Ravelin

Not a good day for the Aberdeenshire Council school closures website to be throwing an error. Alford Academy are closed so son at home, waiting to hear if Westhill Academy will do the same. Definitely a new covering on our driveway waiting to be cleared. Currently -2.1C which is pretty much the overnight low.

Big blob descending on you. Seems to have broken up further west so we've only had a dusting this evening. Lots of shower activity to the north though so no 8dea wht well look like in the morning. Lots of Aberdeenshire schools have already taken the decision not to open tomorrow, citing current road conditions and overnight forecast.

The GFS 12Zs take on the 'mild spell' for around here... Makes you wonder about why there was so much wailing and nashing of teeth in the MOD thread over the 'breakdown' along with at least one "no quick route back to cold from that chart" comment a couple of days back. Edit: I suppose compared to recent temperatures that is mild.

Back home early, they shut the school at 2pm and told us to go home. Not entirely sure why, yes it snowed moderately for half an hour but by the time we were leaving it was lovely and sunny. Roads home not too bad, brilliant views, temp -1C or thereabouts most of the way, down to around -5C as you dropped into the Vale of Alford. Maybe 2 or 3cm of nice new fluffy snow at home.

Widely negative double digits on the commute from Alford to Westhill this morning. Just waiting on that snow band coming in from the north to arrive now, but not expecting anything significant from it. Maybe something a bit more substantial tonight and into tomorrow morning? Every forecast on every site seems to be different at the moment.

Looking at the more recent models runs the MWIS take on it looks as if it could be right, it could be a brief warm up then a return to cold. The synoptics overall aren't typical December at all, tropospheric vortex all but non existent. Currently -7.9C with a low of -9.4C around 2am. Should warm up a bit more today compared to yesterday, but likely will still stay sub zero. Not looking quite as extreme overnight for the rest of the week either.

Don't know what the mobile 4G signal is like at your place but we use a 4G router to provide the main wifi for the house as the landline Internet connection is slow. Although the phone signal in the house is dodgy, with an antenna on a window at the front of the house we can get a signal good enough to stream HD video from the likes of Netflix, and the upload is much faster too. I'm almost 100% sure all the houses around Tullynessle have direct lines to the exchange in Alford, so are very long. I'm not holding my breath for Openreach to change that any time soon. Putting a fibre cabinet in the car park opposite the church would seem a good option, but then they'd need to reconnect every telephone line in the area to that, which would be a big job. One of the few downsides of rural living. -8.2C here now, not far off the low for today, which was -8.9C around 9am this morning.

Yeah, if the weather means we don't want to walk the dog on the tracks up Sui Hiil we often walk along the road towards Terpersie. That road can be interesting enough if it's snowed, never mind if you are off the tarmacked bit. We live just off Sui Road, uphill from the church, been here coming up for 5 years now.

Hi neighbour, what's the chances of that, although around here neighbor is often a relative term, you could be miles away. -8c at the house this morning, widely that all the way to Alford, except pockets of -11/12c on the commute, including Alford itself. Again widely -5/6C on the drive home but down to -9C in Alford. Currently -7.4C here on the hill with a max for the day of -4.3C. The great plan to leave the snow shovels and grit in the greenhouse to avoid having to take the garage keys out failed spectacularly this morning when the greenhouse door was frozen shut. Got it open when I got home, and being left open.

A relatively mild -8.6C compared to that ^^^^^^

I suppose I'd better add snowy walk pictures, taken beside the River Don this morning. Somewhat lacking in sunshine at the time but didn't feel cold due to the lack of any wind. Temp dropped from 0C at 2:30 to -3C now, gonna be a cold one.

Ah, so that's where they've been. There's precious little evidence of even the most used side roads around Alford having been gritted.

Models are showing that they think the cold is going to be shunted away. The models might be right, they might be wrong, we'll need to wait and see. I've seen whole ensemble outputs completely flip over the course of one or two runs in the past, admittedly normally from cold to mild, but they do flip on occasions. In the meantime I'm going to enjoy the lovely sunny morning, temp at 0C and around 20cm of lying snow. By the end of this week I might be happy for it to warm up as currently its barely forecast to get above freezing right through to next Sunday.

I must say I'm so far rather unimpressed at the efforts of the council. I wasn't out yesterday but by all accounts the roads were just as bad as Thursday and Friday were at times. Outwith the main A944 I've not noticed any real evidence of gritting going on. Yr.no, so raw ECM, has snow Tuesday for here rather than Wednesday. Currently temp here on the hill is 0C, and that's pretty much the overnight low. So cold likely pooling down in the valleys. Only a dusting since we cleared the driveway yesterday afternoon. Tomorrow looking quite extreme temp wise.

Just a degree or so colder and I'd have been getting buried. Snowed steadily all morning but it's a real wet mess.

Although the lying snow is wet, it's still falling as snow here. Showers on and off so far this morning, with the current one being of decent intensity.

Still plenty of snow lying here thus morning, but it's looking a bit on the wet side. Will no doubt survive for at least a week now given the temperature being forecast to barely get above freezing for the next week. Will have to make sure we get the driveway and paths cleared today before it all freezes solid.

That was alluding to the fact the snow was deeper than the car really would cope with normally, but it was Friday night and I was damn sure I was making it home. Is your car front of rear wheel drive? Most rear wheel drives are awful in the snow. Diesels usually have enough torque to pull away from a standing start in 2nd gear if you do it right, 3rd if you really try. Less chance of spinning the wheels when grip is poor.

Do everything slowly and carefully, slow down well before corners or junctions as, well, you never quite know if you'll have grip. Keep momentum if you can and use your gears. Go down a gear if necessary, especially before going up hill as you don't want to try to change gear at the point you're losing traction on a slope. Use your gears to slow down rather than the brakes. If you are wheel spinning pulling away then try doing it in 2nd gear, but that works better with diesels than petrol engines. Oh and if you happen to be driving a 4wd SUV then realise you are still not invinsible (some seem to think they are). I'm sure others will chip in with tips.

It was! Roads OK from Westhill to Millbank but from there they got snowy, especially over the high bit at Tillyfourie. Down the other side ad towards Alford was tram tracks but otherwise driveable. Interesting time for me from Montgarie up to the house, just as well I had many years of driving in snow before anyone had ever heard of winter tyres, nevermid all season tyres. Snowploughed my way slowly up the hill in the dinky hire car and my wonderful wife had cleared the steep bit of the drive so got up first time. Roads in general both this morning and this evening have been untreated except for the main A944. Council cutting back on gritting? The road past my house always had a gritter go past early enough for the school minibus to get along. Not this morning though.

Sorry, Perthshire refugees aren't required after all as no more than a dusting overnight despite the front that looked to be moving south last night. Local temperatures appear to be 1 to 2C at the moment.

I'll accept Perthshire refugees, free board and snowshovel provided.

Incoming..... Looks like I'll have to clear the driveway again in the morning. Already getting tired of that so please make it light, fluffy stuff. At least its Friday tomorrow and I don't have to go out Sat or Sun if it keeps it up.

I was out walking the dog and I could hear them but just couldn't spot them. Sounded like they were more over your direction. Unusual to hear them around here despite the proximity to RAF Lossiemouth. Cleared another 5cm or thereabouts from the driveway after the dog walk that had fallen since 8am. Unlike this morning it was heavy stuff, nearly killed me. We must have had 15cm at least fall since last night, which is a fair haul for this early in winter, probably helped by being a little higher up.

Cleared 20cm off of driveway earlier but after a pause the snow is back on again. VID_20221208_085212725.mp4 Luckily my school made the sensible decision to close to the staff, especially as there were going to be no pupils in anyway due to the strike (I'd have been in, different union).