TillyS

Good morning. All 3 models now have a Scandinavian High signal at around the D7 point. Unfortunately that still isn’t reliable timeframe but it’s an interesting development. And for me personally it would be a big bonus as I’m off to Norway on Thursday for 11 nights in search of snow and northern lights. Curiously this still isn’t yet really leading to UK cold. Here’s an example:

Vanished entirely on the 0z. Even by GFS standards, it is very inconsistent at present.

I’m off to Norway next week and I’m starting to get excited about this: The signal for a Scandinavian High has been popping up on various GFS runs, although not consistently, but now it is an ECM signal too. Needless to say, I’d be thrilled because whilst I should see some spectacular snow on the ground, a Scandi High would increase the possibilities for seeing the northern lights. In terms of the effects on UK weather, there’s very little cold air wrapped around its eastern and southern flank but that might change:

I’m off to Norway next week in search of proper snow, though I have to confess I’d really like a Scandi high to build so I’ve a chance of seeing the northern lights. Not much sign of it in the outputs but they’ve had a cold winter in Scandinavia so there should be plenty of snow around. This upcoming cooler spell is a reminder that Spring is not here yet and it may pep things up for the Scottish ski industry. It was pretty sad this past week seeing the briefly white mountains return to drab brown. Still beautiful, but I love the snow-scenes best.

Oh wow. Okay. Thanks so much for letting me know. My bad.

jon_d1983 and everyone, It was quite depressing to come over the West Highland line on Sunday and see the dilapidated old snow fences on Rannoch Moor, no longer presumably required. Heck, there’s even a "snow tunnel" on the line like you see on some of the Alpine passes: A bit of a far cry from this event:

I was surprised on Saturday to see lingering snow on the peaks west of Fort Augustus: more than the east. A terrible year though. Maybe March & Easter will pep things up for the ski industry?

Not a lot of change in the models at the moment, except that the Iberian high which has plagued UK cold lovers all winter, is further west back into its resident Azores location. This ‘should’ allow for a more westerly to north-westerly flow over the UK with occasional northerlies. This indeed is now showing in the latter stages of both the current GFS and ECM outputs. Which coincides with March. Technically, not winter but can still be a cold month and it could pep up life for the Scottish ski industry in the run up to Easter.

Over the past 24 hours there’s been a general air of resignation on here from seasoned posters. It’s not hard to see why with only 2 weeks left of winter and a batch of dire overnight outputs. I took matters into my own hands and chased snow up the Cairngorms this week, and it was absolutely stunning yesterday (see the Scotland Alba thread), but that doesn’t mask what a dire ‘winter' it has been even for the Scottish ski industry. I may go to Norway at the end of this month to see the real deal whilst it still exists. Your final question is a good one and no joke. Just look at the chronic situation in the Alps at times. 10C in Chamonix at 10 am in mid-February.

“dreich” ? Love that word. I’ve been very lucky so far with two lovely days. Tomoz looks like we’ll be catching your weather further north here. I never knew Inverness was so lovely. I love this country. Wish I had a lot more Scottish blood in me than I do (c.40-50%).

p.s. that final photo is actually of the range north of Inverness at dawn this morning. Ben Wyvis I think?

Had a wonderful time up in the Cairngorms today. A lot of this is going to be washed away over the next week

North-Easterly Blast Thank you. Wow. Under threat, possibly, but a long way to go this month and it doesn’t take much of a synoptic switch at this time of year to hammer down the temperatures, as we saw last month.

Just came over the Drumochter Pass to Inverness on the Caledonian Sleeper. Beautiful snow scenes. Lovely to be back in bonnie Scotland.

Can someone remind me what is the record February CET? And is that under threat?

So the GEFS ensembles certainly have the operational on the milder side. But notice that the mean at no point drops below the -5C 850hPa which is usually the magic line for snow, especially in a marginal boundary set up. Not even in Northamptonshire:

Well, the 18z had the same and it was by no means an outlier. I am wary of disregarding, or worse dismissing, the GFS. The direction of travel with the ECM is also not trending right. It has backed right away from an easterly: second time in a month that it has done this. The problem remains that there is no northerly blocking and persisting high pressure over Iberia. There’s not much to hold back the Atlantic from pushing through, which is effectively how the ECM is now modelling it days 8-10 with the high gradually transiting west to east. I suspect a cold spell of a few days with transient boundary-edge snow for the Midlands northwards, turning to rain for all except the higher ground. The south will be predominantly milder. And I’ll leave it there. Heading to the Scottish mountains end of the week so hope I see some snow.

A dangerous approach to model output analysis that one. Best not to dismiss one of the big three models, especially the best performing of the three, just because it doesn’t serve up what we want to see. Generally this is the time to be cautious and to ask ourselves, ‘now how might this not go to plan?’ Or, more scientifically, ‘how might the biggest teleconnection of all namely AGW, mess up what looks like a good synoptic setup?’ Marginal boundary snow over high ground is already complicated, and for it to produce much meaningful at lower levels we would need the cold to dig in hard ahead of it, as per recent UKMO’s (but are they starting to wobble?).

Unfortunately it’s transient, moving west to east with the Iberian High pressure still evident, and leaving the UK increasingly susceptible to milder air on its western side: Day 8: Day 9: Day 10: A big downgrade from yesterday’s ECM runs. The model has not covered itself in glory these past few weeks. As for the mid-week front, still considerable uncertainty. ECM only has snow for a time in the north. A lot depends on how far the cold will dig in ahead of the warm front. Until now the UKMO has had it the cold pushing right down across the whole country, but the GFS isn’t keen on this scenario and I notice the latest Meteo Group / BBC forecast are backtracking somewhat.

GFS 18z and now 0z = poor, relatively speaking. Some boundary edge snow quickly turning to rain in the south. The north could fare better for a time and the GFS does have a habit of being too progressive so if the front stalls northern high ground especially may be favoured. The overall GFS synoptics are poor now. No Atlantic block and the Iberian High persisting. Worth bearing in mind though that there were colder ensemble members on the 18z. UKMO is initially colder with the -5C 850 hPA reaching beyond the south coast, which it doesn’t on GFS but the end of the run is also poor with the Atlantic returning on a southerly feed for UK. This is not a cold winter setup: Recently the ECM has been serving the tastiest dishes but the last time it did this a fortnight ago, it was completely wrong.

Hi everyone, Busy on the move at the moment and over the next month, including a week in the Scottish Cairngorms (hope I see some snow!) but wanted quickly to comment. The 6z GFS is in full-on ramp synoptic mode but it’s an odd odd run. It looks great but doesn’t deliver particularly cold uppers. The set-up ought to produce better results on the ground. The UKMO isn’t really buying into much of this and, after the last debacle with its non-existent easterly, I don’t have full confidence now in the ECM. The trouble is, this is all still in thoroughly unreliable timeframe. Usually that means it will go pear-shaped. The week ahead looks to be a tussle with temps non-conducive for snow in southern Britain (sorry GFS). But high ground to the north should be favoured. We need to wait and be patient for next weekend onwards. That’s a long time off meteorologically and it would be sensible to exercise considerable caution. I’m not convinced the Atlantic is ready to lie down yet. Nor is the Iberian High off the menu. “Probability" and "14th February”, which is 10 days away, are mutually incompatible. There’s a possibility but not more. Feet on the ground folks. Let’s learn lessons from the recent past.

It's okay. Nothing amazing at the moment. We should remember that until now the Atlantic has been resurgent with an incredibly powerful storm just passing to the north of the UK. More powerful than the October 1987 one. There is still next-to-no northerly blocking and every time we think the Iberian High is on the way out it seems to bounce back. So let’s keep this tempered. Remember: nearly all cold spells showing at T240+ seem to downgrade these days nearer the time. And this one is by no means stellar.

If we didn’t ramp up expectations like this there wouldn’t be so much intense disappointment.

Morning all. A little bit of interest middle of next week with some cold zonality / bit of a northerly. A bit of snow possible mainly in the north. I’m taking the sleeper up to the Scottish Highlands in 10 days so will hopefully wake up to a beautiful white scene over the Cairngorms. Forget talk of "pattern changes" for now. It isn’t. But it should be a bit more wintry than this remarkable mild spell. In the meantime the maximum date record is under threat today. 16.1C to beat. Could you be 15C+ up in the Moray Firth area.

@Daniel* That is not a strong signal for Euro heights to dissipate. In fact, it’s still sticking around at the end of your sequence: From run to run the high may sometimes displace or weaken but the persistence of this Iberian high is something we cannot dismiss with mere wishful thinking. We need to see consistent runs, output after output, across all 3 main models for us to claim there is a signal, let alone a strong one.