Spindrift2017

Not the deepest of snowfalls here, and was growing slushier by the minute when I was out (a far cry from last week's crisp, frozen conditions) but, well, it's definitely snow!

Snowing quite heavily and lying here too, despite radar showing sleet.

Lovely frosty morning here, -3 and mist giving way to sunshine. A welcome change from yesterday's mild dreichness. Only remaing trace of snow is a big snowball the kids rolled in the park which hasn't disappeared yet!

The Highlandweather twitter account is mentioning quite a few personal weather stations in the area to the south-west of the Pentland Hills getting down below -15C, with Hartree House near Biggar getting down to -17.8, but the Met O is giving the overall low as -11.8 at Tulloch Bridge, east of Fort William. Not sure if there is any scope for the Met O to check and verify these temperatures. That area seems quite prone to low temperatures under certain set-ups. It would seem that there used to be some kind of official/semi-official weather station at Carnwath, as it holds a few of the annual low temperature records (including -24.6 at Carnwath on 13 January 1979). https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/top-ten-coldest-recorded-temperatures-in-the-uk/

The Highlandweather twitter account is mentioning quite a few personal weather stations in the area to the south-west of the Pentland Hills getting down below -15C, with Hartree House near Biggar getting down to -17.8, but the Met O is giving the overall low as -11.8 at Tulloch Bridge, east of Fort William. Not sure if there is any scope for the Met O to check and verify these temperatures. That area seems quite prone to low temperatures under certain set-ups. It would seem that there used to be some kind of official/semi-official weather station at Carnwath, as it holds a few of the annual low temperature records (including -24.6 at Carnwath on 13 January 1979). https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/top-ten-coldest-recorded-temperatures-in-the-uk/

Enjoyed looking through everyone's photos this evening. A belated contribution to the Friday photo show from me! (taken mid-morning). The thin covering of fresh, crunchy snow was a vast improvement on the ice-glazed paths/skating rinks of recent days. Another ice day, and temperatures nudging -8C even here in urban Lanarkshire so far tonight. Had to scrape the inside of the car windscreen this evening

Meanwhile, the mist has descended here (note also the icy road and remaining snow which looks good from a distance but, after about a week of partial thawing and re-freezing, now actually resembles the stuff the chunky, icy stuff they put in Slush Puppies).

It’s OK - if you look closely at the MetO’s carefully drawn warning area, it’s only the Mull of Kintyre and the Mull of Galloway which are exempt from winter conditions

Same here as others are reporting - both the thin snow covering and patches of bare ground have been given a hazardous glazed covering of ice from rain falling on the frozen ground - treacherous stuff. Plus a few roads with a new slushy covering on them too. I wonder what my chances of getting North Lanarkshire Council to top up the grit bin out on the street are.

Proper winter's day today - don't think the temperature ever looked like getting above freezing - seemed to stay quite a bit colder than forecast, so the cold air must've firmly entrenched itself in the Clyde valley. Belatedly made it out for a wander:

Snow starting to fizzle out here, but was quite decent for half an hour or so - there hadn't been much melting here, and it filled in the gaps quite nicely. Hopefully the rain is not too heavy and persistent.

Light snow on here too. I’ve noticed during this spell that the radar has often been showing sleet when ‘proper’ snow has been falling. I think someone upthread mentioned this and speculated that an algorithm relating to precipitation type might’ve been changed. Makes a change to previous years when the radar often showed ‘pink’ for snow while nothing much at all appeared to be falling!

Yeah - a nice surprise! A few pics from a nice winter morning walk around the Dalzell Estate and along the Clyde:

Surprise snow dusting here! - must’ve made its way through from the east when I wasn’t paying attention.

Looking good up in Leadhills. Just wet ground here so far, I'm afraid.

Colourful sunset here today, making the clouds to the south-west glow dramatically. Looks like an interesting spell of weather-watching is fast-approaching. Meantime, best wishes for Christmas to all Scottish thread posters!

Nice photo from the SAIS blog - the phone box is at the Cairn Gorm ski centre, so is the highest in the UK (about 600m asl). Nevertheless, a decent dump of snow at any elevation. SAIS Northern Cairngorms Blog » Deep

The final tally should be around eight patches surviving from last winter, I think. Possibly one or two more depending on how patches that have split are counted. All are either in the Cairngorms, the Aonachs (as per post above) or the gullies on the north side of Ben Nevis. Heavy snowfalls on westerlies with a polar maritime influence during February and March eventually built snow up to big depths in the usual drift locations, after very lean conditions for much of winter. There wasn’t much late spring snow this year either. The very dry and settled spring and rather cool September/October probably helped a lot.

Blimey, this has kept me awake all night so far! The monsoon rains have now arrived to join the thunder and incessant lightning flashes. First really big clap of thunder just there.

Through here, its just a bit like a camera flash Is going off occasionally at some vague point in the distance Sounds pretty full-on through in the east.

Quite frequent flashes in the sky 5 or 10 minutes ago - seems to have died down, for now.

Hello everyone, haven’t been here for a while! Hope everyone is doing OK in these strange times. Some ominous rumbling sounds on the outskirts of Glasgow at the moment - could be in for a deluge.

The ever-reliable Leadhills cam is showing snow again.

The SAIS (Avalanche Info Service) blogs are a good source of snow pics and information about snow conditions. SAIS Glencoe Blog » A fine day in Glen Coe GLENCOEBLOG.SAIS.GOV.UK Some crackers posted this week, including this view north from the Glencoe Ski Centre towards Ben Nevis Unfortunately yesterday was, and today will be, extremely soggy with a lot of thawing lower down, but back to blizzard conditions tomorrow in many areas!

A busy few days for mountain rescue teams - in the Southern Uplands they were rescuing vehicles from snow in the Dalveen Pass, right in the heart of the amber warning area. Motorists stranded in heavy snow thank rescuers WWW.BBC.CO.UK They were among 12 people helped to safety by a mountain rescue team after their vehicles became stuck.