch of snow and ice already there. I had to use my shovel to get the car off an inclined parking spot after this snowfall:

Next, I moved into the village of Burley. The sun was out by this point, which really brought out the contrast and made for Chrismas card scenes. We haven't had scenes like this around here for several years:

Few signs of modern life in this photo - it must have looked very similar in very cold winters of the past: