peborant

And even better than the upgrades is the fact that cold comes down our way earlier, which makes it more reliable. Ahhh Only a 100 odd hours to go!

For some reason in Dollar, Clacks we have been under cloudy skies during daytime, only clearing up by night. This has happened every day since the fog lifted, which add up another three days of mysteriously beautiful gloom. No wonder my Taiwanese housemate was all excited yesterday morning when the sun shone briefly before good old abigail's attack. So what were the chances of this happening today too! After a brutally enjoyable day, with snow touching ground level and falling happily above 100m -got a full report from a friends mum who lives in Upper Dollar -100 to 150m asl- (made up name that designs the hilly bit of town, as opposed to Lower Dollar (30odd to 100m asl) which is where my house and my source of employment happen to be against my selfish wishes).So yeah then we get the brightest of skies in between these freezing showers. Hoping to see some snow up in the hills tomorrow, if there is a bit I will go for a walk before work. Cant check our local weather station now as the website is not up yet but thats coming nicely with a pupil that knows about coding and is working on it as we type our ideas away. I will post a link when it launches Nightie!

Clearly carol was a bit far fetched when she said showers would turn wintry at 400m this morning, its almost come down to sea level! 3° and sleety with snow bands over the ochils, snow line 100m above my head or so. Lying snow at 500 though.

Although we have been sitting on the wrong side of marginal, I was not expecting any more considering we barely reach 50m elevation, however a sleety mix has been clearly spotted, with a few snowflakes in it, I was exhilarated. On the Ochills it was clearly snow, I'm guessing at an elevation of 150m judging by the looks of ppn. It has settled nicely above 350m. So so so nice to get this sort of weather after the mush we've seen as of late. And, first covering of the season for the Ochils too, I'm well made up!

That's so cool man, it could be much worse, considering you are stranded anyway...! After an eerily quiet, albeit sunny at first, morning, clouds packed in, making the day greyer as hours went by. However, I saw the sun for the first time in thirteen days, which is a respectable time even for this latitude of ours. As ever, though, worse times sun-wise have been recorded. A light rain started the prelude at three, insecure to start with, so much so that she was leaving the scene at times, but oh boy, did she come back half an hour later. That was the first strike, and the most prolonged in time, after which the wind began to howl and it seemed for a wee while that the world was coming to an end. Little did I know when I left school under drier, leaden skies smelling of sheer humidity that by the time I got home five minutes later the rain would come back with a vengeance, in the form of what you call 'squally lines', a name that bears a very onomatopeic resemblance to the sound of its rain banging on my window. Rain lashed the town for ten minutes, giving us our strongest recorded gust of 40mph but that was about it. Yes, it was a bit windy afterwards too but now it's all gone quiet again. Not to say that people in the far NW aren't suffering a good battering but this storm has clearly been mediatised, as it always appeared to me. Party carries on tomorrow with a new element: cold! And hopefully maybe a bit of hail or sleet just to quench my thirst for some icy stuff. Have white dreams!

Hail the newest weather station set up in Scotland! On top of Dollar Academy, Dollar, Clackmannanshire. It will be added to the Scottish Network and the WOW as soon as we can. So happy it was just installed prior to Abigail. Let the fun - and the comparisons with Kinross and Menstrie - commence! Have a pleasant day everyone

Well thankfully I wasn't the only one thinking that! Up here in central Scotland we have had rain every day for the last 8 days and everything is saturated. Monday morning is a cause of concern after the washout next weekend and we are not even in the west side of things...

On a more nowcasting note, anyone has noticed how a relatively modest-looking line of ppn has become a massive lump that spans from Braemar to the Central Belt? Amazing weather that you get here, so much more exciting than that of my hometown, Barcelona! And thus we carry on with the rainy theme. We have had rain on every day since the 4th of the month and we had dense fog before, so the sun has been largely absent, and noticeably so too. Burns, streams and the Devon alike are raging. In fact, the Devon has gone up by 50cm in the last 9 hours, which does show for the heavy rain we enjoyed over the afternoon/early evening, its most glorious and final moment being the squally line that sent us up to 30-odd mile an hour gusts out of nowhere, to quote a fellow Fifer from the previous page. In Menstrie this has accumulated 9.7mm that add up really nicely make a monthly total of 53mm, which make for a good spell of wet weather. The best bit is the chance of some hail over the early weekend and the spell of heavy, prolonged rain that is coming on Sunday. In fact I do not get why there is so much fuss over 'Abigail' and so litte about a feature that could mean some serious flooding in prone areas considering the departing stage of saturation we are already at. As I type this message, the rain has become rather intense and noisy. Let´s see what the Devon is like in the morning and especially over the next few days. Good night!

It was the same here but of course it was never going to last. Pouring again for a time, another 3mm and oh by the way it's the 8th day with rain in a row. Just for fun I was asking people round when it'd been the last time they'd seen the sun and all I was was puzzled faces. Well I can tell you we haven't seen it for the whole of the current month! T 10 degrees AND first sleet symbol on Metoffice for Friday. Finally!

Thanks so much for your answers, I thought there would be lots of variables when it comes to timing the peak of a stream. As for the snow I am not sure if it's worth to head up in all the wet weather and darkness for a wee bit of slush. Still tempted though! Can't wait, let's get more soaked!

After a dry night, a moderate drizzle has come back this morning. I suppose I got an answer to my question when I went to the burn this morning and the water level had gone down quite noticeably although it still is higher than it was before the rains started, which only makes sense on the other hand. Mild theme. Do you reckon we will get any snow/sleet over the Ochil Hills this week? If so, at what height? I am tempted to head up to get the first glimpse of snow of the season if there's any chances of it showing up! Cheers, have a nice day.

Dollar Burn running wild tonight after a good few days of relentless rain, tempted to go into the hills to see the swollen streams as soon as the rain stops -or more like takes a pause- on Wednesday morning. And this brought a question to my mind. Say, if it stopped raining right now, how many hours do you reckon it would take for burns to achieve the highest amount of water per second? 6-12? Obviously a wee bit longer downstream...Be looking forward to your answers! PS, Menstrie reporting 15.3º which is shockingly mild. Not too happy about that but flood alert is making up for it. Good night!

Sun trying to break the cloud amidst a misty atmosphere. Beautiful leaves, most of them still hanging on to the trees although some have fallen off already. Fairly mild at 11 degrees with a min of around 10, colder weather cannot come soon enough, can't wait for some proper frost. Have a nice day everyone!

Second foggy day at the foot of the Ochils, looked like it was going to lift up at around 9 but ten minutes after that it came back to stay for another undetermined time. Temperatures are henceforth suppressed. 22 degrees in November? Not IMBY nor do I want them! I'll stick to my more seasonal current 7

First ground frost of the season in Dollar, Clackmannanshire , with an air temp of around 3 degrees. Shame I was not aware of the aurora borealis last night but I am doubtful as to whether I would have been able to see it with the Ochils blocking the view to the North.

What I do not think many people realise in the British Isles, especially its North and West fringes, is that you are not supposed to have a summer in the sense that they do in the continent. This is a trend that you even can observe if you have a look at the glaciation ice sheets: even back then the BI were chillier in summer months in contrast to other areas located at similar latitudes, which allowed for said sheets to become perennial, probably more due to summers that would fail to provide any sustained warmth, just like nowadays, at another completely different level, that is. Therefore, complaining for a lack of warm days in the parallel 57N, when you are surrounded by a -colder than average- ocean, makes as little sense to me as it does to complain about why in Barcelona we do not get as much snow as they do in New York. But hey, you get other things in Aberdeen, such as freak foam storms and a possibility for snow in over six months out of every year. Enjoy what you got

Dear all, Firstly, let me introduce myself: my name is Pedro and I am originally from Barcelona but I am going to be based in Dollar (Clackmannanshire) for the next few months. I have lived in the UK for the last four years, and so I have been an adept to this forum, but I have not participated much, as I felt I had not loads to share. However, this all could change really soon. Let me tell you why. The reason why I am in Dollar is because I am going to be this session's Spanish assistant. Prior to my arrival, though, they asked me what other areas of interest I had in order to contribute to the school's co-curricular project, and obvs the first thing that came up was 'meteorology!'. So, my idea always was to set up a weather station. Now that I am finally here, enjoying the delights of this utterly variable climate of yours, I have had the chance to have a word with the Geography dept. and everyone is super excited about my idea and want to help me to make it come to fruition. Nevertheless, I thought that I would ask for your views and thoughts on the matter. It would be really useful if you could tell me what stations are better, what sort of software we would need for data to be streamed live and with no need of -constant- supervision from the teaching staff. I have done some research and found out about the wireless Davis Vantage Vue and the Weatherlink IP system. Do you think they are good and reliable enough for a school context? Would we need great IT knowledge in order to set it up? Be as critical with this as you want and do not hesitate to recommend any other stations you want, I do not think money is a problem as God knows this school has the means and I am guessing they will value durability over price. I cannot express how excited I am about this whole thing, I have been crazy about the weather for as long as I can remember and I always wanted to set up my own weather station, so it is great that I am getting the chance to learn the more technical aspect of meteorology. Thanks a lot for your help!!! I will be looking forward to your comments. Regards, Pedro.

I was hoping the sleety/snowy shower that is affecting Liverpool would deliver wintry goods to Manchester but it's just raining and the temperature has gone up from 3,5º to 5º :(

In Manchester central, just off the MRI hospitals, a more modest min temp of -1.2 at 8am. Puddles and remains of the wintry shower last night were frozen solid though, as well as cars. Currently 1.9º. Amazing shower, with thunder and it all turned white in less than 5mins, feeling proper wintery too.

Hello guys, first let me introduce myself, I am this twenty-something catalan boy from Barcelona who grew up wishing for white christmas (in all earnest I have never experienced one but we were close in 2006 :/ ). Anyway, I already got to see my city blanketed a few times as winters have grown slightly colder compared to the nineties. Nothing you cannot relate to in the BIsles, surprisingly enough Iberia and Britain are really close when it comes to weather patterns, e.g. March 2013 was the coldest here since 1962 -and I was in Edinburgh btw- in the UK and at the same time it was exceedengly rainy in the whole of Spain. In Barcelona the serious snow happened in...8th march 2010. Heaviest snow since January 1985. Because that day I was in a city in the outskirts at 900ft, I saw accumulations of up to 20cm and snow fell between 0º and -2.5º since 11am till 7pm(very unusual and weird timing too, clearly it was a proper cold air ´bubble´). Down by the beach of Barcelona there were around 2-5cm but temps barely dipped below zero and you could tell the difference. However, the whole metropolitan area collapsed around 4pm, people stuck in trains for hours in the middle of nowhere...The intensity felt for a time as if it were a summer storm (very common, several each season with a peak in sept-oct), the likes of which I have yet to see in Britain. Only that it was terrifying, joyful snow. To cut it short, as soon as it stopped snowing and the temperature slowly rose above 0 in the metro area, most of the snow melted overnight and definitely by morning. I believe the max temp next day was a "cold" 7º. And then after that the glorious winter of 2013 happened. December was ok, had like 3-4 days of snow and several air frosts, January was increasingly good with a few good snowfalls that unfortunately in the 'hole' where Edinburgh is would never stay for longer than a few hours at best, however as soon as you got to the outer hills there were 25cm easy and it did stay in Arthur's Seat, though I only measured 13cm up there. February was a bit of a bore, though we did get some sleet and snow, too...and then another blessed March, this one even more lenghtly so. Best bit is, it started off rather mild, and there was a touch of spring in the air, some leaves seemed to blossom, as did flowers on the Meadows. Up in the hills most of the snow melted but there were still some visible patches. Suddenly I (and possibly you) started to see those charts, those astonishing charts. I'd never believed I would experience -15º at 850hpa in the Far West -of Eurasia ha ha. Poor trees and daffofils did have their spring hopes postponed for a good three weeks, snow lain on the ground of town for a couple of days, longer the further up (Brunstfield, Marchmont, Oxgangs) and on top of Arthur's Seat till 4th April, which is nothing but a (beautiful) coastal marginal hill of 250m. Snow stayed probably a week or two longer in the hills, shamefully I never went back after the melt, they were not as alluring and they'd become a huge puddle! Apologies for the rant and thank you very much if you have made it down here. I am hopeful this winter will be a cold one, hopes being based on snow extend and a little hunch haha. I am happy today as it is the first day that the 0º 850hpa has visited the Isles properly and the chill in the air after Gonzalo confirms it! Winter most definitely is coming. Enjoy your evening! PS Attached there might be a photo of today's cold snap at 15.30BST showing the cold air 'tongue' descending NW over the Continent via British Isles, and thus giving birth to heavy showers in the Lancashire-Midlands corridor. And they are pretty freaky too, can tell you, I am writing from Manchester by the way! It is a pleasure to meet you (all), sorry I've been reading you for a good two years but I am a bit shy and don't think I can contribute with much more knowledge as some people here are amazing and teach me a lot. But I do hope you enjoy the little anecdotes