scottishandy

Warning. Gratuitous snowy scenes, with sunshine, in Scotland coming up. If you're adverse to such things please look away now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRlKV49pK84

Meanwhile still having problems with far too much snow in Glencoe. This is the Main Basin uptrack which they cannot get open cause it's keeps drifting in!

BUS, you'd be as well heading to Glenshee, loads of snow and sledging areas by the road. West is best for silly snow depths and buried buildings but for snow play Shee will have plenty. Free to park.

First Met Office snow day of the season and kids fairly excited although I think the 2cm of fluff may be a let down when they get in it - better than nothing though.

Good for the economy if nothing else!

Well today I have mostly seen lying snow by the road, falling snow with no wind on the hill, ridiculous depths of snow, powder, hardpack, sastrugi, crusty snow mushrooms, sun, rain, sleat and falling snow at road level. Well worth the effort.

Was quite up for Glenshee tomorrow but they really need to get some lifts dug out! Weekend looking vaguely possible if we can get close enough to the low centre.

Models no good so back to Glencoe and they've now lost their Ski Patrol hut completely! This is the normal view at that point. Might produce jealousy but still makes me smile, off to check it out in person tomorrow.

Oh yeah and even saw brief evidence of sun. Photo from car by 8 year old son.

Oh the irony of it all. Woke up to a smidge of icy stuff on the car so went to Glencoe where it was snowing. The staff are actually wishing it would stop snowing cause they have too much and are spending inordinate amounts of time digging the lifts out! Meanwhile we can't enjoy it cause the weather is constantly pish! Anyway lots of snow up there and snowed hard all day so lapped the car park run which is alway s a good giggle! To cold/stormy/whiteouty to be on the hill proper. At least I didn't go to Glenshee and and be forced to drive home via Aberdeen! And back home it's 4C and raining, AGAIN.

Done it - 0C on car thermometer and heavy blowing snow. Had to go to 300m to get it but probably worth it! 1.7C and steady wet snow here.

And our mountains - this is the ski patrol hut at about 800m in Glencoe this morning. It has been a very frustrating winter for us at around sea level, I have only seen a dusting twice this winter. This despite the models showing cold outlooks regularly. What has been interesting for me is that there often seemed to be consensus on a cold outlook at T144/168 only for it to implode after a day or so. I guess that this is just because the blocks have never been strong enough and the route to cold has always been high risk. Oh and that enthusiastic Vortex to our NW. Interestingly though unlike a few notorious winters we had a while ago the Ski centres have done well in terms of snow cover but perhaps not so well in terms of income due to days lost to storminess. There is a serious risk that if the current modelled pattern comes off some of the lifts will be unusable due to being buried! So if you need a snow fix come visit us up here and take a ride up Glencoe chairlift or Nevis Gondola.

Just to follow up on yesterday's pics - how have we all (well most of us) dreamed of finding our house like this? Had to put a smile on my face after going on a brief snow hunt this morning and being very frustrated as to how high the snow line is.

Meanwhile in the hills - Friday - And same building today -

I assume your 312m point is Glen Ogle Check Traffic Scotland webcam - tried to paste image but it wouldn't let me! A good shout and nice wee carpark on the right at the top of the hill. Another good shout closer to home is Sherrifmuir - road can get interesting but goes pretty high, better to climb from Dunblane centre than Bridge of Allan if surface is snowy. Head up to Sherrifmuir Inn then left and up to a wee copse of trees on Right. If you walk East from there 200m you get to a wee stream gully which catches some good drifts. Also an option for your route home if you haven't found any snow by then, climb from Blackford or Greenloaning.

Or maybe it'll "return to mild" eh LSS - consider yourself chastised!

Got to go up to escape the fog! On the winter question, worst for a while. Only had 2 dustings here but.... up at Glencoe there is more snow on the hill than I have ever seen, they did very well out of the late December storms!

Is that a retrogressing high with some "energy" heading under to the SE?

Snow here at last! And more to come judging by the radar. And a day off tomorrow to play in it. And darling wife had offered to go do Christmas food shop before breakfast tomorrow, hero.

Not quite a Steve Murr sausage but a spectacular sausage none the less! Lets hope it delivers.

Are you sponsoring Google today BMW?

No school and no power this morning, joy. Now snowing, deep joy.

So as we wait for the firstish batch of winter for this year I can't help dream back to 36 months ago. Left work early on the Sunday and took 2 hours to get up the road and 1/2 hour to dig out a parking space. Then did some more digging! Fed the hungry ducks. Played with the cat Then it snowed, and snowed, Our parking area became passable to small vehicles only But not this small vehicle. So we had to dig it out. And dig the Mini out too. Then the sun came out for a while. And did a wee tiny bit of melting which soon froze again. So we found some fun things to do with ice. And snow And both. One of my funniest memories was one day in mid December where I decided to head North to take advantage of snow on the mountains, a nice snowy front was passing though N to S so I drove up through some heavyish snow to Perth and the the sun came out. Imagine my surprise then when I phoned home at lunchtime to find that the central belt had shut down. Wife was a bit less impressed with the day than I was! A fantastic winter with about 60 days of continuous lying snow, and the joy of watching it approach from FI on all the models! Here's to another one.

A classic example of how the shortwave changes things and in the majority of cases leads to downgrades. The long wave pattern is about right, looking at the height ridges and troughs, however with smallish low the flow to the UK now comes from mid Norway as opposed to somewhere deep in the Arctic. Sadly models cannot accuately predict SW's that far in advance hence why dream charts if FI are rarely as extreme as T0 approaches!

And an air frost last night, nice way to see April out.