Snooz

Congrats to you both!!! - what a wee monster eh.. so then you can't call him Gail now can you, so what about Bob ..I'll get me coat.. All quiet on this part of the eastern front now too, nite all

Thanks Cheggers.. and Good Luck to both you and Mrs Cheggers for tonight! one last (I promise) twitter share which kind of takes in all the trending tags today: including the replace a song one.. it may have calmed down a wee bit here wind wise, but still blowin' a hoolie - lights have just started flickering quite a lot too and have just been out to help a neighbour save their fence, definitely some snow in that mix now

Hope all is well with labour Cheggers or are you a Dad yet? and great piccie (out of likes for today!) - you don't have a link to the full size one do you.. I'd like to share it on FB too well what a wild day! sorry about shed bigyin - think that's the worst past here too now .. meaning it seems a tad calmer since about 8:30.. now I can hear the rain instead of wind too, now just waiting to see if the snow will get this far Hope all are well, some have gone quiet hope it just power outages or resting? and thanks for all the reports today! "BawBag" hehe caught some of the twitter stuff myself, teehee, it was amazing how it just took off.. a bit like that trampoline .. take care all x

ditto.. wild up here now too and me gotta go out to work

someone asked yesterday how the the wind turbines would cope.. just lifted this off the BBC Live site: so apparently not too well No Way!

everything tied down, stored or whatever.. The wind is my least favourite weather although I work from home my office is upstairs so I think I'd better move PC downstairs.. any more news of what the NE can expect on Friday morning, are we talking the far North NE only or Aberdeenshire area this time too, or will it depend on the eventual track?

you need an excuse? ... OK then just save some of what's down there you may need some for Hogmanay!!

Hi William Houston, Welcome to the Alba thread.. could you pop your location into your profile so we know where you're at when you post? oh and enjoy the madhouse

think they may be refining/updating it, just reading the Storm Thread and it appears it may be intensifying and tracking slightly south meaning SW Scotland/N England in main firing line.. they (our fine storm folks) did say yesterday that the track would be better able to be clarified today nowcast: had a teency icing sugar coating about 1am which is now being washed away by rain

still all quiet here on the North E'rn front, nae rain or sna since Saturday. You all are having fun by the sounds of it though - looks like a nasty storm for thur/fri though so will be following that one, keep the updates a comin'

yoo hoo Happy New Year! have an icing sugar coating on grass from Saturday night, though being to the east this was more than expected ** blinking chilly though! **.. nice to see everyone posting again.. remember Northern Lights, I especially look forward to your updates for staff travel - any idea how Keith/Huntly is faring, it reaching them, I can't seem to get the traffic cams up

Agreed, I too am sceptic.. but I do so want to believe :ph34r: I do think that often conventional reasoning can get in the way of a "Doh" moment, and have found the best way to learn is to listen to everyone without dismissal until proved otherwise. Everyone indeed deserves respect for at least even trying, e.g. even asking questions on public forums is quite hard at times.. but the old adage about the only stupid question being the one never asked is so right, and you'll never find out if you don't ask (or in this case tell/test) In this case (and ones like it) sceptic or not may I throw something out there?... MB has said that he can test the system backwards to infinity (or at least to how far the detailed weather record he can get his hands on go) so might I suggest that his DNA factors are not weather (or climate) related at all.. thus trying to predict forwards is actually much more difficult as he has to "manually" search his database to see if any of his days "match" in frequency, in order to give a strong signal.. kind of like this one (feb'11) he spotted, but nearly missed reporting, back in the summer.. though I'm sure if the method does indeed prove to have some legs behind it a better database than excel could be used anyhow that may be way off .. but in essence I think what I'm trying to say is that the best way is to keep an open mind, rather than try to make it fit with convention, wait to see what happens then if it makes you interested enough to want to know more I'm sure MB will try his best. - the alternative is that if you want to get your naysay 'vote' here just so you can come back later just to say I told you so.. I'm pretty sure you'll earn a place on ignore lists quicker than MB will

Welcome Murcieboy - and very brave of you to put this out there from my also untrained eye this does indeed look to be quite spookily close, and along with your first forecast is certainly interesting I was quite impressed from the start seeing the intensity of the initial LOW, - but my interpretation was that the initial predicted LOW 70N 3E seems to have been spot on for the 17th Dec - Fax Chart 17th , starting the whole pattern a bit earlier, then as AF says above the 25th correlates more to the 26/27th, therefore the pattern seems to have taken a wee while to evolve, bit longer than the 6 days of your prediction - effectively 10 days , but not bad a t all from the time you made the initial forecast. Given what actually happened with that whole pattern, i.e. a Polar Vortex split - I don't imagine there's too much historic data with the same "DNA" .. The details themselves, like North Scotland winds, I presume came from the initial shorter time period as if the pattern where to have evolved quicker (which btw, all models initially suggested too getting us back to milder temps around the 24th/25th) the pressure systems would likely have created closer isobars. However again I'd say the description of the move from SW through S to SE along with the speed was fairly accurate for yesterday the 27th this also did bring the temps up to your initial forecast - The rain from "Edinburgh to Aberdeen" is not too far off either (again for 27th) , From the Borders just south of Edinburgh.. to Aberdeen South from what I can see, although some did get snow/sleet as well as rain in last day or two it never quite reached Aberdeen, though it was borderline drizzle a couple of times in the south of the city I think, therefore I'd say that particular part was pretty darned close too. it's obviously difficult to demonstrate forecasts 100years in advance LOL, and even Nostradamus's predictions need some form of loose interpretation so I think you should maybe go less for complete accuracy and finesse and stick with overall patterns.. perhaps a Xmas 2011 prediction though?? - I think people will always want to pick on the details that are wrong (just read the model thread in here when models are not showing what they want :wub:) but imo the pattern itself was pretty darned close especially given what happened!! Good job and Good Luck in the future

oops, should have been..

Thanks for doing this, you deserve :smiliz19::smiliz19:

FJ, with all due respect.. I'm chuffed you're enjoying your snow but its not a competition & Grantown and surrounding areas still haven't lost their snowfall from the winter yet, I'm sure it's probably deeper that the fresh 2-3ft NorthernLights has reported they've just had.. we still had lying snow, before this event, or our little mountain here (Bennachie) which is most unusual for this time of year

Yes the inland disruption has been pretty much constant all day, have you see th Huntly Traffic cam? it's been like that all day, it was closed earlier becasue of a jack-knifed loory at Pitcaple, but it looks to me like that they couldn't keep it clear anyway - (for those that don't know that's the main A96 Aberdeen to Inverness Road) It finally appears to have let up a bit here (wind calmed down!) about an hour or so ago, we've had lots of branches down today, but were one of the lucky ones who kept our power, some within the same village have lost theirs - the weird depths thing applies here too, son went out to walk dog earlier (yes it's our school holidays) and Dad had to go get him, at one point he jumped over a fence and landed up to his armpits! - so about 3ft deep, whereas in some places no depth at all - and this was just the local round the village walk, not the hills ETA: re the funicular and Grantown, a good friend of ours has moved there and says yes that just keeping things running is not funny any more, and I must dmit I didn't enjoy the snow clearing this morning, nor the fact that kids easter holiday activities are cancelled.. it's time for spring please

was it red yesterday LS? I never even looked as I had a feeling it wouldn't come to anything here either, BUT I was wrong.. it's been a very willd night and it is very sticky thick wet stuff - lots of roads closed, the chaos is much worse than the last lot. Wind gust just recorded here 7:48am 27KT You Fife dome still in place?

Cheggers, they're lovely pics - I too was looking out at a beautiful pink sky over the grampians as I started work this evening. which promted me to look at the charts for the first time in a few days. We still have the same ice packed, still beautifully white, snow cover about 12cm's in untouched places... although temps have reached 5-7 degrees in the middle of the afternoon (-7to -9 at night time) there has been no thaw.. think Lomond said that was because of the relatve humidity being low, which I notice has fallen to about 45-50% at the peak temperature time the last couple of days.. anyway I *think* I just heard a bit of snow fall off the roof! so NorthernLights your "forecast" could be correct, i.e. the lower plunges appear to have heralded the warmer temps? it's now +3c with a DP +0.6c (RH 85%) so it seems things are a changing! and I see the charts are heralding some rain It seems like months that it hasn't been anything other than white outside (well it technically has) we've had constant snowcover since December 17th, albeit 1 day was very minimal! and I'm a-ready for some spring now please :lol: - If I could take pics, then they would look pretty much like Catch's some little used roads are still completely white as th fine cover has remained frozen since last week, and some places are really deep but rock solid!

Mixture of Rain/Sleet overnight which has continued sporadically all day, leaving no more in the way of accumulation but no great thaw/melt either. Temps have fallen now along with DP too just since 4pm now 1.8/0.6 and it's now mre snow again but it's of the horizontal kind (it's windy too), very fine stuff but complete whiteout while looking out,if you know what I mean.. doubt it will leave any accumulation either we're now back to the wrong side of the east coast margin methinks, anyway I hope there's not much more before it cools down as we have no grit/salt left here and I've just cleared the last of the slush/sleet from the drive and road in case of it freezing like last week. PS.. car is home for the first time in 3 days too

Loads of Snow hasn't stopped all night, schools all closed around here too. DH made it to work due to leaving the car parked beside main road yesterday, but did have to spend a half hour digging his and another car out, treacherous road and he is the only one who's made it into work so far! He says the East/West marginality snowline is the Tyrebagger/Airport as usual, and it's raining in Aberdeen. Can't quite believe the difference - in a situation like this, the definite marginal line where it is we would usually have a lot less than we have here too - with the likes of Huntly/Alford getting the lion's share, but it's not quite the case this time. It is much wetter snow today with temp of +1.3 and DP +1 at the minute so maybe it will become more "normal" like that later. just checked the NAE charts and it looks to be givving a heavy burst around lunchtime again, for here and the central region with a later heavy burst confined a bit more Northwards, Highland Area into the afternoon & overnight again before starting to move south giving the central and southern & Borders (& Northern England - seeing as I see we have some new residents lol!) another shottie on Saturday.. Not sure of the depth here either as the wet snow has obviously compacted the stuff that was lying, trees are hanging very heavy and low, and the wind had caused uneven depths before that.. however I'll go measure the bit I cleared last night as that added to the 8 inches I measured yesterday evening will give an idea..

nah... 50! though on the higher points possibly 50-100..I have a handy colour picker utility for work and it's all the shades.. though it looks pretty darned impressive and scary! when you're talking that much what's 20cm here or there! OMG just noticed that's for Friday, thought it waseant to be calmer?

am not far from Sauchen myself, though I think it's more like 18 miles west of Aberdeen not 8?.. anyway it just hasn't let up all day, and yes it's windy and horizontal, last I looked at the Huntly cam, I couldn't see the road .. though now the cameras have gone off! As predicted the journey home for some was just not happening Aberdeen to Alford, normally a 35 min journey took over 2 hours. I've cleared the road about 4 times today and it was still not possible for DH to get the car home! Later went out for a walk to enjoy (hopefully the last of) the winter and got completely soaked and had to wear my wellies - I'm normally a boot person rather than wellies, but it was needs must, it must be coming on for 8-10 inches ad that's not even in the deeper drifting bits. DP are now more marginal than they've been all day at around 0-0.5 but it's very orange still and you can't even tell we cleared the road and drive :o SS, it's been great up here this year, re house hunting, we got new neighbours (well 600 yards up the road) just the week before all this started, they were asking us what we "normally do" about keeping the roads clear in winter.. we said we all just do a bit a time.. 2 months later they're very fed up and we're saying that it's not always like this!! Am not surprised the road's closed at Huntly it was borderline around 6pm, one of our employees has also got stranded in Braemar (lucky though as he was working in a hotel at the time so accommodation was not a problem) - and I see about 40 odd schools in Abdnshire have beeen closed already, won't be surprised if there's another council wide closure tomorrow PS: every muscle is aching again, from all that exercise, least I don't need to fork out for Aerobics :o

Prolonged snow been falling here all day, lightly at first (although DH cleared an inch or 2 before he went to work @ 6:30am). Then quite steady since about 12pm, have tried to keep the road clear but it's impossible today, very persistent stuff, probably about another 4 inches atop the 2 we had earlier (atop the 2" or so that was still lying) - and theres no sign of a let up, seems to have stalled right over the top of us too. Think people are going to find the drive home tonight quite hard as I just phoned Aberdeen and they are unaware of it's intensity, horrible stuff for driving in too as roads cannot stay clear! Think this is what you can see NL, if it gets the length of you and overnight at that, it could be that 50cm they've been reporting ready to fall on the Highlands, as I see their traffic cams are still relatively clear - check the Foundland - Huntly one!