Sunny Leith

Just shows you how easy it is to miss out. I could be in your neck of the woods in 5 minutes if I hopped in the car. But we've seen basically nothing of that one at all ! Slushing continues here..

Typical urban slushfest down here just now. Long way to go but would be dissapointed to wake up here to 2mm's of cold grey runny wallpaper paste. Fingers crossed.

Tiny marginal temperature shift in the right direction in uppers or wet bulb/dry bulb could make all the difference here.

Not very impressive piece of night-time photography of the neighbouring bowling green. It's sticking OK but with slushing inbetween-times, it needs more snaw more often over the coming hours to make this truly memorable. Edit: photo is more reminiscent of Hitchcock's "Rear Window" !

Aye, don't worry , they'll clock off in time to make sure the morning trip to work is impossible !

Think we must have been under the centre of that last burst. But now its off again and its slushing up again. Nothing like last weeks beautiful snow - but if it keeps going over the coming hours then we should get some traction even at street level.

streets and pavements all white here...I'm at the top end of Leith Walk, maybe another 50 metres higher than Trinity. It's that marginal. But everything heading the right way I think....

Phecking blizzard outside right now !

Early days here in Leith .... but taking here as a low-lying coastal benchmark - and with the whole overnight period to go - some places are going to get pummelled with snaw !

I'm slightly edgy on this one. With convection you pretty much know what to expect - radar blob comes your way, dumps some stuff, and repeat. This more organised (we hope) stuff is showing plenty cloud coming in but apart from some light snow and graupel earlier on here, its possible it may not live up to expectations - well very locally anyway. Ignore me... its just first-night nerves all over again

Chief Forecaster ? You mean LS, right ?

Aye, theres always quite a spread of possibilities, all the way from a lot of something to a lot of nothing ! Long way to go yet though, fingers crossed...

Blowing light snow here in Embra city-centre but no intensity to it. But baltic outside though... and as things stand if it got its act together I'd be expecting further snow rather than sleet.

Things heading the right way. Embra Airport at 8AM was 4C, DP2C ... at 10AM down to 3C, DP 1C.

Aye, their temperature forecasts are off, but its always the case. I never put any trust in them anyway, whether its above or below what they say: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/dg/edinburgh_forecast_weather.html The problem with these type of forecasts, is that they dont't even bother to nowcast just by reading the thermometer or looking out of the window, Been too many times - especially in these easterly situations - where they say black is white, even when the evidence of our own eyes contradicts what they're saying. Anyway, whats for us will no go past us ...or however the saying goes again

In a similar vein, did you see the Piers Corbyn piece from 2 days ago "The mini-ice age is upon us" http://bit.ly/YwPTBH I don't take him too seriously to be honest ... but a little bit of me thinks he just might be onto something.

Aye, its very much like that particular period. I don't recall us being under seriously cold uppers for all of that time, but we were certainly trapped under decent cold depths with a variety of synoptic evolutions. There was a period then - and in the subsequent winter - when I'd more or less convinced myself that "it just wanted to snow". Daft thing to say, but in essence that's just how it felt.

Aye point taken, they do tend towards haar by spring but think you're right on the rationale for their current coldness. Just saw a BBC News 24 forecast earlier that was hinting at *next weekends* snow chances, not often they speculate that far head, but surely also indicative of relative confidence that the current pattern is going to play out largely as we expect it to over the next week.

Didn't think we'd see a repeat of anything like the cold and snow of early last week but that chart is not so far off the mark. OK the sun is another week stronger at the surface but in all other respects its now possible that we could see something close to a repeat.

No worries LS, just ribbing you... ;-) It was a real bonus these guys turning out today. Roll on spring and better days for campaigning but bloody hell these March synpotics are for ongoing cold. Seen plenty Northerly or North Westerly spells of March cold, but not sure I can recall too many with such an extended easterly bias. Going to be an interesting week or two.

Getting on for late March, these are insane values. I'd be surprised to see things quite as cold as that but think most of us are feeling that the forecast synoptics *will* play out in general terms. It's now just a question of the specifics, depth of cold, local factors etc ... By the way, was out leafleting in Leith with some EUSNA mates of yours this morning. Must have slipped your mind LS, you could at least have issued a local forecast :-0

Aye, the kind of day nobody wants. Right on cue though, the sun just showing through here in a break in the clouds. Now that's just extracting the proverbial urine !

Honking honking day here. Persistant drippy sleet over the last few hours in Leith, cars covered in grey slush at various points but easing off now. Just yeuch.

Aye, but it plays havoc with our horses and carts though, I couldn't get Daisy out the stable yesterday !

Aye. Embra airport now reporting -8C. From watching these low-minima situations before, its surprising (or not) how non-linear any temperature drop can be. Even when overhead and wind conditions are favourable, it very often seems to stall and flatten out - or even increase again. However, if it does get down to -10C there, thats a very cold night for March (probably not a record though)