Sunny Leith

Must admit, like yourself Hawsey, I find these local factors very frustrating. Big picture is this: bloody big relatively warm sea to the east, deep cold air above, dew points great, flow from east to west. In principle I don't see why there isn't a bloody Great Lake-effect up up down the entire coat - but in practice we end up scrambling about on the radar looking for blobs to hit us relatively infrequently ! Oh well...

Must admit, being slightly sceptical that Leith/Embra will pick up much over the next 12-18 hours. We've had most of the pre-requisites it seems in place today, including being in the right general ENE-ish line of attack. Snowshield has seen everything go west, east, south, and north of us. Unreal sometimes ! If there's a bit more backing to the NE over time then even that will close the door just a little bit more. But...we'll see. Putting my faith in LS as always ! End of moan :-)

It really does my freekin' head in [having a mini-TOORP here] However it's been happening since I started keeping a close eye on these things since the early-70s ... And by extension all the way back into the mists of time. Must be half a dozen factors that against us most of the time, but when I look at the radar it really does seem like the snow gods are just having a laugh at our expense. Oh well end of mini-TOORP and let's see how the day goes here !

That's more like it ... Heavy grauple now, everything white in double-quick time and blowing about on the streets like a scene from Siberia. More of the same please !

Same here in Leith I can see Fife from our top-floor window and its all white there. Nothing here at all though. Theres plenty cloud coming in and radar looks reasonable. But nowt happening. So aye, Leith snow shield operating at close to 100% efficiency... Go figure eh Joe....drives us crazy!

Whilst its quite possible this could end up being a dry-easterly for some of the technical reason described ... battle-weary kilters here are well aware how often the precipitation aspect of easterlies are mis-forecast by the met-office in particular. I'd still be optimistic at this stage of seeing snow in Leith over the coming days, but we'll see. Certainly seems like March is going to drag out as a long cold one whatever the specifics. You beat me to it there Hawsey, agreed !

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAMMMPPP !

Optimistic that even Leithers might see some snaw out of the coming days. As much as I would be happy to see it, theres also something a bit cruel about cold weather at this time of year...getting close to 12 hours of daylight but with almost mid-winter cold can mess with the heid and the soul a wee bit !

Aye, no coincidence I suppose that larger population centres tend to be in geographically and climatologically advantaged locations. Our ancestors weren't daft eh... Still gives me a bad attack of TOORP though. When we were 90% of the way home and exiting a snowy Fife, I was thinking that there was no way Embra couldn't have been hit as well. Get to the Forth Bridge and a total reality check meets the eyes. Doh! Anyway, not not too upset, we may yet have another bite at the cherry with an easterly it seems. But will all the elements be in place... Here we go again !

No entirely sure I understand all the factors in the Edinburgh snowshield but it definitely exists. We came back down the A9 from Boat of Garten earlier, heavy snow in poor visibility almost all the way until we got close to the north side of the Forth Road bridge. On the Embra side, visibility vastly improved, rain, and even on the higher parts of the bypass, in some places snow was completely absent. Some kind of recurring geographical, topographical, micro-climatological thing going on there but whatever it is, its bloody effective at turning snaw into naw.

Will keep an eye open for boy-racers We're heading up to Boat of Garten for a few days, driving up Monday AM, and very much keeping a close eye on road conditions. Bound to get in at least a days ski-ing at Cairngorm as long as weather permits, but certainly no lack of snaw ... far from it.

Noticed that on my walk to work this morning. Lots of tweeting. First signs of spring in the male bird mind it seems !

Any remnants of the white stuff still hanging about from last week Catch ?

heehee - straying off topic I 'spose, but yes pretty busy, maybe 90+ folk there. Might catch you at one of these things sometimes. (ahem) To put it massively back on topic, the weather felt cold as I came out the meeting. (cough)

Anyone else see the fireball tonight ? Just came out of a #YesEdinburgh meeting at 9 and saw what looked like a nautical flare cross the sky, brightly tracing across for several seconds. Put it down to a few local needs up to mischief. turns out it was a piece of space junk being reported UK wide!

For any of us shore-dwellers who speculate what the definition of "coastal" can mean in these kind of marginal situations, theres the answer right there Better luck next time I hope

That was bizarre. Just a couple of hundred yards from the front door the heavens opened and then immediately followed by about 30-45 seconds worth of the most intense hail I've seen in several massive downdrafts - set off car alarms and everything...then stooped just as suddenly.. Turbulent above !

The view across the Forth to Fife today made parts of it look like some arctic peninsula.

Thanks for the snow report. Might be spring snow up there but it'll be good enough. Cheers !

going to Aviemore in a couple of weeks ... looks like the forthcoming changeable spell will provide at least as much mountain snow as it takes away. That's fine, there's no "snow killer" on the horizon so ski-ing still looks assured into Feb.

any Edinburgers on-line to report any snow retention in the higher/south parts of the city ? Can't gauge from Leith if The Braids snow bowl has held onto its sledging piste. I'm optimistic because it faces north at 500 ft ASL and *should* have collected more yesterday. BUt I can't tell from here so looking for any proxy report from the higher parts. Thanks... All things being equal might just squeeze out another sledging day !

Charts like that are a piece of artwork in my eyes. The isobars, the symbols, just beautiful. Its what drew me into such a passionate interest in weather almost 40 years ago. I really detest the dumbing down of met charts since then. Old git rant over

Plenty big-flaked wet snaw in Embra city centre (well this part of it anyway). Got to be lying at points not much higher than this in Embra, so decent chance might get sledging up The Braids tomorrow after all.

Yeah, gonna be an unpleasant cold rainy day here in Embra

Hey LS, somewhat OT but I see that Edinburgh Uni has climbed to 8th place in this UK wide league table. http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/sugar-daddy-website-faces-investigation-1-2752192