spindrift1980

Tuesday night seems to offer the best possibilities, although Met O are (rightly) a bit non-committal at the moment. "On Tuesday night a more organised area of showery precipitation is likely to affect Scotland, which has the potential to produce several centimetres of snow at low levels, including the Central Belt, though details of this are rather uncertain at present."

Wet snow falling now in East Kilbride.

Starting to lie a bit now in this latest heavy burst.

The elevation must be helping as the snow showers on and off all day in Motherwell have been very wet and have never really looked like lying.

Heavy wet snow here too - would be tremendous if it was just marginally colder. Shows some promise for later, but a bit of elevation would help.

It did seem stronger last night when the wind was thumping against the side of the building and driving great walls of hail into the windows, but I was surprised by lack of damaged trees, debris on the roads etc. in urban Lanarkshire this morning. Recent high wind events caused much more damage here (including the one in May 2011, and particularly the New Year storm a couple of years back).

I'm not sure I'd take those snow accumulation charts too literally - will be a bit of a nowcasting situation I think, although I would be pleasantly surprised if there's much/any accumulation for my area and the Glasgow area.

A guid new year to ane and a'! Any kind of weather's got to be an improvement on today's uber-dreichness!

Must've been a good few places with an ice day today. Got a small amount of snow on the boots today with a walk in the Pentlands - very crisp, clear air - could see many distant high hills in Perthshire and the Crianlarich area looking nice and white. Car thermometer stayed below zero in mid-afternoon through inland Lanarkshire and West Lothian. The thermometer at Duntilland Quarry on the other side of the mate...er, motorway...from Kirk o' Shotts was showing -60C though - certainly an ice day and a half!

Looks like a wee dusting on the Pentlands. Nothing at all here (as usual!) but it's a lovely crisp winter day.

From the Chief Forecaster's assessment on the MetO website:A deepening depression is expected to affect the UK on Friday Saturday. There remains greater than average uncertainty regarding the track of this depression, but the most likely scenario is for this depression to track eastwards across the UK rather than just north of Britain. The exact track of this depression is critical to snow risk, especially for the Central Belt of Scotland with snow here more likely should the centre of this depression track across the southern Uplandsor northern England. From an IMBY point of view, would be nice if the last bit happened, but not holding my breath! At the very least, some hills somewhere should get a pasting though - an interesting period ahead. Merry Christmas to all on the thread!

Already this winter we've had sleet, snow, hail, gales, thunder and lightning and now ice pancakes! Ice 'pancakes' have been found floating on the River Dee at Birse, Aberdeenshire - they are believed to have formed when foam floating about on the water started to freeze and bump together, forming the discs. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-30530281

There was indeed a slight dusting on the tops of the Pentlands today - not much but it's a start! Was very pleasant, if a tad bracing, during this brief sunny spell. Another blustery snow shower moved in shortly afterwards.

Just drove back along the mate and the area around Harthill and Salsburgh was interesting to say the least - down to about 30 mph with heavy, settling snow. Temperature just seemed to drop away suddenly from 2.5C to 0C in the precipitation. Only a bit of slush here in Motherwell though. Edit: I see the old M 8/mate filter is still in action!

A couple of wet snow showers in East Kilbride, after a dry and bright start.

Big squall of snowflakes for a couple of minutes there, here in E K.

I think Ben Lawers (a bit like Ben Cruachan and Ben More) is the 'wrong shape' (for want of a better expression) for much snow retention beyond early summer despite its height, although it does usually retain patches into early summer. I think one just below An Stuc is usually the last one to go. A quick scan of some threads from previous years suggests that Beinn Heasgarnich's Coire Ban Mor usually lasts longer despite being lower than Ben Lawers. Looks like milder and sometimes wet weather later this week might bring a bit of a hosing and blow-dry to the hills, so a loss of some of the more superficial snow cover might give a clearer idea of the size and location of the deepest drifts.

It was taken from Meall nan Subh, a Corbett just on the other side of the pass from Beinn Heasgarnich, so a bit closer than Meall Ghaordaidh. The An Stuc is certainly usually the last patch on the Lawers range to go, but I can't remember off the top of my head whether it usually outlasts Heasgarnich or not.

I took this photo on Saturday of a heavily snow-covered Beinn Heasgarnich, a mountain about 15 miles or so south-east of the Glencoe Ski Centre. As you can see, it looks pretty loaded with snow. The rather sprawling, shallow-ish corrie in front and to the left of the summit is Coire Ban Mor, which is one of the longest lasting snow sites in the southern part of the Highlands. I think it is usually the last or next-to-last site in Perthshire to retain snow in most years. I believe Firefly has visited the long-lying snow site in the past and posted photos so he might be able to confirm if I have the location correct.

Very heavy snow cover in the higher hills between Glen Lochay and Glen Lyon on Saturday (the first day of meteorological spring!). View over Loch Lyon: Zoom lens shot of Beinn Heasgarnich:

Most snow in Scottish hills since 1945, reckons Hamish MacInnes: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-26339994

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this winter. The weather on low ground has been hellish for obvious reasons, but the sheer amount of snowfall at altitude in the Scottish Highlands has been incredible, easily surpassing the much colder but drier recent winters, and has offered some memorable winter hillwalks on the (admittedly rare) occasions when the wind hasn't been howling. There will almost certainly be more snow surviving far into the summer than for many years, so this will continue to provide snow-related interest. The regular Atlantic storms when combined with the narrow temperature range, with temperatures at Munro level constantly a couple of degrees either side of freezing (mostly below), have really delivered the snow for the West Highlands in particular. There has been a notable lack this winter of the very mild south-westerly sourced air which brought rain and 6-8C temperatures even to the highest mountains for long periods during many winters in the mid 2000s so this winter has had much more interest than many 90s/2000s winters from this point of view. I thought I would contribute this as a bit of an alternative perspective on this winter. Hopefully all of this doesn't come across as insensitive to those who have suffered horribly with the flooding in areas which are going to struggle to get back on their feet. However, far from being snowless, a large section of the UK's landmass (if not population) has in fact experienced copious snowfall this winter.

Snow has gone off in EK, but 1-2cm of snow cover. Not exactly an epic snowfall, but a pleasant surprise!

^ That's a similar level of cover to EK at the moment and it's coming down pretty heavily at the moment - getting there! It'll no doubt be rain just 50m or so lower on the road home though.

A slight white covering in EK but it looks a tad on the slushy side. Still snowing though, so you never know...