12z today - The UK lies under northerlies with a fetch straight from the Arctic. The trough over the Channel and northern France is the one that brought the snow earlier. Conditions at 12PM on Sunday: Thickness, 518dam, temperature 4C(dewpoint -2C). Wind from the NW, 22 MPH (gusting to 33 MPH). Today's high, 6C, last night's low 2C. (source: MetO, the 12z GFS and NOAA).

In the early hours of this morning I awoke to a howling sound, but it wasn't anything to do with wolves. Instead it was the wind tearing along the guttering and over the roof, carrying with it some torrential rain. Despite it being just after 4 in the morning I peeked out and watched as the rain turned first to sleet and briefly to snow. It was just starting to leave some slush before it eased off and converted back to rain.

There was a further sleet shower at around 6AM as I was writing the model analysis, but by the time I set off an hour later it was partly cloudy and dry, albeit windy.

The journey was pretty uneventful, until I joined the M25 - there were some menacing looking clouds ahead and sure enough it started spitting with rain. The temperature fell to around 2C and the rain turned to sleet. I've not seen torrential sleet before, and the I thought of the chaos that would have occured had temperatures been just a degree lower. I skirted another sleet shower at Bracknell, although apparently after I'd passed through the speed limit was reduced to 40mph on parts of the M4 due to heavy snow! Swindon saw lying snow (as evinced by the snow on the car of one of the volunteers) and there was heavy snow in Bristol too.

I arrived at the Trust just before 9, for a website meeting. The UKWCT is located around 300 feet above sea level and for half an hour during the meeting it snowed (and unsurprisingly the wolves weren't at all bothered by it).

Snow is such an unusual event these days that it caught people's attention and I was able to grab some pictures through the glass viewing window.

Here we see Latea and Alba howling away in the snow:

meanwhile Lunca was also howling, albeit away from the other two:

Regular readers might notice something different, as Alba usually spends his time close to Lunca, with Latea keeping her distance. Last week I saw some dramatic dominance fighting with Alba and Latea going hammer and tongs at Lunca. It seems that's left a lasting legacy as Latea is now Alpha, with Lunca being the new underdog. Latea seems a little unsure of her new role, but I suspect she'll soon get the hang of it! Alba's always seemed to prefer Latea to Lunca and it seems he now has his preferred wolf as his mate.

Here's something that would have been unthinkable just over a week ago. It's a photo of Lunca displaying complete submission to Alba and Latea, both of whom have their tails up to show dominance. Wolves have a large variety of tail positions and posture / facial expressions, but the meaning of those in the photo is pretty self-evident!

The clouds that brought the snow looked almost frontal in nature, suggesting a trough. There was a superb clearance with what looks like mammatus cloud, quite a rare sight.

The wolves had been left out last night so there was no cleaning to be done. That gave us plenty of time to watch the European wolves and their new pack structure, something that's fascinating to most of us at the Trust. Before long it was time to head to the woods for the members walk and as usual I went on car watch duty.

This time it felt absolutely freezing and to my shame I had to put on a sweatshirt over my t-shirt - the first time in my life I've done that! I know the temperature was around 6C but with dewpoints of -4C and a strong NW'ly wind it certainly didn't feel like it. By now some convective cumulus had started to build:

At the half-way point I was relieved of my duty and zoomed through the woods in pursuit of the wolves (and to warm myself up!) I caught up with them at the tail end of the "stump talk", which is a 20-minute chat about wolves in general. It gives the wolves a short break from the action and allows people to ask any questions they may have. Just after that is the lake, and despite it feeling chilly Duma and Dakota both went for a swim. These photos are of Duma, as I was faffing around changing a memory card when Dakota took her dip!

Back at the Trust there were two of us on the training walk, plus Alex (an assistant senior to keep an eye on things). As is becoming the norm it was decided to bring Kenai out and I gave poor old Kodiak a race to distract him while Kenai wandered over to the gate.

The walk was as pleasant as usual and Kenai lived up to her reputation for rubbing people, as she rubbed against my trousers several times leaving some fur and mud behind! She also bumped me on the nose a couple of times while sniffing me, although as I bent down to her I prevented any chance of her jumping up.

After a quick meet and greet with the public Kenai was returned to her enclosure (after Kodiak was distracted by myself again), then it was back to the Obs Room. Not long after that I decided to set off for Kent and as I crossed the county line an hour later the skies cleared and the temperatures plummeted, with current temperatures of 3C here.

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