Quinach

Stunning day here with crystal clear blue skies and temp up to 6C which is helping to quickly melt the remaining snow - though I do see some convective clouds starting to bubble up which hopefully won't but a shade on things. Some heat in that sun now and lovely sitting outside in it with no wind and skylarks singing their heart out nearby - birds definitely getting into the mood of spring here. Plants also making up for lost time, these crocuses were under 8 inches of snow on Sunday!

Cracking start to the day, mainly blue skies and first sunshine since last Wednesday, light winds and temperature 2C. If the sun stays out and the wind stays light its going to feel very pleasant outside today

Impressive (if that is the right term) amount of rain has fallen around Westhill and environs the last couple of days. http://apps.sepa.org.uk/rainfall/ No wonder the local roads are badly flooded. Mind you, if that precipitation had fallen as snow the chaos would have been even worse.

A fun drive coming up for those heading from Aberdeen to Huntly....

Plenty flooding in Aberdeenshire on low lying roads and heavy snow on the higher routes going by the flurry of posts on Fubar in the last couple of hours - https://www.facebook.com/pg/FubarNews/posts/ Stream here is now very high so suspect that will overflow in the next few hours.

2C and heavy rain at the moment, will be interesting to see if this converts to snow as the day goes on.

A very busy bird feeder today, cold brings out an appetite!

Temperature still around 1.5C but the rain is now becoming very sleety in nature.

Temperature has hovered around 1.5C here since 6pm yesterday. Snowed off and on during daylight hours yesterday then turned to rain and basically been raining since then - moderate at the moment. Amazing how quickly the snow disappears when its raining, looks like we've lost about 2 or 3" of snow cover in the last 12 hours. Schools back today though thank goodness, kids were starting to get stir crazy. Roads soaking wet, will be fun tomorrow morning if there is a frost overnight.

Snow getting a bit heavier here and temp dropping (now 0.1C). Some Scandinavian visitors to the garden, Bramblings (on left) flying along with the local Chaffinches.

Been snowing lightly for the last 30mins - slowly but surely filling up the cleared road. Just had a Sparrowhawk snatch a Chaffinch off the tree next to the bird feeder, another first as normally they avoid the houses here.

I suspect the next big story to come from this wintery spell is the state of the roads once the snow starts to melt - driving round this morning struck at the amount of tarmac I am seeing in the snow drifts at the side of the roads, presumably dug up by the ploughs being used by the council & local farmers. The automated forecasts from the BBC and Met continue to amuse. Met tell me that snowmaggedon is coming - the rain radar gives no hint of this. The BBC view seems more plausible... Overall though trust the Met more than the BBC now, especially since the BBC move to Meteo - the BBC temperatures have been over optimistic over the whole week. Plus Alex Deakin on the Met is a top notch presenter! Light snow off and on since daylight and temperatures just above freezing - snow no longer has the squeak when walking on it as many have reported the last few days which suggests some form of melting ongoing.

Some interesting things going on in the rainfall radar to the west of Huntly & Alford - https://www.netweather.tv/live-weather/radar Run the sequence just now and you see a number of stationary red signatures as circled - wonder if the rainfall radar is picking up wind turbines as I cannot think of any natural phenomena creating these radar signatures.

Temperature here creeped up to 0.5C in the last hour (compared to max of -2C yesterday). Not as sunny today though and the wind definitely stronger so it actually feels colder today than yesterday. Birds here are getting desperate for food - first time I've ever seen crows trying to feed out of a bird feeder (the local gentry have a passion for shooting them so normally they are very wary of coming near the houses around here).

Brief showers been the order of the day and nothing since 5pm - most of the activity seems to have been to the north and south of here. Surprisingly temperature has remained around -4C since 4pm - wind has dropped markedly and the sky is clear so was expecting a rapid drop in temperature. It's a bright moon tonight allowing the lying snow to sparkle quite wonderfully.

Kids not happy, wind blown away most of the snow on the best sledging hill in the area - lovely out when the sun is shining. Vicious wind chill though. Most of the shower activity round here is happening to the north of Bennachie (second photo shows view looking north towards it).

Temperature may be -1.6C but the snow is rapidly melting off the roofs round here exposed to the sun - right, time to get sledging!

It looks springlike in the west on some of the traffic cameras - mind you, the temperature is another thing!

A96 is starting to look a tad dodgy for driving on....

Some impressive snow photos on Fubar News just now - https://www.facebook.com/FubarNews Driving north of Inverurie is a no-no by the looks of things.

"Daddy, a beanbag has burst in the garden - look at all those beads" - weather digest from a six year old. Snow total up to 2 inches now, the most recent showers being mainly snow pellets - readily blowing around in the wind. Temperature overnight was down to -6C and now hovering around -2C. Roads here are clear - local farmer was out at 03:15 this morning clearing the road past our house, dedication for you. Thought there would be more than 2" of snow by now to be honest going by the radar images last night up to now - looks like a significant streamer hitting the area just to the north of Inverurie, the sky is black and ominious in that area.

Not sure if you are allowed to post here screenshots from other weather sites. Anyway, have a look at the precipitation radar for the North Sea at this link... https://en.sat24.com/en/gb/rainTMC That is one huge "streamer" of snow currently forming in the North Sea between Denmark and SW Norway - should produce some impressive snow totals when that hits the east coast.

Had to save a screenshot for posterity, definitely the best forecast here for snow since 2010. Note the significant difference between the Met and BBC forecast temperatures - BBC version already wrong as its just past -4C now. Really not impressed by the new BBC weather provider, overall accuracy seems to be significantly worse than the Met Office.

Snow stopped, skies have cleared leading to an impressive drop in temperature from -2.5C to -3.9C in just 15mins.

-2.5C and snowing off and on for last hour adding another 1.5cm - light fluffy snow at that so there will be plenty drifting if the wind picks up. Some lovely night sky views just now with the bright moon shining through the falling snow - just need the aurora to make an appearance to round things off! No school closures announced in Aberdeenshire so far but doubt that will be the case by the morning.