Norrance

Sky cleared a little. Windy with the odd spit and spot blowing through. Feeling much colder than the 9.0C my w/s is showing. The smaller clouds have good colour too but doesn't show in the photos.

Visible here too but quite a bit of lower cloud blowing through so not as clear as recently.

3.9C and78mms please.

The temperature has risen from 4C a couple of hours ago to 9.5C now. I take it that the warmer air has arrived. Still damp tho.

2015. temps that Winter were +1C above average but with no really warm spells so snow built up at height. Average temps the following year were exactly the same but it was very poor on the mountains and ski resorts because of the larger temperature swings leading to big thaws at times. Here today the worst of both worlds with cold rain at 3C

There was some snow showers from theWest/ NW on PM air in Jan 18 at times but not what could be described as a widespread lowlands snowfall from memory. Here in the East we had a few showers made it through but nothing really noteworthy unlike the beast a month later. Some decent falls furtherWest and in the Highlands though and even some in the Central belt too.

Cold rain here too at 3.5C. Snowing on the road at Glenshee but for how long?

Mid Jan starting to look quite promising. Long time since a cold spell just then. Probs 2013 I think. Today pretty nondescript. Partly cloudy and not too hot or cold . Wind dying down and afternoon temp of 7C. No nacreous cloud but a nice sunset nonetheless.

They need very cold air very high up in the stratosphere and the clouds have very small ice particles. I have read that under-78C is needed so most associated with the far North in Winter. Some say they precede a cold snap but I not sure if there is any association with an SSW. Also known as mother of pearl clouds and sometimes rainbow clouds.

If those are the similar to nacreous clouds they have been visible both yesterday afternoon and today in Dundee.

Another photo slightly later. Second pic. The cloud to our NE had gone as the sun s went down but the second to the SW is still there. Thet photo just does not get the blues and greens very well.

Haven't seen nacreous cloud for about fifteen years and now two days in a row! Not quite as clear as yesterday and partly obscured by wisps of lower cloud but still great to see.

I am another that has been around for some time but cannot recall many white Christmases from the sixties through to the eighties even living in the Central Highlands despite the snowier overall winters. Conversely I do recollect a good number of white New Years including several in a row in the late seventies. It must have been coincidence or bad luck that in those years Christmases were green but the weather changed in the following few days. My favourite white Christmas was definitely that of 1995 with a real blizzard (high winds, sub zero and drifting snow) from the evening of Hogmanay lasting until around noon on the first when the sky suddenly cleared, the sun came out and the wind died leading to a week of extreme frosts. Since then I have seen several white Christmases with snow lying including 2004, 2009 and2010 but not many if any with snow falling on the day.

Here they are. She darkened one pic as the green colour didn't show verywell.

Too many one liners and off topic posts recently. Please stick to model discussion and if you want to prove a point back it up with reference to the models. Thanks.

Been mostly cloudy here today with a few breaks and colder than forecast with a max of 5.5C and a min of 1.5C. A touch of grass frost first thing which will be last for some time I think.

Here mostly cloudy but winds still light and temps of 2.3C from a max of 5C. One or two brief showers came in earlier off the North Sea.

Report from MetO of Malaga temp. Provisionally the highest ever on mainland Spain in December

Just back from first Christmas lunch of the season. 3 courses so feet up for the rest of the afternoon. May as well as it is wet and windy and feeling much cooler than the 6.9C on my w/s.

Got caught with that too. Dry when I started but by the time I untangled one lot it was pouring and cold but felt that I had to carry on. Now partly cloudy and dry at 3C.