A Winter's Tale

Amber warning for frontal snowfall. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/warnings/#?tab=map A decent cold spell needs a decent snowfall, fingers-crossed the finale will be great. Glasgow airport has had 5 days with snowfall in a row, the last time there was 5 or more days of snowfall was in the late Nov/early Dec spell when there was 8 consecutive snowfall days. I wonder if there'll be a snowfall tonight, further snow on Friday and into Saturday to make 8 consecutive snowfall days. Also,the cold spell should continue on Saturday and in some sense Sunday aswell with maximum temperatures largely struggling to exceed 5C.

I had a fantastic time in the Campsies this afternoon with some stunning winter scenery and skies aswell as icicles. It's a shame I didn't have the camera but I hope to take some pictures tomorrow afternoon before the breakdown which could be a snowy one here and in many other areas. Turnng less cold and milder with wet and windy conditions into the weekend and probably into next week but we are back into the regime in which there are variety of feasable outcomes that are infront of us - lots to play for still. Also, amazing pictures from Amurlee!!!

Just back from my prelim and it's very cold. Mostly grey with a few snowfalkes and dusting of snow in places from earlier. Clearer skies further south with a very cold, hazy look to it.

Another cold day here and it seems like some of the coldest temperatures of the spell may occur during the coming days. The breakdown will occur on Friday, there could be a snowfall to come with it but with the way that this cold spell has been, we can only be sure of what will happen until it actually arrives. Not an easy situation for forecasting beyond Friday. There could be some heavy rain and strong winds depending on the position and track of depressions, we may stay relatively cool with with the possibility of upper air temperatures below 0C but there should be at least a spell of much milder temperatures under the warm sector, especially during next week. We can't tell how mild, wet, windy it will be and nor can we tell what sort of synoptics we'll have in Europe and in other influential parts of the NH. I remain hopefull of HLB over Greenland into February and some of the signs are looking good but it could easily turn out differently. My current perspective on things, is that we'll enter a less cold and much changeable period from the weekend and for much of next week but it will be a tricky period as the synoptics re-adjust following the current pattern we are now in. The model outlook would consequently remain messy and variable for a while. But I believe that as time goes by we'll see the models toying with various evolutions as the northern hemispheric pattern corresponing with the SSW effects on the troposphere will become more established, and into February, if all goes well, we'll end up with a favourable set-up to HLB. It's all early days, but the potential is there for February. Personally, I'd love to see high pressure sat right over Greenland allowing for possibly a more significant and enjoyable cold spell than the current one - and if that were to happen, then it could be quite something. We are overdue a notably cold and snowy February and some of us are overdue another decent or significant snow event. There are no certainties, and we could still get something out of February without prolonged HLB. And luckily for us, our prospects for wintry weather extends well into Spring. But despite how frustrating this spell has been for a decent snowfall, I'm glad that this isn't the same sort of situation we would have been 6 years ago, with a decent snowfall already in the bag in early December, some decent cold spells aswell then it's all up to February delivering a snowfall to remember and enough cold temperatures to have a below average overall winter temperature.

Interestingly looking at the met office weather stations, at 0000hrs it was heavy snow with a temperature of 0.7C at Prestwick which is 0.8C lower than that at Bishopton.

I can still remember as far back as December 1999 which was a good example of cold zonality. I would love to experience a month like January 1984. If we could have 20 days of December with really potent cold zonality, followed by a late December 1995, a January like 1962 then a February with potent cold spells and snowfalls mixed with some mild spells would just about make my dream winter.

It looks like the snow is lying near Saltcoats.

The good news is that the traffic cameras south of the central belt look very impressive. It's even snowing in Ayrshire.

Snow at Glasgow airport but the temperature is still at 2C. The band looks quite heavy so it could bring some accumilations but it needs to get here first.

I wonder what the mean temperature for January will end up as. It would be nice to have another below average month following on from December (which had the same mean as December 2008).

It seem that the band of heavier ppn is moving north from Dumfries/Galloway/Borders. Hopefully it will reach us and most importantly bring some accumilations.

BBC has Glasgow down for heavy snow at 3am.