RESIDENTS in coastal areas of Dorset woke this morning to no signs of snowfall while just a short distance away gardens were covered in a blanket of layer snow.

A Met Office yellow warning for snow and ice came into force in the early hours.

Some areas of the conurbation may have experienced some wintry sleet but settled snow could not be seen.

However, in East Dorset and North Dorset areas such as Shaftesbury, Cranborne and Blandford, there was plenty of snow to be seen.

Bournemouth Echo:

Bournemouth-based forecaster Dorset Snow predicted on Saturday evening that there would be a mix of rain, sleet and wet snow across the coast, with inland areas seeing snow fall.

The further inland, the more snow that was likely to fall and this proved to be the case.

Explaining to why coastal areas of Dorset missed out on snowfall, Dorset Snow said: "For coastal Dorset we wanted the weather system to track slightly further south, so that we didn’t have much mixing with the air directly associated with the low pressure system.

"Living by the sea we tend to regularly draw in the dreaded sea breeze, which brings much milder air from the English Channel.

"In this case a southerly wind developed just ahead of the weather front and brought with it that much milder air and higher dew points.

"The dew point rose above 0c for most coastal areas and the precipitation fell as rain and sleet, although I did see a few snowflakes in some heavier bursts. For snow to fall widely we need to dew points stay below 0c.

"In the future we need to look for an area of low pressure which is between 20/30 miles south of the Dorset coastline for all areas to have a better shot of seeing snowfall. These areas of low pressure are known as “channel lows”."