Benvironment

Snowing here now. Wet and fast-descending.....but definitely white.

Everything's turning white up here. I had a superb outing on Ben Vrackie today. Started clear blue skies and clouded over later. Beautiful sugary snow, and distinctly alpine on the final pull to the top. I passed half a dozen people, all with huge smiles on their faces despite the biting windchill.

-1.5C here. Only the slightest dusting of snow but I'm just enjoying having the first subzero temperatures since March Had a lovely blizzard-kissed drive home from Inverness this afternoon

It's dropped 1C here in the last 40 mins or so. Now -0.2C.......which is the first time I've seen the hallowed '-' on the weather station since March

Just had a lovely snowy drive from Contin down the A9 back to Fife. Intermittent blizzards between Inverness and Drumochter, with dual carriageways down to one lane and everyone going a steady 40 or 50mph. A relaxing way to enjoy the A9 Snow peters out after Pitlochry but the Lomonds still have a fine dusting.

Interesting stroll in the hills above Achnasheen this morning. Blizzards, gales, intermittent white out and flippin' great clouds of spindrift. Wonderful

We have the reassuring hum of heating this morning..........as we've had almost every day since June because of the god-awful weather this year. Single figures every month. Even the supposedly mild autumn didn't help; sure we didn't have the subzero temperatures we normally get but the daytime maxima never really crawled above 8 or 9C........which is damned chilly! And this morning there is snow on the ground <goes to light the log stove>

Yep the temperature has gone up here too. 1.3C, up from a low of 0.6C earlier this evening. Another 15 mins of snow just finished here though, and its hasn't budged from most surfaces since that first lot. What an odd day. 11C and gales this morning and then the temperature plummeted by 5C in under an hour. Much calmer since then.....and then the lamp post watching this evening, which caught me surprise. I have to say, I'd quite forgotten the joy of seeing unexpected snow. It's always a joy to see it, but I spend so much time lurking on Netweather sussing out the snow-scene that I usually get advance notice, and as such it's been years since I lived my winters in blissful ignorance. How lovely to just happen to look out the window and see snow falling

The other news from this neck of the woods is the temperature is down to 0.7C. That's the lowest since 19th March!!!

Snowing big flakes here! Settling too.

20 minutes of snow just hurtled through. Short lived, but wonderful to see. I feel like I've just had an injection of morphine

Heavens, it just started snowing heavily here. Gone dark, 2C, 45mph wind and horizontal snow. Hurrah!

Nice to see some folk are getting their snow dose, finally. It's cold, showery and wet here......but nothing white. 25th November and still not had a frost. Bonkers! Oh well, the weather station says the windchill is at least subzero even if the temperatures aren't.

Noooo, it's just a trick of the light when headlights strike grass on the night-time cams. Sadly Edit.....oh and rain often looks like streaky snow in the headlights too. Nightmare teasing!

I was on the summit plateau of An Dun in the Grampians a couple of years ago. It's a long, narrow table-like summit half a kilometre long. I was at one end, watching a line of 30 or so deer run over the summit at the other end. After the last one had disappeared I waited for a bit, assuming there might be more to follow.......but after 20 seconds began to turn away. At that moment something ran across the plateau, following the line the deer had just taken. It was big with a long tail. I've seen enough foxes in the hills to know it wasn't one of those. And it was way too big to be a wildcat, plus a summit plateau isn't typical wildcat habitat, and there were no forests or woods nearby. Just open hillsides. I've never seen anything else like it.

Still no frost up here this autumn, and nothing approaching 0C. 21st October last year was the first subzero day but looks like it's going to be a while yet. In the meantime what a beautiful, beautiful day it's been. Still, cold, blinding sunshine off the Forth Valley fog, but very warm in the sunshine. Too few days like it this year. There were plenty last autumn.

What on earth is going on!? Sure, it absolutely chucked it down for a wee bit this afternoon but........three days of sunshine forecast for much of Scotland!??? Good god!! I intend to celebrate by camping on top of Aonach Beag Use the weather while it's here, it'll be gone before you know it.

Yep. It wasn't really until the third week in November last year that the temperature dropped enough here in Fife to warrant them. And it stayed that way until March! It's been a rather lovely week. Not warm by any means, but I've actually been able to get out & about in the great outdoors to do stuff. And it's definitely been largely dry......not overly windy......a couple of lovely sunny mornings with deep red sunsets. Yep, not bad. Nice to see that the big yellow Met Office blobs have been popping up south of Cumbria for a change Edit: Oh and that should have been 'sunrises' not 'sunsets'. What was I thinking?

10C......cloudy (again).....winds over 30mph (again).......no sign of sunshine (again). This is the most boring autumn I can remember in years!

10.5C. Drizzle being blown on 30mph wind.

How funny. I decided against Ben Lawers and headed up Stob Binnein and Ben More instead. Here's a pic from yesterday. Well I hope it's a pic, 'cause I've never uploaded an attachment before. Hope it works. It was bitingly cold on the tops. Proper 'gloves off for 10 seconds and painful' type windchill......and then if you got in some shelter and the sun was out, the glare from the sun was baking hot. Intersperse all that with the occasional snow shower, graupel and flying ice and you have a proper winter outing. Fantastic!

Ah I'm happy to hear this news. I was texting a pal in Falkirk today trying to see if there was snow up on the Ochils but the cloud was still down. It looks like tomorrow is going to brighten up a bit.......so a trip into the hills is definitely on the cards. Ben Lawers NNR perhaps.

Heavens, ours has been used on 'n' off ever since that nice warm day on 3rd June!

It's just started sleeting here in the heavier pulses of rain. Down to 4.0C.

It was 8.4C when I looked at the thermometer at 9am.......but it's now 5.2C. In fact it tumbled by 2C in 15 mins as the cold front went over. Raining heavily now.