Benvironment

Looks like we're getting only the second 'lying snow' day here this winter. Off to Edinburgh in a mo' so won't even get to see it in daylight :-(

Temp has just nudged below freezing, so the 1 or 2mm of snow that fell a wee while ago is still on the ground and has gone crunchy. That's the first time that's happened here since......oh lord, bloody ages ago! Nearly a whole year!! It does at least look and feel like winter at the moment.

Lovely heavy snow here just now, settling with no effort at all......but these showers are all too short-lived :-(

Yes I was struck by that too. I can't recall them doing that before. Very interesting.....

Heavens. The ensembles for average 2m temp in Fife have one knocking down below -15C by month-end! I know it's bonkers but it's nice to see things like that cropping up finally.

Ta!

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY! I honestly can't remember the last time we had a day like this, where the sky is blue, the light is vivid, the sun is warm, it's not blowing a gale, and you can hear every flutter of every bird overhead. Utterly sublime. More please That link doesn't want to work for me I'll take your word for it though!

Power's still off here. Apparently Scottish Power are going to compensate people for meals out and nights in hotels. Hmm. <hatches plan> Took a walk through the Falkland Estate today. Shocking damage to Maspie Den and that area. Even though it's a natural process and it paves the way for other species to colonise, it's very sad to see.

www.mwis.org.uk is the only site I use for mountain forecasts. The Met Office mountain forecasts are completely pointless as they focus on absolutely enormous geographical areas and therefore don't take into account the local manifestations. www.winterhighland.info is good for news from the ski resorts, who update their statuses every morning.

Power's off here.....again. Stables damaged, trees down, hens missing, plaster torn off. A real mess. The last few storms in November and December barely got above gale force here, but this one was more like the one we had last May.......which was still worse as it had these kinds of winds sustained all day rather than a brief morning fury. Interestingly, my weather station recorded mean wind speeds of just 5mph at 6am. 62 minutes later it was blowing at 70mph. Came out of nowhere. Is that unusual, does anyone know?

Catching some snow showers here now. Settling okay but melting if not topped up.

The world is turning white here.....but apparently it's raining in Glenrothes.

Veeeeeery wet snow here......but struggling to settle. Temp has dropped from 2.2C to 1.3C in the last hour.

Don't beat yourself up too much. Winter tyres make driving much safer on cold surfaces whether or not there's snow. They're softer at low temperatures and therefore improve your stopping distance considerably even on dry snowless surfaces. I wouldn't be without them once the temps consistently dip down to 7C and below. Been up in Sutherland all week and while there's still ice and snow from the stuff that dumped last week, there's been nothing new since I got here on Sunday.

I was driving into Perth earlier and caught a glimpse of the hills over towards Glenshee and Angus. They look to have landed a hell of a dumping from this storm. There's still a lot of snow on the hills around Crieff, albeit wind-scoured.

This little corner of Fife escaped today's shenanigans, and I can confidently say that the May storm packed a much greater punch here. I thought the house was gonna fall down back then, but today the rumbles and the roar were fairly typical of the lows we've had over the past few months. It might have been because of a slightly more westerly wind direction this time around. Always seems worse here when it's a straight southwesterly. BUT.....the power is off again and apparently will be off until late tomorrow.

2.6C and sleeting. Filthy!

Power's gone here

Down to 5.5C here now. And I only just noticed that the Met Office 'red zone' has now been extended into Fife.

Hmm, I had a high of 7.8C at 10:30 and now, ever since the cloud went over it's been dropping. 6C at the moment. Gusting to 55mph.

Morning! 1.4C here. Heavy sleet. Winds are up but not too blowy yet, but the weather station says 'pressure falling very rapidly'. The profile for the last few hours looks like the Big One at Blackpool!

Are you saying that we're all living false lives in some kind of virtual reality nightmare that only Keanu Reeves can save us from? Heavens, that's worse than any storm!

Managed to hold on to an inch of snow here, but everything is green down in Glenrothes.

Got maybe two inches from that band

Heavens! Flippin' big flakes. This makes up for the lack of snow we've had thus far when everyone else out west was getting plastered