Cold weather had already began to grip the UK on the 28th as a northerly flow established itself drawing cold air south across the UK. A spell of overnight snow brought some small accumulations of 2–5 cm down the East coast of England and Scotland combined with a few snow showers but despite this it dawned cold, crisp and sunny for most.

Trouble was brewing in the North of Scotland though, a slow moving cold front had brought some heavy falls of snow accompanied with gusty winds making for, at times, blizzard conditions across the North of Scotland.

During the day the front moved quickly south, as it passed over all areas experienced a sharp drop of temperature to around minus 1C, and heavy snow and strong winds causing visibilities at times to drop to below 500 metres. To the south of the front skies clouded over but temperatures managed to climb to around 5C. As the cold air continued south it forced this relatively warm air to rise very fast and form towering cumulonimbus clouds. Now the front was being associated with thunder, lightning and some intense snow squalls, which although not depositing huge amounts of snow were falling at fast rates of up to 8cm/hr.

Many airports were closed for the duration of the event, roads became ice-rinks as the melting slush froze to the surface causing many road incidents. Falls of up to 15cm were reported in Lincolnshire, and much of the UK was dusted with fresh snowfall from Inverness to Bournemouth on the balmy south coast of England.

Snow depths and other observations at 12Z

Lerwick 5cm lying - Winds gusting to over 60mph with sub zero temperatures
Fair Isle 11cm lying - Blowing snow observed
Aviemore 12cm lying (estimated due to winds)
Lossimouth 4cm lying - Heavy snow showers reported and gusts to 58mph
Glenlivet 12cm lying and the temperature still -3.8C
Aberdeen 6cm lying
Leeming 2cm lying
Topcliffe 3cm lying
Waddington 8cm lying
Manchester 3cm lying
Cranwell 12cm lying

This page shows a large satellite image of the snow cover across the UK on the day after the event (caution-large image may take a while to download).