A Winter's Tale
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Posts posted by A Winter's Tale
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Great to see some are enjoying a rather unexpected snowfall with accumulations in places. It's not been too bad a start to season despite some pretty mild temperatures as there's already been a fair amount of snow events and I suppose some eastern parts are making up for missing out on some of the action last year. Looking ahead, although nothing substantial is currently on the cards, I'm feeling quietly optimistic about a pattern more conducive to cold and snow emerging sometime around or after mid-month.
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A pretty miserable start to December with persistent rain. Quite cold too with temperatures around 4C until it shot up to 11C in the space of 20 minutes this afternoon. And it feels noticeably milder indoors and outdoors.
The models appear to show a somewhat messy outlook with not much prospect of notable wintry weather, but neither particularly mild for the coming week or two. Hopefully in a few days time or so the outlook will be clearer and fingers-crossed for potentially cold or snowy evolutions popping up but for now I think we'll be relying on transient polar westerlies.
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A few snow showers this evening but too wet to settle.
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Thought I saw a flash of lightning over the south side of Glasgow.
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Wet snow shower here aswell.
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Snowing mongooses and meerkats!
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The snow was initially settling but now melting leaving damp surfaces and potential for ice tomorrow morning. A nice bonus to see some snow and the earliest, albeit brief, covering if snow I've seen.
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Snowing here in Bearsden and settling.
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My preliminary thoughts on winter:
December:
Slight above temperatures; above average rainfall; very unsettled, predominately westerly winds; stormy, potentially severe; PV southern Greenland; cool beginning but becoming increasingly milder; chance of brief interludes of cold NWly/Nly or crisp settled spells.
January:
SSW early January; continuation of unsettled wet and windy conditions, close to average temperatures; becoming more settled but mild mid month; turning much colder and blocked latter half of month, breaking down before February; below average temperatures overall, slightly below average precipitation
February:
Most difficult month to forecast - messy, damp and dull beginning, becoming unsettled and potentially stormy; quieting down and return of blocking before mid month, breaking down later; quiet, mild and damp end; slightly below average temperatures, average rainfall.
In summary, December is shaping up to be quite an unsettled month, possibly disturbed with a familiar strong El Niño NH set up. Implications in the nature of temperature and weather patterns unclear but I would say a chilly beginning with plenty of wind and rain, becoming milder around days 10-20, possibly beyond possibility of short colder interludes in the latter part of the month.
Early days but there seems to be strong indications that the way this autumn has panned out so far could have interesting implications later in the winter and a SSW is more than a possibility. If an SSW does occur, the timing is up for debate but I think sometime in the first week of January. Possibly a very zonal beginning to January, temperatures difficult to predict with confidence so I'd sit in the fence and say around average. Most Becoming milder with possibly murky conditions as high pressure moves closer to the UK about 10 days. I'm confident a period of sustained blocking will occur in the second half of January with heights centred to the north/north East. I think a messy breakdown would occur by the end of the month with plenty of murky conditions as the Atlantic makes a return.
February is always the difficult month to forecast as it is the furtherest away but the conditions or weather patterns are more difficult to describe. I think an initially quiet, transitional spell of weather to begin with then becoming unsettled with more active Atlantic dominated weather for a time. Before mid month a return of HLB, this time to the NW and breaking down at the end of the month and replaced by a quiet, mild transition to Spring.
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Nice late autumn conditions with place blue afternoon skies and a scattering of clouds. The met office warnings for snow in parts if the country is great to see this early in the season and I think the northern highlands and parts of the north east and borders could see decent spells of snowfall. There appears to be a front moving south across the country late on Friday which could deliver for some central areas but I suspect the Glasgow area will end up west of a front which would probably be remnants of a decaying feature.
My preliminary thoughts on winter:
December:
Slight above temperatures; above average rainfall; very unsettled, predominately westerly winds; stormy, potentially severe; PV southern Greenland; cool beginning but becoming increasingly milder; chance of brief interludes of cold NWly/Nly or crisp settled spells.
January:
SSW early January; continuation of unsettled wet and windy conditions, close to average temperatures; becoming more settled but mild mid month; turning much colder and blocked latter half of month, breaking down before February; below average temperatures overall, slightly below average precipitation
February:
Most difficult month to forecast - messy, damp and dull beginning, becoming unsettled and potentially stormy; quieting down and return of blocking before mid month, breaking down later; quiet, mild and damp end; slightly below average temperatures, average rainfall.
In summary, December is shaping up to be quite an unsettled month, possibly disturbed with a familiar strong El Niño NH set up. Implications in the nature of temperature and weather patterns unclear but I would say a chilly beginning with plenty of wind and rain, becoming milder around days 10-20, possibly beyond possibility of short colder interludes in the latter part of the month.
Early days but there seems to be strong indications that the way this autumn has panned out so far could have interesting implications later in the winter and a SSW is more than a possibility. If an SSW does occur, the timing is up for debate but I think sometime in the first week of January. Possibly a very zonal beginning to January, temperatures difficult to predict with confidence so I'd sit in the fence and say around average. Most Becoming milder with possibly murky conditions as high pressure moves closer to the UK about 10 days. I'm confident a period of sustained blocking will occur in the second half of January with heights centred to the north/north East. I think a messy breakdown would occur by the end of the month with plenty of murky conditions as the Atlantic makes a return.
February is always the difficult month to forecast as it is the furtherest away but the conditions or weather patterns are more difficult to describe. I think an initially quiet, transitional spell of weather to begin with then becoming unsettled with more active Atlantic dominated weather for a time. Before mid month a return of HLB, this time to the NW and breaking down at the end of the month and replaced by a quiet, mild transition to Spring.
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I think the NE of a Scotland is in the firing line for most of the snow showers and perhaps some persistent snow aswell. I wouldn't rule out some inland parts of Aberdeenshire and possibly Moray could potentially end up with accumulations of at least a few inches in places. As for elsewhere, exposed areas such as the north and west coasts should see some wintry showers. Away from Aberdeenshire, Moray, the north/west Coast and possibly some parts if the east Coast/borders, snow showers will probably be very hard to come by but at least we'll get some proper cold, fresh, clear northerly air for the first time this season with some pretty cold uppers and hopefully some crisp early winter sunshine and the first proper widespread frost this autumn. Although this cold spell may appear rather unremarkable, the Synoptics are very decent for the time of year and you'd expect a set up like this to occur in NI ember every few years or so.So.... will it snow, and on who?
I'm not expecting much success for snow reaching the central lowlands but it'll be worth keeping an eye out for some features in the northerly flow. This cold snap will be gone by the start of next week and perhaps some quite messy, transistional weather could prevail for a while. The NH set up to my untrained eye looks quite interesting/unique with the current prominent Siberian and then an emergence of high pressure centred around Alaska. It's hard to predict what the repercussions - stemming from the current tropospheric set-up along with various other factors and variables - could entail for the first part of December and beyond and I suppose the uncertainty and volatility has played its part in the absence of winter forecasts this year. My thoughts to the end of this month and into early December is that we'll see lower heights around Greenland or our quadrant of the hemisphere which would herald an active, unsettled period of weather with potentially stormy but changeable conditions. Temperature wise it could still be quite cool with the possibility wintry interludes but this remains to be seen. I suspect in December we'll be seeing quite a few named storms.
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Quite calm just now but it's also much clearer and fresher, thank god! That was quite an exciting little squall line earlier, no idea what the wind gusts where but I was impressed at high sustained the winds were. It looks like we are under a quite unstable airflow just now so I presume there's a chance of lively weather other than the actual storm itself.
Wrt storms being named, I personally think it's a good idea in making weather events of note more identifiable interms of forecasting, and preparing for and looking back on aswell. Abigail has certainly grabbed wider attention than if it hadn't been named as it gets referenced more by mainstream and social media. I agree that The stormitself, despite the hype, isn't particularly significant as it's not that widespread an event, and isn't potent by the standards of the northern and western parts in the firing line. Nevertheless it's first storm of note of the season with the potential to bring a degree of disruption or damage that warrants an amber warning to parts of the country. There'll be more named storms in the coming months and more troublesome ones aswell.
It's good to get some fresher, cooler and clearer conditions for once, nothing remarkable but at least we've got some conditions which better resemble the time of year. Not to mention the first proper hill and mountain snow of the season. Another feature mentioned by some recently is the worrying prospect of flooding, despite having anti-cyclonic conditions prominent on the near continent and not particularly changeable or active conditions, it hasn't been enough to deflect rain-bearing fronts away from Scotland. Many areas of Britain, particular yob northern and western parts, the ground us already saturated and river level are high. Despite a slightly more mobile weather pattern, further depressions will sweep in iff the Atlantic, bringing yet more persistent, heavy and prolonged rainfall. Some people have likened the current pattern to November of 2009, a very mild but more noteworthy very wet month which infamously saw serious flooding in parts of the Lake District.
Another feature emerging in the models is the potential for a northerly. It appears we could see the first proper cold snap of the season with widespread frost and potential snow showers in a typical late November northerly (ala 2005, 2008). It will be interesting to see how the models deal with this scenario, it could disappear completely or upgrade into something more potent or long lasting, I suspect it'd be a short-lived cold snap but could potentially be replaced by another shot of cold Pm or Am air given how there's currently a lot to play for the NH pattern projected in the models, especially the lack of low heights/thickness in the N.Atlantic around Southern Greenland and Iceland although I think we'll see developments in the models for segments of the PV to locate closer to Greenland.
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Another short but very sharp burst about to hit. Possibly a very small squall?
Prepare yourself for unbelievable squal!!
It was like a hurricane, or small tornado with the wind suddenly picking up and whipping rain all over the place and the trees bending back in a way I can't recall seeing. A short but impressive squall.
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Another dull, damp day in what has been an exceptionally gloomy month. Despite the shorter and darker days the persistent damp and mild conditions looks and feels like mid October rather than mid November. Sure, it's pretty autumnal but it feels like we have been a few weeks behind schedule throughout the autumn weatherwise. Atleast conditions familiar to the time of year will arrive at the end of the week with much fresher air. The BBC actually has a snow symbol for friday morning. It's nice to see but highly unlikely to happen - and if snow were to fall across parts of lowland Scotland it would be a real bonus so early in the season. I think Friday will be a real shock to the system but a needed one to inject some activity into Our weather and the chill should act as the first reminder or indicator of nearing winter.
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Another thoroughly miserable day of weather. Very wet and dull and mild aswell, it's very normal to experience dats or spells like this for the time of year but the sheer persistence of this weather type since the start of the month has been amazing. I can barely recall seeing the sun this month. It's certainly more autumnal weather wise compared to the quiet and far more pleasant conditions in September and October but, but I'd rather we had some more varied conditions including more sunny/clear intervals and fresher/cooler conditions.
The end of this week, as pointed out by Jo, is looking a great deal livelier with the first storm of note late Thursday-Friday with potentially disruptive weather in NW Scotland. cooler air also moving in behind the front. Potentially another storm for northern Scotland early next week. The general pattern for the next week or so is looking more mobile than it has been so far this season with the jet starting to track a little further south: lively conditions, potentially stormy and possibly further risk of flooding with a continuation of heavy and persistent precip coming off the Atlantic; a mixed bag of clear/overcast, dry/wet, chilly/mild with the general trend less mild with increased opportunities for cooler air masses and possibly hill snow.
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Still mild but much more of an autumnal edge to the weather. Skies have fluctuated between overcast and clear intervals these past few days and this afternoon there was a thoroughly unpleasant and wild squall. The emergence of changeable autumn conditions should continue aswell as remaining predominately mild. The models suggest the possibility of some lively conditions associated with deepening depressions aswell as perhaps an injection of cooler westerly intervals and the possibility of some mountain snow. Looking a little further ahead, the models seem less keen in today's output on persisting with heights around Europe and a few runs, including the ECM 12z project a scenario where MLB could transfer further north. It'll be worth keeping an eye on what trends the models conjure up for the latter half of the month.
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The models in the past 24hrs have moved towards reintroducing heights back into Europe after a temporary blip which somewhat reduces the promise of a northerly but I'm hopeful for further opportunities for cold and snow this coming season.
One thing for sure is a unique set of factors going into this winter such as the strong El Niño in the Pacific, colder SST anomalies in the North Atlantic and what appears to be a very strong stratospheric vortex. How these and among other factors interact will be of interest during the coming weeks and months. It's a really tough winter to call at this stage and I don't think we'll have much idea of how it might pan out overall until after Christmas at least. Until then, it'd be nice to see the back of the benign conditions of the Euro High which has persisted throughout the autumn (although it has been nice to enjoy a dry, settled and at times sunny and warm variety of autumn for a change instead of enduring standard autumn conditions following a pretty dismal summer) and at least experience some more traditional changeable conditions you'd expect for the time of year. Last year in some ways was quite similar with an absence of fresh, chilly conditions until the start of December when there was a sudden arrival of polar maritime air mass, heralding an unremarkable but quite normal month.
My thoughts for the start of winter is for heights to remain largely to the south or east, predominately tropical maritime airmass, however I expect the jet stream to step up a gear or two bringing the potential for damaging winds and flooding. The chances for cold and snow I'm less optimistic about but hoping we could at least see Synoptics be favourable for polar westerlies as we enter December and as is always the case, the best chances for cold and snow normally gets underway after the solstice.
It will be worth keeping an eye on how the models develop during the coming weeks as currently the the Euro High remains king but the usual caveat applies that conditions and patterns can defy the odds and emerge suddenly and dramatically.m
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It's been a pretty dreary start to November. Last night was first fireworks night without a frost since 2010 . Looking ahead, it seems increasingly more likely a pattern change of sorts will occur around mid month with heights lowering to the south and a more mobile outlook setting in from the Atlantic bringing more traditional changeable, fresh conditions. The models, particularly the GFS, have recently shown a consistent trend of increased heights to the W/NW with high pressure transferring out of Newfoundland towards the south of Greenland, opening the door to possibly much colder conditions with first 'wintry' spell of the season. Still a long way out and plenty of room for error but nevertheless it's encouraging that things will at least turn more seasonal, and hopefully a chance of snow although that would be a huge bonus - normally the first snowfalls occur here in the first couple of weeks of December - especially given how untypical an autumn it has been of late.
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Mildest November day at Glasgow airport since 2011 with a maximum temperature of 15c. Every year we can expect mild weather in late autumn but 15c is pretty good going for the time of year. A very nice day too with autumn sunshine and blue sky and despite the temperatures it does look much more like late autumn now with the sun lower in the sky and setting in the SW late in the afternoon. Hopefully over the coming weeks we'll see some more frosts and fresher conditions to accompany the progression towards winter.
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Another fine day of autumnal sunshine after a low of -1C. It's been a very dry autumn so far although I think it's only a matter of time before we get some proper autumnal wet and windy weather.
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Lovely clear autumnal evening after a changeable couple of days. It's been a lovely mix of settle, autumnal weather with hours of day/night equal there's been some very pleasant with length/strength of sunlight to bring some bright and warmlate summer conditions to enjoy and a distinct chill after dark with low overnight minima and the first air frosts of season a few days ago. It definitely feels and looks like autumn now with changing shadows, earlier sunsets, and darker evenings as we make progress towards winter and have left behind the best of the summer weather and daylight. It's a shame that May-July/August was such a let down after two good summers and very respectable start to the year with a terrific winter Ocerall for snow in this region and a decent March and April. It's been quite an odd year for weather, nationally and globally. As we are in autumn proper we can enjoy some of the traditions owns characteristics of changeable autumnal conditions during the coming weeks.
Looks like a crisp, clear night to come and there's a chance of seeing the northern lights. It'd be quite unique to see a solar and lunar eclipse, meteor showers and the northern lights in the same year.
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Another snow shower coming through. It's been a very good spring so far with plenty of sunshine but also a few wintry farewells.
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Wet snow shower here.
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Tried to find eclipse glasses in the shops but no luck. Is it safe to view an eclipse through an iPad camera?
Currently quite cloudy although there were a few breaks in the cloud to the east.
Scotland Weather Discussion - 20th November 2015 and Onwards...
in Regional
Posted
It's been quite windy for the past hour or so. Very dark aswell with heavy overcast skies - a pretty typical mild, Atlantic influenced December day. I wonder how much are wind gusts expected increase through this evening and overnight.
The model runs so far today from the GFS and ECM look pretty encouraging for a colder pattern to develop around mid-month with the jet stream looking to track further south.