Scottish-Irish Skier

Think it's trying to rain here (Riccarton, W Embra); radar says it is anyway, but wind is just blowing it horizontally so it's not reaching the ground.

Pretty chilly from Fri on on the ECM. I guess the easterly towards the end has folk excited.

Heavy sleet here earlier. More rain at the mo. 2 C. Soutra looks wintry.

Naff all. Sweet FA. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Zip. etc. -1.0 °C and frosty. Still, longer term output looks increasingly promising.

Mrs SS reporting tricky conditions and slow traffic on the A68 Dalkeith bypass towards pathhead after that blob passed through earlier. Sod all here at fort SS. Snow shield running at max power.

Can I take this opportunity to mention the benefits of winter tyres? ---- 0.8 C here. Borders show shield holding firm. Frost has hung around all day so if the shield goes down, ground is ready...

In the longer term, 00Z ensembles for London surface T. Heading down to averages hovering close to zero.

So we're more at this stage?

Borders snow shield using a lot of juice, but I think she'll hold cap'n. EDIT At least for a while by the looks of that amber warning.

Me: 'Let it snow, let it snow...' Mini Miss SS: '<Sighs> No daddy, it's let it go'

Borders snow shield humming away nicely. Frosty. 0.2 °C.

Had some sleet in the last shower that battered through here (Riccarton, W Embra). A68 Soutra getting the good stuff. Could be a nice commute home.

North Sea Borgholm Dolphin Rig (~bang in the middle between Aberdeen and Norway I understand) getting hit by some big waves in the recent storm.

Groundhog day. Blawin a hoolie an pishin doon again. MetO have sleet later, snaw the morn, snaw on wednesday, sleet n snaw thursday, then snaw Friday. Whit's the chances I'll see a few flakes in the next few days? 7.6 °C. Just in time to lose it again then.

Another wee light shower here. Nothing spectacular, but at least the gairden is turning white a bit. 1.7 C air T, but looks like a ground frost /snow hardening up developing due to the clear skies between the showers.

Found an excuse to nip over the hills to Gala. Snaw lying and sticking now. Road surfaces virgin white up the back. Nice. No deep, but a good we test of the winters. On the return, some wide boy with a 'sporty' red Corsa flies past 'slow' me in a hairy overtaking manoeuvre as we ascend out of Gala. Of course further up its snowing. And lying. And wide boy clearly doesn't know the road well. And he's not got winter tyres on so it's getting slippy. Who's slow now sucker - oot ma way. 1.8 C.

Not had a shower pass in a little while. T does seem to be dropping - down from 3-3.5 to 2.0 C now. Might mean what does reach me starts to stick later. Still pretty windy; broke my gate handle off. Managed to MacGyver up a new split ring to get it fixed temporarily. Wind raw on the hands trying to do that. EDIT. Hey hey, just looked oot the windae and a light snaw shower is sticking on the trusty garden bench.

Snaw showers on and off. Some fairly heavy, but only lying higher up the hills for now at least. 2.5 °C.

Can confirm complete wheelie bin knock oot here - all 6 in the hamlet doon like dominos. Thankfully it's regular bin day not (loose) recyclables! Plenty of sticks down on the road. Local High School is apparently shut. Lights have flickered here, but so far so good.

Forth Bridge open again, but to cars only. They've tweeted a graph showing wind speeds on the Bridge: https://twitter.com/forthroadbridge/status/553449288706297856 Looks like gusts over 80 mph earlier, with sustained speeds over 60 mph at times.

Apparently, Bridge is closed due to a van being blown over. They want to wait until the wind dies down before trying to clear it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-30726678 Breezy here to say the least.

Aye, can hear the trees now too. Was a dusting of snaw up soutra the morn. On the way back it was heavy sleet up there - had to slow right down as visibility was really poor and it was chucking down at 2 C. 3.9 C here at fort SS. Cold rain on and off with wind picking up as noted. Nothing really to batten down. We have forest / fairly thick tree stands at safe distances either side of the house running N-S. That's backed up by a 10 ft hawthorn hedge around the garden to the W. We're also on the lee side of the hills in terms of a westerly, so it takes a really powerful breeze to put winter garden furniture at risk. Need at least a bawbag.

Whoa. Blizzard conditions. Peltin doon wi heavy wet snaw. Daein its best tae try and sitck. T down 1.2 to 2.8 C.

Heavy wet snaw shower rattling through here. No gonnae lie as it's 4 C.

Happy new year all. Hope everyone had a good one. Wet, windy and mild was of course the theme of the day here. Came across this wee article from the met which might be of interest. Was slightly surprised the northern isles see so much falling snaw. But then it's for falling, rather than lying... Anyway, apparently I'm in a decent location, although it doesn't feel like it right now. If you look closely, there's a wee white spot where HC lives.