moffatross

They're probably unsure if it's actually day time yet. The look-up tables say the sun has risen but a look out the window at the minging mehness suggests it's still night.

100% agree with your observations about the Met Office being rarely wrong. I think they do a great job, but that's unsurprising with the resources and staff at their disposal. Most of the rest of us have so little to go on that we can do little more than speculate on how the here and now will evolve based on what the various numerical model output says might happen. The long range forecasts in the weather forums, and the (usually sensationalist) seasonal speculation in the media are always hocus pocus, whatever the credentials of the people asserting them. This note issued today for February is as ballsy as the Met Office get ... "From mid month, there are signals that pressure may build in the mid Atlantic, bringing a more northerly flow to the UK, thus increasing the likelihood of colder conditions developing.

Agreed. It wouldn't be so destructive as the same with rain. Yep, just looked in the model output thread, and it's weird. It's like people are making assertions about what will come to be, but there's little dialogue or discussion, just black and white predictions of either doom/gloom or promise/hope. Was up on Lowther Hill yesterday with Monsieur WinterHighland, trying to figure out what's happening with the webcams. We ran the engine to charge the cam batteries and made a bit of progress drying everything out. The snow that I skied a week or so ago down to the loch has been brutalised but there's still some good cover up high though if much of it survives the midweek rain I'd be surprised.

Frankly. I've experienced enough 70 mph winds for hours to last a lifetime. I really enjoyed seeing one or two of the snowfalls we had last week falling gently and serenely, not horizontally and ferociously.

Just watched the 'kin BBC forecast for Scotland and apparently it's getting 'better'. Wind, rain, mild with a few brief sunny bits in between. You'd think they'd have learned by now that when there's high pressure bottom right of the UK, guess where the poop weather goes ?

Oh well, that was winter, today we welcome back spring/summer/autumn. I am in the process of preparing the house so as we can move on and have been pleasantly surprised at how much progress I made on rendering/painting/sealing in cold, dry and benign weather compared to the being blown/slipping off the ladder weather I've normally had to work in. The morning's longer term GFS (for Moffat at least) goes for a spaghetti jumble of randomly mixed sine waves and a mean mile high temperature around freezing. At least I'm unlikely to be distracted by skiing ...

Yep indeed, the 18Z GFS is suggesting that normal service will be resumed, in spades

I'll definitely be giving a lot more credence to the HIRLAM model in the future as it appears to have outdone the Euro4 on this occasion. The NAE was conservative and didn't model the eastern advance well, and Arpege wasn't a lot better. The GFS high res was just hopeless. The Moffat look up at yr.no (which I think is based on the ECM) also called the event very well though unfortunately for me, it only offers data and doesn't offer up the nice wee maps that I like to mouse-over. Approaching 2 inches of fresh powder here :-)

Probably about the same here, not much more than an inch, but it's still snowing steadily and pepping up in intensity from time to time. I noticed that Kercoobrie was getting hammered, the Galloway Hills are already loaded and the thought of a wee ski tour over there is quite appealing :-)

I was in Dumfries between 11.30 and 2.00 pm and the low temperature struck me too, with the snow coming on about 12.45 and sticking pretty much instantly. It's also so rare to see it falling like the Dickensian fantasy snow, light and fluffy, straight down from the sky. Or like in the fight scene at the Japanese water garden in Kill Bill. We usually get our snow driven in sideways and pounded into the ground if it's not blown away as soon as it touches down.

I think we may be looking at anoprop on the radar because there are no stations currently reporting ppn except for west coastal Norn Iron.

Its progression appears to be another 3-6 hours ahead of the modelling, and looks to be further east than last night's readjustment too.

The current Met Office automated forecast looks really very good for parts of the South of Scotland snow Saturday night into Sunday. They appear to base their automated modelling on the Euro4 but while last night it projected 6 hours of light snow with a 40% precip probability for Moffat, it's now showing 7-9 hours of heavy snow at a 70% probability. And nothing marginal about it in those sub zero temps either ... http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/gcvdc9ryg#?fcTime=1452902400

A few pix from a ski tour last night starting from Leadhills and taking in Green Lowther. It was brutally cold on the Lowther Hills ridge in the near gale NW'ly and we didn't get off the hill until 12.45 am but it was a great wee headtorch skiing adventure.

A very localised SWW for snow just issued by the Met Office. Moorfoots, Pentlands & North-Eastern side of Tweedsmuir Hills.

There's 6-8 inches of lying snow in Leadhills in the beautiful South of Scotland. Some pix from Lowther Hills Ski Club's village level nursery ski slopes this evening

FB just offered this up in my feed. http://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/633273/Snow-weather-uk-severe-alert-forecast-south-snowbomb Snowbomb, oh by jebus, how many levels of pish in that ? Freakin' exactaweather rent-a-quote, slowing gulf stream, worst winter since 1960 something, and all starting on Tuesday apparently when the heavy sleet shower arrives in the south. Sadly, it'll be believed by many.

Browse through the various models at meteociel, weatheronline and no doubt here too. The upcoming cold spell was never forecast to be remarkable. A few folk that caught up in the model watching fervour got predictably excited when ECM & GFS pumped out some cold charts at long range, told their friends and families that an ice age was imminent, then got disappointed when it was clear that the Met Office were right (as usual) all along. Happens every winter

Snowing, trying to settle :-) Looks like higher parts have been hammered.

Despite the pink colours showing on the 'weather type' for Moffat, it's raining here too just now. I'm sure the high routes are getting hammered though.

^ Beautiful captures

A few pix from Scotland's highest villages on the Lowther Hills Ski Club nursery slopes at Leadhills near the South Lanarkshire/Dumfries & Galloway border this morning. Our annual membership costs less than 2 hours at Braehead XScape, and we saw lots of happy faces today. Memberships still available for the season. Chucked down with snow early afternoon, raining now, but snow returning tomorrow http://www.skiclub.lowtherhills.com/join

I will be in the highest villages in Scotland today (Wanlockhead & Leadhills). We will be running the ski club's nursery slope rope tows and meeting to plan our races on the ski centre circuit ... http://www.skiclub.lowtherhills.com/news/97-2016-sssa-alpine-race-series If I don't see some falling snow today, I will eat my beanie If I get a chance to reboot the webcams again, I'll give it a go but our problem is mostly lack of power ... http://www.skiclub.lowtherhills.com/news/93-britain-s-highest-off-grid-webcams-work-party-wednesday-16th-december

Experimenting with the flash on the camera just as the snow started falling in Moffat today. Lens stopped down so that everything near and far was in focus, blowing my breath into the scene to get a cloud, the 50 pence sized snowflakes that SW referred to down in Dumfries, frozen in time, and my wee 60+ mpg diesel Fiesta, just beginning to get a winter coat again :-)

Forgetting the fantasy island easterly, the ECM looks pretty good for us the next 9 days. The best way of interpreting it (without access to the paid suite) is to look at the yr.no output which kindly models the ECM for any location in much the same way as xcweather.co.uk does for the GFS. The ECM updates on yr.no around 7.45 pm and I'm quite looking forward to what it models for Moffat this evening :-) E.g. for Moffat GFS = http://www.xcweather.co.uk/forecast/moffat (currently GFS 12Z) ECM = http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Moffat/long.html (currently ECM 0Z)