We hope, we prepare, we get excited. We were told it would snow and were already imagining walks in the snow, a winter wonderland at our feet, and children making snow angels... and then it doesn't happen.
How many times were we told the whit stuff was coming and it didn't? Pretty much every time.
How is it possible that something which looks like it is based on science (and we see the graphics explaining it to us) can be so wrong?
Chronicle Live says even the Met Office admits that forecasting snow “will always be a challenge” in the UK.
The reason for this is that there are a lot of factors involved in getting snow in our part of the country. It would be easier if we were up in Scotland, but we aren't.
The three main factors for snow
This is because in this country due to the temperatures there’s a very fine line between “whether it will rain or snow.”
Precipitation is much trickier to forecast than temperature. Most precipitation falls out the sky as snow to start with but by the time it reaches us it’s often melted to rain.
Similarly, in built up areas like Newcastle city centre, snow is less likely to fall because of the warmer surroundings.
Time is also a factor. As with all weather forecasts the further ahead the prediction, the least reliable it will be.
With snow, the conditions are so marginal that knowing if it will definitely snow in four days time is just not possible.
Unsurprisingly, temperature is one of the most crucial factors when it comes to predicting snow. Liam Dutton at Channel 4 writes: “As a general rule of thumb, snow in the UK tends to fall when the temperature is 2 degrees or less.
“It may sound odd that snow can fall when the temperature is above freezing, but you have to remember that the temperature of the air even a few tens of metres above the surface is colder than at ground level.”
When the temperature is around 2 to four degrees the snow will likely be rain or sleet by the time it reaches the ground.