Wetterfrosch

The forecasts certainly did not exaggerate - my rain gauge collected 36 mm by the time the frontal rain had passed early afternoon, RAF Mona on Anglesey has this evening recorded an 88 mph gust and three hours ago I have been treated to quite a spectacular thunderstorm for the time of year which went on for some time. In Germany the twelve days of Christmas are also known as the Rauhnaechte (lit. rough nights) - well, the last 24 hours would certainly qualify for that title!!!

A day in store to keep the doors locked and the curtains drawn. This suggests 24 hour rainfall totals up to 100 mm over higher parts of Eryri, river levels may rise significantly. Keep safe!!!

Nadolig Llawen i pawb/ Merry Christmas to you all!! May the weather gods look kindly upon us mortals in 2024!

I noticed that here too. Hope you all had a good Solstice day - onward now to Christmas Eve!

Hurray, the rain has stopped, the clouds have lifted and broken up and there is even some sunshine!Better make the most of this short dry interlude today before things go downhill again. What a miserable few days it has been but at least I am assured now that no one has stolen the mountains while i couldn't see them! Another uplifting thought is that according to MetO astronomical data tomorrow's sunset will be at 16.01 opposed to 16.00 today!!!

Uhhh, that brings back memories of spending winter school holidays at my grandmothers in the Erzgebirge (Ore mountains) of eastern Germany. Back then (and I'm talking about 50+ years!) it was a given that snow was lying between the end of October and beginning of April, often topping 100 cm with much higher drifts and the need of digging ourselves out to even leave the house, and that at a much lower altitude than the Alps. On my last visit during Advent 2019 it was such a sad sight to not see a single crumb of snow on their Christmas markets and no chance of showing off my beloved Christmas wonderland to my Welsh wife after so much boasting over the years. Amazingly, this year they have been blessed with snow, currently 57 cm on the Fichtelberg mountain at 1214 m ASL. Seeing the lights on the trees in people's gardens lit up from under the snow is just such a magical sight that I will never forget!!! Lucky you!!!!

Headline: Heavy showers today with thunder in places. Today: A generally cloudy day with frequent heavy showers for many, these possibly thundery at times with some hail, especially in southern and western coastal regions. Mild but quite blustery at times, mainly in the south. Maximum temperature 11 °C. Still quite an underestimate by the MetOffice this morning imho. Never really stopped here at all, with a fair few atrocious downpours out of embedded Cb but looking as if it was easing of over the next hour or two - hope so anyway. My Bresser station says I'm heading for 35 mm since midnight and lots of watery pools now in my drive. According to this forecast found on weatheronline.com, presumably based on GFS (?), I should be in the red zone by now. Bring in the high pressure please and let's all dry out for a little while!!

Luckily for me, it may be windy outdoors but nothing out of the ordinary. Amazingly, westerlies are not too bad for me, despite the closeness to the sea. Where air is forced to rise when coming ashore, even by as little as 300 ft over a couple of miles, it already seems to be slowing down just like a car going uphill. On the other side of the mountain where air drops down again from height it accelerates a lot which has obviously been felt at Capel Curig with a current reading of 81 mph. That's why the BFTE on 1 March 2018 hit our village very hard with roof slates coming off on many houses, including my own. In the meantime, my annual rainfall total crossed the Rubicon yesterday and will now end up a little above my 20 year average. If the jet stream had not been on such a southerly track that would have occurred weeks before. Looking forward now to somewhat drier and settled conditions later next week, however long it may last.

Not a good outlook for the southeast with MetO having issued a yellow warning of rain as of midnight. UK weather warnings WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

Not sure if anyone has posted this before: Europe Winter Forecast 2023-24 : MarkVoganWeather.com WWW.MARKVOGANWEATHER.COM

Oh you lucky people who have either had a glorious frosty morning or even seen some snow. Not really surprisingly I have been condemned once more to cold rain with temps just a tad above for what's needed to make the white stuff. On the other hand, I can see Crib Nantlle now in a thin snow cover, approx. down to 400 m. MetO don't give any hope either, forecasting temperatures to stay at 3 - 4 C with just rain into tomorrow!! Cheesed off!!

Can't compete with that - merely -2.7 C atm but still cold enough for to bring out my fleece lined base layer (as it's now called) which keeps me quite cosy outside. I had my big electric blanket switch on last night, albeit without much fanfare or red ribbons to cut! MetO spot forecast is promising a 50/50 chance of seeing some snow or sleet in the morning - now that would be worth some fanfare if it came off!

Fancy, I found the little tyke today in broad day light in the shed, still tanking up on cat food. Realizing that it may not have yet found a suitable place to hibernate in, I quickly improvised by finding a reasonably sized cardboard box, placed it on it's side on a plank and filled it with torn up stuffing paper from a recent Amazon delivery and even found an old rug to drape over it for insulation. I then lifted the little fellow just inside the box and went my way hoping for the best. Returning a little later i was overjoyed to hear scratching noises from deep inside the box with some of the paper pushed out a little, so hopefully there is some nest making going on in there. Phhhh!!! i have had hedgehops on and off for years but never before had to intervene in their affairs like that to make sure they are safe!

Even here just 3 miles from the sea it got down to -3.3 C and i too got startled by the MetO forecast supposed to be 1 C at 8 am when it was still -2.8 C. I wonder if that may be our winter this year, just as so often we seem to have the driest and sunniest summer weather as early ad April/May with dross following on behind.A decent frost is certainly good for the soil. Absolutely, I have just opened a new 12 kg bag of bird seeds, which at the current rate may not last all too long. For the likes of ground feeders like robin and blackbird I throw a couple of handfuls on some bare soil, along with a couple of slices of cheap white bread cut into small peaces or sometimes a of of oats. Have to watch though as one my cats is a very keen hunter. I was aghast last night to discover a hedgehog in my open shed, whom i assumed to be in hibernation already, feeding on cat food I leave out for the various homeless felines passing through. Hope the little fellow makes it through to spring although he wasn't particularly small.

Yr Wyddfa looked rather splendid this morning, having obviously increased it's snow depth atop and extended snow cover downwards also to about 750 - 800 m asl as Moel Hebog, standing at 782 m asl overlooking Beddgelert, also got a slight dusting overnight. Went to my first carol singing event today at Beddgelert church with another one coming up this Sunday in our village car park. Hope it stays dry!

What a wonderful morning it has been up here, starting with next to no cloud and Yr Wyddfa has indeed revealed a dusting of snow on it's upper reaches. i suspect it's been there for a couple of days already, just shrouded in cloud before. MetO output promises lots of dry and quite sunny conditions for the rest of the week. The only exception might be a few showers which may drift in today from the Irish Sea, otherwise it appears to me the worded forecast may well be for a different country altogether. Outlook for Thursday to Saturday: Showers or longer spells of rain, with the possibility of hill snow mixed with some sunny intervals. Feeling cold with strong winds to start though easing into Saturday. This is totally at odds with their own computer which has Thursday clear, Friday and Saturday clear and changing to partly cloudy by evening for my neck of the woods and even wind gusts go no higher than 17 mph on Thursday and just single figures thereafter. I wonder if that forecast would be different if their office was located on Ynys Mon or in Caernarfon, looking out of the window there. I don't deny I'm living in a far away corner of Wales but Wales it is nevertheless and I would expect to be included in their outlook. In the meantime I enjoy looking (with envy!) at this morning's snow depths in Germany where even my fairly low lying home town near the centre of the country had accumulated 8 cm by 6 UTC with -2 C in temperature and with snow still falling this has increased since then to 10 cm.

At least I have the consolation of hopefully seeing snow on the mountains around me as I too normally go empty handed down here in the valley in a default setting.

Wasn't there even a yellow warning of rain out for the southernmost areas for midnight to 6 pm today? Has obviously been quietly dropped to avoid embarrassment!

All of the above! Yes, it's overcast with 8 octa altocumulus/altostratus but well above even Yr Wyddfa and in the absence of any wind it cannot possibly be called dreary. Not a drop of rain in the last 24 hours either. I could see yesterday the southerly low missing the north altogether and even the south just getting a scraping of the rain. No idea why the MetO with all their advanced equipment so underestimate the effect of such a southerly track and still insist on a forecast like: Headline: Wet and windy today, turning more settled on Friday. Today: A dreary day with rain spreading across the south of the country through the morning, heavy at times. Strong winds easing along southern coasts by the afternoon with the odd shower in the far west. Feeling cool under grey skies. Maximum temperature 9 °C. I'm no fan of their minimalist three liner forecasts, to say the least. I get much more information from the daily NW forecasts, even though they are not specifically for Wales, and particularly like their including of charts and animations which sets me up nicely for the day. Rant over!!!

Yes, and this time I appear to be in the firing line, or at least close to it, with 50 -53 mph expected by the MetO for my area but the highest gusts luckily out to sea between Ynys Mon and Manaw (Anglesey and Man). Being relatively small in size, it will rattle through pretty swiftly so that by this time tomorrow we should already be in somewhat calmer waters again.

Have you considered setting up a business selling Christmas cards? Absolutely brilliant shots!!!

So wonderful to see! The few murmurations that I have had the good fortune to see up here were miniscule by contrast, but nevertheless spell binding. Absolutely love the skeletal silhouette of the trees against the clear sky - in the absence of snow that's winter at it's best!

Experience over the years tells me that the local MetO temperature output tends to be rather conservative, almost always too high on clear winter nights but also markedly undercooked on hot sunny days in summer. The GFS model comes much closer, even though their forecast for Eryri/Snowdonia appears to be based on Capel Curig which from my view is actually on the opposite side of Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon and 100m higher. Despite all the progress the models have made there is still room for improvement it seems!

Glad to hear that there are still large flocks around somewhere. We used to have lots of them some years ago but they have since declined continuously in numbers to the point where by now I am mightily concerned about them and cherish every single one that I spot occasionally. We even had a family living/breeding under a section inside the facia boarding under the edge of our roof with a hole cut for them to get in and out but even they seemed to have moved out again. Weather pretty miserable here today with grey skies and mostly light rain on and off. Looks like a brighter day tomorrow before the arrival of the next more substantial rain band which luckily seems to pass through fairly swiftly. Have a good day all!!

Can hardly believe how lightly I have got away all week with no more than 'normal' wind and rainfall. Barely any rain today past mid morning. Guess the southerly track of the lows reversed my fortunes by keeping the valley in the rain shadow of Yr Wyddfa. Wish all autumn/winter storms were that benign (for everybody btw!). No doubt my turn will come before too long. Meanwhile, the 12Z GFS offers a glimpse of more settled conditions past mid month - a long way off mind, but one can always dream to reach the shores of Fantasy Island of T + 300 plus!