Argyllcraig

Its been like autumn here since the 1st of july. prior to that we had a very long dry spell of many months and june itself proved quite warm peaking around 23-25c on a few days. Think our summer is just about up as usually we tend to head into autumn aound the 2nd week of august in argyll

Now, i know i said we had barely had any rain in argyll for about 7 months now but that did not mean that i required it to pour down for everyday of july so far!!

Autumn has arrived in Argyll. Heavy rain and Windy Temp: 14.4c Humidity: 94% Dew Point: 14c Wind: 33km from sw Strongest guts: 52km Vis: 2km Cloud Level 300m

a bit of activity over the last 24 hours http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/myrjokull.html

RainTemp: 15.8c dew point: 12c wind: 0 dead calm pressure: 1003.6 UV: 2 out of 16 cloud base: 487m

Well, the west of Scotland monsoon has started, first significant rain for what seems like 6 to 8 weeks..... although i don't think we need all of july's rainfall in the first day!! No Tv and poor radio due to atmospherics out here in the mountains so im guessing a day of internet, weather and forum watching.

Living in the west of scotland (Argyll), we usually get an abundance of rain even when the rest of the uk is quite dry mainly as a result of low systems brushing to the northwest of the UK around high pressure. Im not sure of actual figures for this area but it does appear to have been very dry for a very long time. Even in the midst of the long winter we have had, the problem then was cold and ice as opposed to ongoing snowfall. As we went through spring to the present i can barely recall any days that have been totally washed out. Indeed, on friday i was climbing in the mamores mountains south of fort william and was shocked to see how low the lochs, reservoirs and rivers were. The water of nevis in glen nevis could be walked across as it was pretty much just a sandy river bed instead of the usual 20-30foot wide river it normally is. Underfoot in the mountains themselves, the bogs have all but largely dried out and can easily be walked on while the incidence of upland fires and heather fires seems to be quite high. So while im not complaining as to how nice its been, it certainly seems a bit unusual but in saying that we certainly have enough summer left for it to feel a washed out one if the rains come back.

Not too sure if this is the right place to post this question but here goes. What effect does volcanic activity have on the Arctic Ice pack? My assumption would be particularly this year that we may see some additional ice melt as the result of soot from the icelandic activity and the dirty effect it has on the ice and the extend to which it then absorbs sunlight. My main thrust however is from under water volcanic activity and could a phase of increased activity beneath the arctic be having a noticeable impact on ice melt particularly along the northern section of the midatlantic ridge fault line over the last few years?

I did read something recently regarding areas of 'ice free' Arctic this winter. The general feeling was that it was not something out of character for the type of winter thats been experienced. The main thrust was to do with prevailing winds and sea states as having a regional variation on where in the Arctic circle sea ice is more likely to form. Will see if i can dig it out and post it.

Would love that easterly to come back in and stall the front over us in the west... must admit though that i dont really mind this 'mild' spell, we still havnt got above 4c here! brilliant since when was 4c mild lol? although i guess compared to the cold we have had across us for now for about the last 7 weeks up here then 4c is a tad warmer. would love the mega cold back though.

How about this for over the top snow?!!! cairngorm mountain has been closed for a few days due to another 10 feet of snow!! JCB's being used to dig the road out.

Summer.... oooooo sounds interesting, when does this usually happen?

yeah even been snowing out here in Argyll... really pleased as i wasnt expecting this snowy spell. been great driving around glasgow today with snow grains then heavy fluffy flakes... just brill!! Ashame the regional threads are being closed, really enjoyed the banter in here.. good crack everyone cheers! :blush: Looking at the ensembles if that big high over scandi drifts a couple of hundred miles our way then it could be very interesting next week as the atlantic systems at present look like crashing into it but getting stuck over us... throw in some under cutting easterlies and things could be interesting but hey anything beyond 2 days looks like FI at the mo.

Quite alot of snow around the Glasgow area this morning, sat on me train in a cold milgavie at the mo at -1c here just off to a very snowy motherwell in a mo.

Afternoon everyone... just in from work (was out at 4 am) and it was 1c when i left garelochhead for work and when i got to glasgow it was 1c. Finished work around 1pm and left glasgow where it was 1c and in garelochhead just now, yip u guessed it 1c. Was quite heavy snow grains in airdrie about 2 hours ago with still pretty good snow cover up there. Big water main over the railway up at coatbridge burst overnight, quite something driving under it. As for the platform damage now that some of them have lost their snow cover... well all the stations up the springburn line are a disgrace and quite frankly some shouldnt be open due to how rutted the they are whilst the coping edges are barely hanging on by their finger tips..

Is anyone actually discussing the models on the model thread.... seems a bit of 'who kicks and screams loudest gets heard over there this evening... just watch things flying from the pram if anyone is gonna venture in.

An awful lot of scatter in the gfs ensembles beyond about 17/18th jan up until then you can see a similar flirt between less cold and cold then who knows, seems to be as many going for less cold as a return to proper cold. Good thing i guess is that the mean is still bumping around the 0 - -5c line.

morning all... wee bit blowy this morning, temps have dropped back to 2c after an overnight 4c. wind is raw but amazing how warm (after days of subzero) it feels out the wind.

still raining quite heavily still here in garelochhead... every now and then u see the odd flake zip by the lamppost but i think thats just to wind me up! :lol:

Yeah 12z GFS has gone for a very very cold run in FI, the scandi high never really drifts too far off and in a weeks time gfs thinks it will start stalling the atlantic over us before pushing it back. Just done a car headlight check and we appear to have the odd big blob of snow falling, granted its totally chucking it down so guessing its the rate of precip thats bringing the odd flake down.

feels freezing here, just stuck me head out the door after a day of DIY'ing and its raining quite steadily outside....

I agree Bingo... whilst its be nice seeing how low the temps can go and the ice forming on the clyde ive had zero snow here other than the odd flurry making it look like a hard frost, very dull. I was hoping as the atlantic pushed in it would all go out with a bang and give some snow here even if only for 24/36 hours.... hey ho.

My oh my... must have been windy overnight... the mountains look to have suffered alot of snow lose on their eastern faces around me, gonna guess the northwest faces are fully loaded up now with that strengthening wind out the east south east

Dan corbett going for cold for the week with the atlantic being pushed backed up to next weekend... interesting

light flurry again in garelochhead