LomondSnowstorm

Meanwhile, in Scotland: http://news.stv.tv/highlands-islands/218903-glenshee-and-other-ski-resorts-are-gearing-up-for-a-bumper-easter-period/ Not all doom and gloom

Makes sense, tapering off a bit Wednesday later on but then Thursday evening into Friday and Saturday it might perk up a bit more again. I haven't watched a tv forecast in weeks due to my lack of a telly

NMM and NAE have been hinting at tomorrow evening as having potential for heavier snow showers affecting the usual locations tracking inland about as far as Harthill, potentially as far as Glasgow in easterly winds. Overall convection gradually building to tomorrow evening/ Wednesday morning.

I'm going for a bit of a wildcard option and saying, never... My real guess is 6th April, 8am, Tiree

That's the kind of snow my grandad talks about seeing on his journeys up and down the A9 when he was working in Nigg in the 60s-70s. December 2010 probably had similar depths but nothing like those drifts.

I think my signature says it all about how Scots do in the heat (if the quote's still there)...

Ah, but you know how tenuous those mild synoptics are - anything that can go wrong for the mild air will go wrong, appears to be the rule this spring

I was just thinking that, with the low sunspot activity and the NH blocking pattern in its current state, a major volcanic eruption would be utterly devastating to society and agriculture in particular in the temperate latitudes. At the moment it's not awful because we still have most of the growing season left for temperatures to recover to average (mid April switch around to warmth is forecast at the moment) but after the string of wet summers and the cold late winter any particularly below average spells temperature and sunshine wise will be felt far more acutely than would otherwise be the case.

Certainly everywhere north+northwest of Argyll and Bute/Perthshire/Aviemore has seen a distinct lack of snow due to the predominant easterly rather than northerly winds. I'd imagine it was the same in 1947 and in 1963 when the easterly tendency was particularly strong, though in '47 less so because of the massive breakdown snowfalls that occured in the first half of March. It hasn't been, as it was in 2009/10, 1995/96, 2000/01, March 2006 or January 1984, a Scottish-centred winter, and certainly not a classic Highland winter because of the lack of northerlies, with the mean troughing sitting too far south with the core of the heights too far east for much of a northerly influence. However, the Cairngorms still tend to do pretty well out of either setup, and the last time I looked Cairngorm was sitting at around 1.5m on its upper slopes, which is impressive for the end of March. A more zonal winter in fact would probably favour the Highlands more in relative terms because with high precipitation and any cold uppers arriving from the northwest or north any snow would have to affect the Highlands. Anyone seeing the benefit of increased convection in the last few hours? Looks like it may soon be intense enough for snow to start settling again in Dundee and Fife , given the low DPs.

Cheers for those, the 'target' for Scotland is a mean for the month below 1C, which would bring this to the 2nd coldest March on record here, and the ECM certainly (given that we're sitting around 1-1.5C for the first 20 days of the month) looks likely to deliver that. The second target would be the coldest March on record here, namely March 1947, but for that we'd need a mean of around -2C for the next few days. It's unlikely but not impossible, given HP moving into the north of Scotland clearing skies here and leading to some potentially very low minima, particularly in the western Highlands and down to the unusually snowy realms of Kintyre and the Inner Hebrides. Amazing to think that Arran, an island in the Clyde where snow to low levels isn't even all that common and certainly no more so than in the central belt, has had no mains electricity for 48 hours due to blizzards which took place after the equinox.

GFS is now consistently behind the GEM for all ranges and is very close to being overtaken by the JMA. Very much backs up the MO's low regard for the model and perhaps the only reason it looks good is in the very short range where its main 'free' rival is the equally woeful NAE.

It's because the flow is still south of east and heights are relatively high. In spite of the general slackening of the flow heights are set to lower and the wind move round to a more due east or ENE at times which will encourage snow showers to become more intense through tomorrow and Tuesday in particular: Fortunately no sign of an easing up for the coldest uppers for a few days yet: Capping on Tuesday/Wednesday reflects this, getting above 800hpa for the first time since Thursday: Shear limited too, so streamers liable to develop too.

Incredible, there was more snow in July last year than in March: http://tms.nickbramhall.com/blog/2012/07/derry-cairngorm/

Just to show how exceptionally cold it is this is a photo not from Hudson Bay but from Barvas on Lewis on the Atlantic coast:

Just back from a night out playing with the piping society at the society oscars. Wind chill in Edinburgh is around -100000C, reaching -200000000C with gusts. Crazy stuff, no fun trying to play in it or to walk back after a few drinks for that matter. Still no sign of anything warm, or mild, or cool, just cold, always cold: Nothing not cold up to +240 on the pub run: More snow chances, more cold, more utterly freezing walks back home in Edinburgh, more high food prices and more angry farmers unfortunately. NL is going to have a tough year unless this turns around and it is getting beyond a joke now really, especially if it refuses to snow.

Almost no chance now of a breakdown before the end of the month.

I like a bit of haar, though months dominated by it are a bit frustrating.There is a kind of perverse enjoyment in sitting there with 8C maxima in the middle of summer while everywhere else is in the 20s, seems very northeast Calvinist somehow Still can't get my head around the MO warning system, no red warnings were issued in spite of well forecast 30-40cm totals for some parts (admittedly not the southeast though).

It is an improving picture though, especially with regards to shear, minimal shear by Monday/Tuesday:

Ouch, it does very grim, especially after all the rain last year. I was rooting for cold for the record this month but to be honest my hope was always that the start of April would see a quick shift around to warm sunshine, because it is allegedly spring after all. It's not all doom and gloom though, the latest CFS has above average temperatures and below average rainfall signalled for April as a whole so there could easily be a sudden switch around finally usher in springlike weather: I would suggest also that the signs are that the current blocking pattern is likely to persist for the rest of spring and into summer, and because cold sourced easterlies will run out eventually once they flip we could end up with the rarity of a warm dry summer for the north of Scotland with a much better summer up here than in England: Temperatures probably around to above average, with some really decent spell and some cooler spells mixed in from the north, but this pattern does seem to persist on a lot of long range outputs right through the summer, so barring the inevitable haar the outlook for summer at least is a more positive one that the short-medium range forecast. edit: I see the latest run looks nothing like the last and is in fact still cold and wet, and cold and wet through into the summer

Just to illustrate a point I made a few days ago, this is where the 528 line was sitting for the Great Blizzard (not here, we've had the treat of 36 hours of Stratocumulus with none of the snow) of March 2013: All you need are sub 0C upper air temperatures for it to fall as snow:

I don't want to compound your misery, but I still can't see an end to this: No runs above 10C, a scarcity of runs above 5C in the shorter term, The maximum mean only rises to 5C by the 3rd April and doesn't get above 6-7C right out to the end. The op is especially bleak, temperatures no higher than 3-4C, ever. I do wonder what these synoptics would've done two-three months earlier because I'm almost certain this would've beaten December 2010 and February 1947 out of the park.

Trust us to get the sleety marginal frontal snowfall and stay dry when the real deal comes in eh? Even my aunt in Birmingham has a good 4-5 inches. The issue is the southeasterly winds I think as these tend to drag in very dry but stable air from the continent which creates the medium level cloud and therefore prohibits convection above that. The lake effect stuff is there, but if the dry lid isn't much higher than 850 hpa then you're not going to get anything of note. My view is that, in spite of the lack of a great amount of wind, this chart represents one of the best chances of a decent snowfall for Edinburgh, with -10C uppers and the wind slightly north of east: We remain in the cold air so perhaps the next breakdown attempt will get a little closer to us or come in at a more favourable angle than one which blows all the snow back out to the Atlantic. And there's always the chance of this happening: Also, looking very likely that we will not see a warm up before the end of the month, absolutely solid model support for uppers sub -8C up to the 29th and the mean only gets to -5C by the first of April (colder further north too) and, rather worryingly, barely rises above it right out to the 9th of April: PS That XC forecast with the 3 flakes that I said would give 40cm in 24 hours was not exaggerating. It just had it a few hundred miles too far north

No problem, nothing better than a bit of temperature data analysis after an evening out watching Scotland losing again. Genuinely

When compared to the entirety of a winter it would rank 4th at highest (that's if it's below 1.3C but above 1C) behind 1977 (1.02C so likely to beat it), 1979 (0.45C so would take quite a lot but not impossible to beat it), 2010 (0.39C) and 1963 (0.16C). When compared to individual months, there are only 8 Januaries that could beat it, 63, 79, 77(1C), 2010, 84, 85, 87(0.6C) and possibly '78 (1.1C), and potentially as few as five. There are 10 potential February winners or as few as 6 if it gets below 0.6C and there are 5 potential winners in December, though three if we break 0.5C of 1995 and 2009. All told in the 23 potential colder months 4 were from 2009/10 or 2010/11 and of the thirteen coldest winter months on record that look very very likely to be lower 3 were from 2010, which is more than in any other year in the series. It should be restated that December 2010 was the coldest December in the series by 1.1C and potentially the coldest since the act of union and the second coldest month of the series. So aye, pretty chilly. further edit: CET values, which are likely to be a fair bit higher than Scottish mean values, are predicted to come in at around 1C for the rest of the month including the moderation at the end. That would likely ensure a sub 1C month here by my reckoning and give us a shot at something lower.

No, absolutely agree with you there, just that radar's been driving me up the wall all day with its false echoes, always thinking 'maybe this time it's real', like some cruel cosmic joke NMM and NAE both give good shower potential with -12C, uppers, medium level cloud will be gone entirely by Sunday morning and we could be in for some cracking convection, even late into next week: Most importantly the speculative 'record cold March' project that we embarked on about 20 days ago when the first crazy cold charts started appearing is going to come very close, and with temperatures no higher than 3-4C anywhere this week and minima inland potentially well below that it's going to give March '47 a run for its money. Given it was 0.8C lower than any other March that's a hell of a feat. By my reckoning we need the final 11 days to come in under 1C to get second coldest, which looks quite likely at the moment, but to beat '47 we need something along the lines of -1C for the final eleven days which is quite an ask given it is, you know, the end of March. Still, it must've been around that for the 10th-20th to get down to what it currently is from around average so it's not impossible, but it would require a maxing out of cold minima and some daytime snowfall in the lowlands to suppress maxima.