The real Lomond snowstorm

Well we had 5 to 7cm of snow today but as usual it fell for less than was forecast yesterday and turned to sleet and rain showers after 10am. It's mostly gone now. And we have yellow warnings for ice tomorrow and for wind Sunday and Monday. As Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are forecast to be even windier and next weekend is looking stormy, I'm wondering how many consecutive days we can have weather warnings.

Though I am on the edge of the Highlands this is not a particularly snowy place (away from the mountain tops) due to low elevation, and many places in Central and Northern England get far more snow than I do. Even so, this winter has been particularly disappointing with tomorrow due to be the second day of snow for this winter and the other day was really only a few overnight showers. Then it reverts back to almost continuous gales / severe gales and spells of rain or heavy showers from Sunday for what looks like the rest of the week and probably a lot longer. The sooner spring comes the better.

It may be the most densely populated but over half the UK population live away from the South of England. We're just a bit more spread out.

It looks like Dudley is going to affect the south to some degree at least but people haven't yet realised it. Watford was showing gusts around 50mph and Heathrow around 45mph and if you've ever travelled through Heathrow regularly you'll know that anything remotely windy causes delays and cancellations as the landing and take off slots get extended for safety reasons so expect some disruption there.

It looks like Dudley has been downgraded in the Scottish central belt but it is looking like stronger winds further south so I assume it is taking a more southerly track. Manchester seems to have stronger winds than my part of the world and even Hertfordshire has similar wind speeds. So it looks like the south of the country is going to get two storms with 24hrs between them followed by another low pressure system on Sunday with potentially gale force winds. At least it will stop the complaints of how dull their weather has been.

We've been upgraded to an amber wind warning for Wednesday/Thursday's storm Dudley which looks like lasting a full 24 hrs across the central belt of Scotland. Regarding Friday's storm further south, I can think of four occasions locally off the top of my head, since 1987, where we've had similar storms to the 1987 one in the SE, in terms of wind speed, including two in a single winter. Plus one in 1986 that imploded the windows of a dozen cars in my work car park, due to the pressure difference when the gusts hit and further north blew climbers upwards who were trying to abseil to safety off Ben Nevis . I have had a large double glazed window in the common area of the flats I lived in, in 2012, blow in and launch itself down the stairs in a 90mph + storm and have been not allowed to leave my office in another storm because it was too dangerous with the amount of debris flying around. Conversely I have been told in another storm to abandon everything and get home as quickly as possible as it was too dangerous to remain in that office and the building did sustain damage. So, for those of you that may not have experienced such a storm, if it does prove to be a big one, please do not take it lightly. And pray your neighbours have secured their garden furniture and especially trampolines

Having just had the best part of three weeks of rain and gales, quite frankly I envy your recent dull high pressure. Most days since the last week of January have had strong to gale force winds and driving rain or showers in a constant train and much of the time it has been cold rain and around 5C which is fairly unpleasant to be out in. Next week actually looks a little better (if you ignore the 60mph + storm Wednesday and Thursday) with a 24hr to 48hr gaps between weather systems and more sunshine. The last few weeks have now finished off a poor winter as far as I'm concerned and I'm now looking forward to spring and some better weather. I have seen one day of snow lying (perhaps 1cm) which fell overnight but otherwise it has been snow free here since winter 20/21. Ironically, the hills have had more snow on them recently because the cold rain was sometimes falling as snow above 400m but the best we have had down below has been wet sleet showers (worse than cold rain). Anyway, I'm now hoping the Azores High heads further north and gives me a few weeks of 10C to 12C and gentle breezes and no rain.

February has always been the driest winter month but I can recall one or two pretty bad ones with endless wind and rain, just like this one. It has never been the driest month of the year (or anywhere near it) in the West of Scotland which is traditionally May with June and April not far behind. When we do get a wet and windy February my impression is that March, which is typically a windy transition month, is a little calmer, with the pent up energy in the Atlantic reduced due to the February storms.

I realised I had written summer, so edited it a couple of minutes later but you were too quick for me. I couldn't remember whether it was winter or spring so wasn't specific.

Whereas I had the best summer on record last year though there were no extremes. Just pleasant 20C to 24C for day after day with virtually no rain. It does seem to happen quite often that when the more Southerly parts of the UK get poor weather then the North benefits or (more often) the other way around. Another example was the extensive flooding in that wet year a few years ago when the Somerset levels flooded but only became a problem for the Govt when the leafy Thames suburbs also started flooding. That year we had it pretty good up here.

No snow for me so far though a few of the hills around Loch Lomond have a covering higher up. The most I have had is what looks like an overnight sleet shower that was still showing on the car but gone on the ground. Regarding Supercell's Highland trip I've spent a few weeks in Strathcarron on holiday over the years and have done some winter navigation and built a snow hole on the plateau above Bealach na Ba and the snow has been piled up 7 or 8 feet either side of the road. I believe at one time they kept a snow blower down in Applecross to keep the road. open. The same trip I did a winter traverse of Liathach which was exciting, crossing the pinnacles in full blown winter conditions. The Cairngorms are not nearly as technically exciting but having experienced blizzards on the high plateaus there they are a wild place at times. You basically get the "Beast from the East" much of the winter up on the tops and occasionally it takes it to a whole different level. Trying to function at only 60mph winds when it is -5C and driving snow and ice is battering you , is very difficult, and I can only imagine what it must be like when it is gusting 100mph + .

As has been mentioned, if it is mild in winter it is usually gloomy, wet and windy. Especially where I live. And the darkness at this time of year makes that worse (7 hrs 11 mins of daylight today with sunset 15:45) . And needing the light on to read at midday due to storm Barra. I do like cold weather (for half the year) but found that after a month of ice days and extreme cold (for the UK ) in winter 2010 that I was very much wanting milder conditions. When it was -15C or -20C in the morning going to work, most of the time it was also pretty gloomy as freezing mist took much of the day to clear though it did coat the trees in hoar frost. If we had the drier cold with plenty of sunshine during the day that you get at more southerly latitudes I would have enjoyed it more so the next time we get an extended cold spell like that I would like it in March please. The "Beast from the East" was the right time of year and was much brighter but also relatively speaking, much milder and only lasted a week or so. So if I could get bright, sunny and mild in winter for some of the time I would not be unhappy though I would not like it all winter. I suspect though that the only way I am going to get that will be to fly to Spain for a couple of weeks.

I actually watched that a couple of days ago. I find some of the Maths videos on that channel hard going but the science videos are a lot easier to understand.

To prove you wrong it is mild sunny and dry today here . I will no doubt have jinxed it now....

Well, it's preferable to the wet and extremely dull and gloomy weather here today. Persistent rain and 8c at lunchtime and too gloomy to read without lights on. Walked pass a bunch of police patrolling the shores of Loch Lomond by throwing stones in it (obviously to flush out any eco warriors who got lost on the way to Glasgow) The COP 26 delegates probably think the gales and heavy rain since they've been here is due to global warming but we know it's just normal.

You may only have had 2 hot weeks this summer but I've just had the warmest summer since records began about one hundred and forty years ago. Granted, we haven't had many days with the weather into the late twenties like 1976 or 1995 but the temperatures have consistently been around early twenties which is several degrees above the average, with plenty of sunshine and very low rainfall. Which in my book has made it a far better summer simply because the temperatures have not been too hot.

Actually the hotter temperatures have been abroad in various Alpine countries, Eastern Turkey, Corsica etc. Carrying 25kg on a 12hr day in 32C temperatures in Corsica meant drinking 14 litres of water in a day and still unable to go to the bathroom at the end of the day. That was an extreme case and not typical but even relatively gentle walking uphill , particularly on rougher ground, is pretty hard in mid twenties even with a day pack. I once suffered mild heat stroke in Scotland in temperatures around the mid twenties when back packing at a time I was fairly fit (unlike now). Similarly it is too hot to run comfortably in such temperatures. You only need to look at the various long distance runs that take place around the UK and they take special precautions if it is above 20C and early teens is the preferred temperature, preferably with a breeze. If you're pottering around and stopping every 2 minutes or your idea of doing stuff is to walk a hundred yards across a car park then 25C is not too bad though I wouldn't choose to sit out in the sun at that temperature. When you do any sort of physical exercise you generate up to 8 times your static heat output (depending on how hard you're working of course.) It is easy to run or climb or do hard physical work in a t-shirt in sub zero temperatures as long as you layer up when you stop.

It's certainly too hot to actually do stuff outside as opposed to sitting around in it. If I'm doing any gardening or going out for anymore exercise than a gentle stroll I much prefer it to be below 20C. I have done some strenuous hill stuff abroad in my time, in temperatures ranging from -25C to 35C and my preference is definitely for the cooler end of the spectrum.

Ah, ok, I understand, thanks.

As I've got older (and much less fit) I now appreciate a less strenuous route with more time to really look at stuff like geology, history, wildlife and so forth. I am now happy to bimble around doing local stuff I would have dismissed when I was churning through the Munros. It leaves you now with an excuse to go back .

Was that the Knoydart trip ? In 1991 I did my first Knoydart backpacking trip and it was also at the end of May, beginning of June. It was horrible weather for the first few hours walking and then the weather cleared and it remained hot (arguably too hot) and sunny for the whole week. I remember sitting on the top of Ladhar Bheinn in shorts and T-shirt with Rum shimmering in the sea and camping near the summit of Sgurr na Ciche near Loch Arkaig and seeing a temperature inversion in the morning with the Knoydart peaks showing through. A fantastic trip.

How does it get to somewhere between 2 and 8C inside in winter (in an office I assume)? Even with no heating on you'll normally maintain a warmer temperature than that indoors, probably around 12C . I once went away for three weeks over Christmas and New Year, forgot to leave the heating on, came back home in -5C temperatures with deep snow outside (which had been lying for a week) and the temperature indoors was about 10C when I arrived back in the morning. Admittedly the walls remained cold for a couple of days even when the air temperature returned to normal. It must be a drafty building.

We've had a few cloudy or misty mornings recently here but mostly it has become sunny, or at least sunny spells, by late morning or lunchtime, and that is what is forecast to happen today. Except for a few spots forecast this Sunday evening, there's looking like no rain in the week ahead and it is looking sunny at least some of the time and that is all you can really ask for in this part of the world.

The Times is saying the hottest on record (since 1884) and driest since 1869 but no mention of the sunniest. I assume they are using the Glasgow Bishopton weather station which is roughly halfway between me and Glasgow. Regardless, its been bloody good in this little corner of the UK Glasgow has hottest summer on record WWW.THETIMES.CO.UK Glasgow — the host city for the Cop26 climate change conference — has just had its hottest summer on record and its driest in more than 150 years.The Met Offi

They didn't go into specifics other than stating that (for the Glasgow area ) It has not felt really hot like 1976 or 1995 but more a case of most days being in the early 20s and very dry. For info, though 1976 was hot here, 1995 was hotter still and I think the best summer Scotland as a whole had in a hundred years.