DaBrigg

Its been a rough night over here in Dublin. A 53mph gust was recorded at Dublin airport at 1:30, with sustained wind of 39mph. Showery bursts of driving rain on and off, and currently its 6.2C

Thats much deeper than what I got here, and I cant be too far from you. I took a few photos, but it was such a slight dusting that the double yellow lines at the side of the road were still visible, with the layer of yellow paint actually sticking up through the snow! It started metling after half an hour, of course. :o

They really are! The agreement for cold between Thursday and Sunday is remarkable IMO, with a just a couple of crazy ones going off randomly on their own, including the operational. The operational is the only one that actually rises through Friday and Saturday! Dublin Ensembles

The exact track of these rapidly developing things tends to be uncertain until the very last minute. The Irish Met are forecasting NE'ly gales on Irish Sea coasts tomorrow evening for as far north as the border with NI. This suggests they expect it to come a little further north than the GFS. In a typical stormy zonal spell that we get most winters, you will get storms expected to pass close to the north coast of Ireland, with severe winds expected across the northern half of Ireland, and southern and western Scotland. Very often however, the worst of the winds winds never materialise and remain offshore, due to the storm tracking a little further north than expected at the last minute. This happened on more than one occasion last Winter for instance, resulting in disapointment for extreme weather fanatics like me. :lol:

The radar shows all the light stuff moving into the Dublin area, passing through Meath and North Kildare. A couple of heavier features are moving through Laois and Tipp, heading for Wicklow, Kilkenny and Carlow. Usually these things fizzle out well before the east coast, especially when the winds are light. There could be more snow to come for higher ground over the next few hours!

Yeh, its clouded over here now, temps have risen. last thing I expected, very rare for showers to make it across here. :wacko: Light spots of rain(?) in the wind. Dublin airport reporting sleet. The place was starting to turn all ice rink outside with a major freeze up of all the wet surfaces beginning. I hope these showers clear out of the way quickly, the only thing they'll do is melt the frost. Wind has increased big time also! Very odd. Its now getting heavier, large drops from a mostly clear sky. :o

Many of us seem to agree that it is the persistence of the cold rather than the intensity of the cold thats most impressive about this winter so far. As I put it in an earlier post, the quantity rather than the quality.

I made that point earlier because I live about 10 miles from Matty, and although impressive, the Feb 1991 event wasnt any more potent around here than several other cold spells we've had since. Im less than half a mile inland from an east-facing coast, and even during the Feb 1991 event the snow was reluctant to settle here for any more than a few hours. The only easterly I remember that delivered lying snow for days here was Jan'87, and my memories of that event are vague to say the least. I notice that theres been some disapointment from various members who live along North Sea coasts over the lack of lying snow during last weeks easterly, despite the low 850hPa temps. I have had that problem here with almost every easterly! Plenty of snow falls, it just wont settle! Of course who knows, the best may still be yet to come..

Well, the GFS which was always the most bullish in bringing in the milder air, has now progged Thursday to be one of the coldest days of the week with a renewed northerly plunge. I wouldnt trust any of the models from Wednesday onwards at this point.

It was a nice suprise. Timed to perfection for these parts. If it happened a few hours earlier we would have slept throught it. A couple of hours later and the ground would have been warmer, so it possibly wouldnt have settled.

A heavy burst of rain here just now, with just a rogue flake visible now and again if you stare at it long enough. :lol: The covering is completey gone now.

The temp here is now 3.4C, with large raindrops and large snowflakes mixed together. Ild say higher ground is still doing quite well.

Forecasters nightmare thats what. :lol: Peronally I dont think it'll be cold enough for sleet or snow apart from on high ground, and the east wind wont help matters along the Irish Sea coast. The GFS doesnt seem to think it'll come this far north, but you might get something. The higher parts of the Wicklow will propbably get yet more snow!

Its very borderline alright. The temps across the midlands are still pretty low, so we probably wont see a major rise in temp just yet, even when the westerly sets in.

It seems to be on the verge of turning back to sleet here, but its done quite well all the same. Im not much above sea level.

If that temp is accurate you've nothing to worry about. Here, its snowing heavier again, with big flakes for the first time, but the covering we had is melting rapidly. Dew points must have gone above zero or something. Temp is now 2.1C

From looking at the radar, the heavier stuff shouldnt be too far from you now. :o

Temp 1.2C and rising, the cloud has thinned enough now to see the sun slightly. Theres a covering of about half a centimetre here, which is more than we've had all week.

Yay, its suddenly turned heavy, at last! B) Camera time..

Well, the ground is speckled white with individual snowflakes, but you couldnt call it a covering. About 1mm at its deepest B) The heavier stuff better hurry up and get here, the temp is rising pretty fast now.

Very light snow starting here on the coast. I havent managed a covering at all this week so far, so perhaps Ill get a short one here. Snow on the leading edge of a band of rain has NEVER delivered a covering here in my lifetime, so Im still sceptical. At least the air coming in with the front isnt particularly mild, so that helps.

No offence Matty, but do you even remember 1991? 1995/96 is probably a good comparison, as many others have pointed out. 1993/94 was also quite decent in this neck of the woods. In terms of extremly low temps, number of ice days, and number of days with snow cover; from an IMBY perspective this wnter has been NOTHING compared to 2000/2001. Even the first few days of March 2001 managed several consecutive mornings when the temp bottomed out at -7C or lower. In comparison I havent got below -4C this year at all, and only got below -3C once.

Temp 0.0C, frozen ground, and the radar suggests its about to reach me here, it could get interesting...

I doubt there will be any snow worth getting excited about on low ground near the east coast. Over here, we'll probably only get a short spell of light wet snow, at best. Ild also expect precipitation amounts to be very small in the the Dublin region. The Wicklow Mountains always tend to kill off the activity in weak fronts like this when theres any sort of southerly flow. The heaviest bursts of precipitation probably wont arrive on the east coast until later in the morning, when the winds turn more to the west. By then the less cold air will already have arrived, so it'll more likely fall as cold rain or sleet. Anywhere with a bit of altitide will do considerably better, however.

I feel that this winter so far has been more about the quantity of cold weather rather than quality. I live by the coast, and most of what we have had so far has been too marginal to deliver anything worth remembering. We seem to have had only very brief incursions of what I would call proper deep cold air and low thicknesses. Surface cold doesnt quite do the job here. Im sure many would disagree, but from an IMBY perspective nothing particularly exceptional has occured, apart from the persistant and prolonged nature of the colder than normal weather. For instance, we have had a complete absense of potent northerlies since the late October event. This event was impressive, but IMO a little too early in the season to be quite as potent as it COULD have been had the exact same set-up occured later on in the season. Im still optimistic for the rest of the winter mind, and admit it has been a very welcome change to recent years. :lol: