Snow started to fall Thursday evening at 20.34 and continued overnight into Friday that eased about 09.15.
The very brisk easterly wind on Thursday, gusting to 23 mph, meant a cold day with a maximum of only 1.9C, which was 5.1C below average. There was also significant wind chill later in the day making it feel more like -4C.
Friday arrived with the snow still falling giving a provisional average depth of 8cm.
At such times of considerable snow with drifting in the strong wind, now backed into the north east, the rainfall or on this occasion, precipitation, is not easy to measure. Normally small amounts of snow in the rain gauge can be slowly melted and then measured. However, under current conditions a different method is utilised. The 5cm copper rain gauge is inverted and placed into the snow in three different areas, especially important when there is drifting, to make a best guess at an average depth between deep and less deep-snow. A thin flat object is then placed at ground level and pushed under the snow trapped under the rain gauge. This 5 inch column of snow is slowly melted so that the loss though evaporation is minimised and the subsequent three columns, when melted, are averaged to get the best estimate of equivalent rainfall. The current best estimate is 9.7mm.
Update Friday at 14.00: snow been continuing all morning, currently becoming heavier. Depth at this time around 14cm. Temperature has crept up to 0.3C but fortunately wind abating, now half speed recorded at dawn as barometric pressure rises.
Update at 18.30: after 22 hours of snow thankfully it has almost stopped, just very fine precipitation. Maximum temperature of 0.5C at 15.11.