asjmcguire

The overnight period was quite odd to be honest - my league table had 20 out of the top 25 (coldest) stations below freezing, and places like Strathallan and Peebles reporting colder than the Cairngorm Summit (-2.6), meanwhile I'm sitting here watching my station struggle to fall below 4.1..... EDIT: An I knew something odd was going on when earlier in the day I noticed that Weather Underground, Yr.no, DarkSky and BBC all were forecasting wildly different temperatures for us at around the same time (8AM), forceasts ranged from -5 through to +7

Like @CatchMyDrift I knew we were going to be too far East to get anything from the recent snow event - I stayed awake ALL night and despite the radar saying we had light rain over us for several hours - the roads remained bone dry. We eventually got 0.5mm of wetness out of the system around 9am on Wednesday - but not any snow or even sleet. It was during this event that I discovered that Lamp Post Watching is no longer possible since they replaced them with those horrible bright white LED things which you literally can't stare at for more than 10 seconds without feeling like you are staring at the sun. So - undeterred - I decided to create a page on Scottish Borders Weather that tracks the temperature of various Met Office Weather Stations, Airports, Traffic Scotland Stations and Personal Weather stations across Scotland for this winter period. (I'm still waiting for actual permission from Traffic Scotland - so that data may vanish at some point in the next 20-30 days) Please feel free to use it (it's not actually linked anywhere yet - so you'll need to bookmark it) - and just as a forewarning - Stornoway Airport appears to have some issues and sometimes reports -23 or -17 or -4 and then in the next update jumps back to +6 or +7 so probably best to ignore it. At the moment the page refreshes every 2 minutes but I'm intending to do away with the refresh and update it dynamically with JQuery - and then I'll add a simpler version of the page to the mobile friendly section of the site. http://www.bordersweather.co.uk/wxleague.php (Note Max temps at top, Min temps about half way down)

I'm quite happy to help test, I haven't been around much - but as it gets closer to winter I will be camping on the forum - generally looking for a whiff of snow......

Bright and sunny in Greenlaw, was a bit wet and windy yesterday but nothing extreme. Currently just sitting below 6'C and it feels cold though the sun still has some warmth in it (through glass).

A few years ago, to test accuracy - I went in with some friends and bought a Piers winter sub. This year - after what the Express printed, I have bought an ExactaWeather sub - again not expecting it to be accurate, but I'll be maintaining a spreadsheet of forecast vs actual. I'll provide a link to the spreadsheet once I start.

If the device you are using to access the radar is wireless then it because Google (or whoever) think that is where you are, but it's most likely that your location is being guessed based on the ISP you use and your IP address, for instance - when I am on a device with WiFi - it correctly locates me (within 10 metres) to my actual address in the Scottish Borders, however if I use a device that is connected by cable - so the only available location based information the device can use is my IP address - it "locates" me to St. Albans. (where Freedom2Surf used to live)

I setup a (complicated) weather marker in my digiguide to show me a list of upcoming TV programmes related to the weather. Here is a list for those interested: 18th - 01:05 - 4seven: Britain's Killer Storms 18th - 21:00 - more4: The Year Britain Froze 19th - 21:00 - more4: Is Our Weather Getting Worse 20th - 21:00 - more4: Snowstorm - Britain's Big Freeze 21st - 21:00 - more4: Snowstorm - Britain's Big Freeze 22nd - 21:00 - Quest: Raging Planet 24th - 21:00 - Quest: Raging Planet 26th - 21:00 - more4: The Year Britain Froze 26th - 22:00 - more4: Is Our Weather Getting Worse 28th - 17:00 - Yesterday: Weather That Changed The World 28th - 19:55 - more4: Snowstorm - Britain's Big Freeze 28th - 21:00 - more4: Britain's Killer Storms 29th - 09:00 - Yesterday: Weather That Changed The World 30th - 13:25 - Channel 5: Winter Road Rescue We watched "Britain's Killer Storms" on Channel 4 the other night and it is well worth a watch if you haven't seen it yet. Happy Festive Weather Watching EDIT: And if you are a digiguide user (and at this time of the year - you really should be), here is the search I am using for my weather marker (it's not perfect, but it drops most of the unrelated stuff) ("storm" or "storms" or "flood" or "flooding" or "snow" or "snowfall" or "freeze" or "freezing" or "thunderstorm" or "thunderstorms") AND ("wind" or "winds" or "worst" or "bizarre" or "unusual" or "deadly" or "extreme" or "winter")

Hi, Clearly wind and rain aren't such a high priority for you just now - I'm assuming you want something with dew point reporting for snow prediction? If that is the case why not get something that does just what you are needing and think about upgrading to a more complete station in the future? A quick scout about Amazon has uncovered these for you: http://www.amazon.co.uk/DB-Tech-Wireless-Outdoor-Digital-Weather/dp/B00796HQ4Q/ref=pd_cp_lp_1 ( £29.99 + free delivery) http://www.amazon.co.uk/ClimeMET-Digital-Wireless-Weather-Station/dp/B00D1WUKOK/ref=pd_cp_lp_2 ( £33.50 + free delivery) A quick google around for the DB Tech station (£29.99) reveals it is likely a rebadged (or rather no badge) Ambient Weather station - for which you can peruse the manual here: http://site.ambientweatherstore.com/Manuals/ws1171.pdf Hope I helped

http://www.bordersweather.co.uk/wxscreensaver.php?beta=1 Make sure you are uploading your clientraw.txt somewhere that is accessible by a web browser (you can just install a webserver on your weather station machine if you don't want it online) point the screensaver to the URL of the clientraw.txt file. Additionally you can turn on the multicast option in Weather Display which broadcasts part of the clientraw.txt file on your local network every 5 - 10 seconds and the screensaver can listen for the broadcast and update the data. Use the BETA version I posted above which downloads MET Office data direct from the metoffice and will display warnings when they are issued. If the screensaver crashes (as it sometimes does and I haven't quite figured out why yet) - simply use CTRL + ALT + DEL to bring up task manager and it will normally close on it's own. I have attached a screenshot showing how mine looks right now.

And for those thinking of investing in a weather station that CAN connect to a computer - this is the one we use at BordersWeather: http://www.weathershop.co.uk/shop/technoline-ws2350-weather-station - it's £110 yes, quite a bit more than what you are paying at Lidl but it's accurate and reliable, runs both wired and wireless depending on how you set it up and has a better resolution and accuracy than the much more expensive Oregon WMR928NX that it replaced.

Well - Thursday is definitely looking a bit worrying now! The latest NMM for me is attached. This is smack bang in rush hour - and this is the South East Scottish Borders - quite a fair bit south of the Central Belt. Looking slightly further west towards Hawick, the max gust is more like 78mph. I've issued a warning on Facebook, Twitter, G+ and have pointed out that those who have to travel as well as being aware of the possibilities of trees / wheelie bins on / in roads - should also pay great attention to where they park their car - for they could make it to work safely but then come home time discover a tree resting on their car. Annoyingly we have to be at the Western General for 11am so we have no choice but to travel - I really wish we weren't though. Stay safe people!

Be careful.... remember what happened with the Robin Hood Airport Tweet....

and don't worry Scottish members, it wasn't any of us that jinxed it - it was Argos when they started sending emails telling people they should be buying sledges..... There's one here too - http://trafficscotland.org/wintertreatment/

Reporting Scotland forecast available online for anyone who hasn't seen it - http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/td10 (updated 17:39)

BordersWeather reporting for duty! T: -0.4'C DP: -1.1

Is the 12z GFS for Thu 20/12 correct?!? I'm looking at 35-40mm of rain! (TD106) we had flooding the other day with only 10mm!!!!!

The Met Office have a warning out for Friday, I really cannot believe that the person responsible for drawing the polygons onto the UK map did not notice what they were doing - take a look for yourself - but if they do actually respond to my concerns and change it - it looks like this currently: @alexdeakin I'll ask you too - please @metoffice to alter their warning slightly - this should NOT be on TV! pic.twitter.com/sKkzFGe1 — Andrew Jones-McGuire (@asjmcguire) December 12, 2012

Looking forward to potential snow in the Borders! We hit -4.8'C overnight (well actually this morning) - and there is a handy page here to let you compare temperatures with previous years. http://www.bordersweather.co.uk/wxtrends.php

And just as I posted on page 9 - http://forum.netweat...60#entry2416273 the ECM has done this time and time again - and exactly as I posted it has done before the ECM suddenly comes back on board and EXACTLY as I posted has happened before the GFS which everyone was hoping was right - backtracked to the ECM output - which then decided to backtrack to the UKMO output. Seriously people - check the archives - this situation is far from new - and everytime it happens people act surprised like it hasn't happened before - it has - and it will continue to happen in the future. *sigh* I despair at some of the people on here.....

How quickly people forget the rollercoaster between the GFS and the ECM in November 2009 AND December 2010. First the GFS was on board and the ECM wasn't.... then the ECM backtracked and followed the GFS just in time for the GFS to change to the sort of output that the ECM had previously been showing back and forth and back and forth - until eventually the models all started falling in line - with the odd "oh god here it goes again" run from time to time.... what is even more annoying - is that at least 2 other people have pointed this out in this very thread and yet - everyone has completely ignored it. NO weather model is infallible and it doesn't matter how wonderful and glorious you believe your favoured model to be, all models have flaws and biases, all models have data quality issues and all models can perform below expectations. By all means air your opinion on the output of the models - but you don't have to ram your point of view down other peoples throats!

Before the 06z GFS Friday here has been fairly consistently progged to be very wet and windy - the 06z has changed that completely - it's now forecasting temperatures several degrees above what it has been saying previously, the rain has gone from being likely flooding to almost no rain at all and the wind doesn't look terrible. I somehow suspect something has gone very wrong with the run.... TD10 region.

Not sure what I am expecting this winter - so far all the signs in my little area of the world are that it's going to be a harsh winter (feeling in bones, it being bloody cold etc). However - I also have data to back things up - http://www.borderswe...uk/wxtrends.php this page is like a temperature league table, by all time (since 2007), by current month and by just this year. Also though - and more more visually impressive is the climate graph which shows that our lows this year have been a lot lower than usual - indeed the only month in 2012 that we have had a low above 3 was July when we dropped to 3.6. http://www.iiccp.co....co.uk/data.html notice that as well as this years impressive low temperatures - pay close attention to the yellow part of the graph which is the monthly average temperature and you can almost draw a diagonal line from the peak in 2007 to where we are now....... (oh and if you don't like Celcius, it's a work in progress and might not work entirely as expected - but you can change to Farenheight by visiting http://www.bordersweather.co.uk/wxsettings.php but please note changing your units will store a cookie with your preferences)

Been snowing steadily since I woke up at 3:55am here in Greenlaw. Got a good 5-8cm here now - and it's not taking long to re-cover the tracks of the vehicles.

We reached -3.9'C overnight. This means it's the 3rd coldest November since 2006 (when I started recording) http://www.borderswe...k/wxrecords.php (updated every day at midnight) 28th Nov 2010 reached -4.1'C 30th Nov 2008 reached -6.9'C We reached 7.6'C around dinnertime and then started falling fast - we dropped down to 0.9'C about 10 minutes ago and have started climbing again - we are at 1.2'C just now.

Sunday morning we reached -1.7'C Sunday night we reached -1.9'C We are currently sitting at -2.5'C http://www.bordersweather.co.uk/wxgraphs.php