skifreak

Dry, still, 14c and 95% humidity in Inverness... feels like something ought to happen, but the radar shows the heavy rain way East and not a flash in the last hour in Scotland. Radar returns look interesting North of Newcastle, anyone seen anything that suggests the detectors are missing activity over Scotland and Northern England?

From the perspective of snow on the Scottish Mountains and thus snowsports seasons here, there does seem to be a tendency for strong El Nino's to push things to one extreme or the other. Some of the best seasons and absolute worst have coincided with strong El Ninos. Mild and wet winters for the vast majority of the population (including low levels in the North of Scotland) doesn't always mean poor snow years in the hills, DJFM period in 2014 was milder than some really poor seasons in terms of North of Scotland mean temperature, but the snow fall on the mountains was exceptionally heavy particularly on the West Coast. Big difference in 2014 was snow fall level was almost constantly just below 2000ft with not many days of lying snow at 1000ft or lower, while this year it was possible to ski to 1000ft at Glencoe for many weeks of the season, which is very unusual given it's West Coast location. Of course I'm looking for different things from many on here, I'd happily trade my low level snow for a repeat of 2014 in the mountains, with fewer weekend gales.

Managed to work on the laptop outside this afternoon, that's been a rare event this 'summer'!

Aye, if it was 30c for 6 months and 30f for the other 6 I could live with that!

Not been looking in great detail but have been keeping a daily eye on the Aberdeen GFS ensembles and the continual trend for below average 850hpa temps is notable. There could be a few more days cool enough for summit snow in Highland Scotland this month.

Rain drops splatting on the parasol I'm sitting under... but that looks like that's all the action there's going to be in the near future! Think I'll go to bed, probably sleep through anything interesting now! lol! [edit] There's a slight inversion taking shape on CairnGorm, it's 1ºc warmer at 2500ft than it is at Loch Morlich and the humidity is 15% lower at 2500ft as well. 19ºc at 2500ft and 18ºc at Loch Morlich at 1050ish ft.

Chilling outside with laptop and a beer, currently 23ºc according to thermometer i've sat on the table ! flat calm in centre of Inverness, is it worth staying up a bit I wonder, shower cells moving North - will anything reach?

We've just hit a 48hour peak in temperature at the summit of Meall a' Bhuiridh, it's 14c at 3600ft at the top of Glencoe Ski Area and its now 16c at Munro Level, warmer uppers seem to be spilling in, so if we get any sort of fohn effect off the Cairngorms tomorrow it could be pushing records around Inverness and the Great Glen. [edit] It's 17c at 2500ft on CairnGorm and 21.4c at Loch Morlich!

]I might have to for a lengthy hike from the top of the gondola and batter Summit Gully a bit more with my skis, but def. not in the heat tomorrow - it's been known to let go in huge full depth slides in very wet weather in late spring / summer and hot temperatures could have the same effect if water builds up underneath but isn't draining freely! Main Basin hanging in there at Glencoe, going to have to get up and bag it in July for the first time for me anyway.... thought skiing the Ciste Gully in July 2013 was a freak show and the chances of skiing a complete in bounds ski run in July again was negligible!

Would be kinda cool (pardon the pun) if Altnaharra or Braemar got the Scottish maximum temperature record and one place held both the min and max records!

What did you type to get that out of the swear filter?

Costa del Moray Firth to start July, Southerly or SE winds coming over the Cairngorms and Munro Level temperatures breaching the 20c mark if we get 850hpa temps of 17-18c. The latest gfs could possibly see the all time Scottish temperature record fall somewhere along the Moray Coast on 2-4th July?

The Spring Run's still looking good for the Summer Solstice ski and board on Sunday! Indeed there's still almost 1200ft of continuous vertical descent possible down the Main Basin through the Haggis Trap and down the Wall Run to just short of the Plateau Cafe.

Forecast from the TV screens in the Glencoe cafe - automated GFS feed:

The weathers lovely!

That 2016 Tahoe Local season pass for Kirkwood, Heavenly and Northstar California isn't looking such a mad investment after all!! History is bigger the the Nino, the bigger the dumps on the Sierras and after four years of worsening severe drought, they need a hell of a big winter!

Looking at the radar have we got ourselves a wee polar low? There's a circle of strong convective showers with some lightning activity near Inverness, with a clear 'eye' in the middle of it and a hint of rotation on the Netweather 5minute radar. Looks like CairnGorm Mountain is about to get slammed shortly!

The Etape Loch Ness cycle event on Sunday could be rather interesting for the weather given the crack of dawn start from Inverness it could well be freezing or close to it at all levels with inland and higher parts of the route (gets up to around 1300ft I think) sub-zero with potentially fairly heavy snow in some locations! It does have an air of an even more extreme version of late April and most of May 2012 about it in the models, and that brought day after day of snow to CairnGorm Mountain through late April and the first 3 weeks of May!!

It got blacker and blacker overhead and it's now chucking it down with snow in the centre of Inverness, a dusting on the grass within a minute!

Anyone got a clear patch of sky for eclipse watching?

Unfortunately no power at Glencoe since just after 7pm, so no data from the automatic weather stations. Access Chair drive has been powered up a couple of times to see what speed the chair anemometer was getting (see above). The Ski Centre Cafe has been full all evening with people police had ferried up from overturned vehicles including a holiday coach on Rannoch Moor, they've now been ferried down to Glencoe village and Fort William by taxis and people carriers. A coach was arranged to pick people up but by then the A82 was closed to high sided vehicles, a couple of bashed up cars reached the carpark, one I believe recovered from a ditch having been blown off the A82. Stones were drifting across the Carpark at one point!

Loch Ness is now 4cm above it's highest level on record at the Fort Augustus end, it's a perfect blue sky morning in Inverness but the River Ness is going to continue to rise as that water works its way out of Loch Ness, indeed Loch Ness is still rising.

River Ness shortly after 10.30pm, not much bank left on Ness Bank, the water level is just about at the street level, as the pavement slopes up from the kerb: It's going up about 6-7cm an hour at the Ness-side gauging station and if it keeps this up, then will pass the all time high sometime between 7 and 9am on Sunday morning.

The Netweather extra radar is already showing areas of over 200mm of rainfall in the Ness Catchment in past 24 hours... the Garry and Morriston are within 15cm of all time highs at gauging stations. If the River Ness maintains it's current rising trajectory through the predicted rainfall period then somewhere around 3.10m at the ness-side gauging station mid-day tomorrow looks possible and the River Ness tends to keep rising a good while after the rain stops falling due to the catchment dynamics. The all time high was 3.30 when the Ness Viaduct toppled into the harbour in February 1989.

Gusts over 100mph each of the last few hours at the Summit Run AWS on Aonach Mor (3710ft), peak there has been 112mph, just ahead of the Summit of Meall a' Bhuiridh (3600ft) which has peaked so far at 111mph. Bit to go to match the 143mph in January's back to back nights of big blows that took the roofs clean of 2 buildings and damaged 2 more at Glencoe Ski Area!!