Sunny Leith
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Posts posted by Sunny Leith
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First snow shower in Edinburgh just delivering a coating of castor sugar on any exposed tarmac/grass surfaces where I work (Fettes/Stockbridge part of town).
Edit: the kind that forms mini-drifts of a a few milimetres against pavement gutters. Intesnsely cold surface is going to hold onto pretty much anything that falls on it. A millimetre of snow here has whitened up the existing snow cover and glossed over previously cleared surfaces.
Slight in nature ... but beefs up now and again and visibility between here and Embra Castle has dropped markedly at a couple of points. Interesting Day 13 of the cold-spell coming up. Flirting with marginality here but what the hell !
Edit again: radar shows shower activity increasing from the SE as confirmed by the Lauder/borders reports ... but the existing stuff here (...and its still very slight) is moving more or less due-west along the Forth ... cant tell if its coming in from 80 degrees or 100 degrees orientation from the East. Wind direction could indeed be very crucial at least in this early stage.
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Incredibly light snow blowing in the wind here, would easily pass "the lamp-post test" if it was dark
Just a case now of radar watching, nowcasting and hoping that things don't get too adversely modified from the east (its a fine balance the next 24 hours or so). If the north-sea flow doesn't get too agressive then good chance we'll come out on the right side of things even in the short-term.
Edit: 1c/DP -4c at the airport. Good starting conditions if anything is going to come down the estuary towards us. Like I say, I don't want us to overcook it though and end up in mushy 3c/DP 1c land. No pain no gain though
Still in the cold part of east central, overnight minima was -8.9C, and currently it's -6.5C. It's hard to say whether we'll get another ice day or not but it looks a bit unlikely due to the showers to the southeast of us moving our way through today but moreso overnight. Any precipitation that falls here, I reckon, will be snow, as the furthest north the 528 thickness line gets is just south of Edinburgh. Mind you, that layer of medium-level cloud spoken about is almost sitting over us at the moment.
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Oh well here we go for the next chapter Blitzen !
Bright echoes to the east of me moving due west and "something" is imminent !
Yep, you're right By-Tor, that is sitting right above me now. Very slight breeze which is NNE temp -1.6c and dewpoint -5.8
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Now I have some daylght I can see the Fife horizon better. Theres a visible sharp line of cloud that seems to mark some demarcation between here (with this "new" air) and most of Fife (sitting in the colder air). Whether Fife punters can see a similar visible "cloud boundary" either above them or to the south would be interesting to know.
In the last hour or two I noticed both Berwick-upon-Tweed and Newcastle reporting "rain, snow" so some snizzle may be on the cards here as the day goes on.
Like I say, I ideally want to avoid any overly aggressive displacement from the east of the existing cold air, although thats obviously already happening here to an extent. Could get some snizzle here as the day goes on but as long as the flow is fairly slack then we may not take much of a warm-up hit from the sea...
Edit: some snizzle-bearing type cloud to the south and east and a steady east breeze here blowing things about a little. Like I foolishly said yesterday "no (marginality) pain, no (snowy) gain". I suspect I've jinxed the hard cold here for a day or two ! :lol:
Certainly hasn't made it up here yet and I think this morning is actually the coldest yet. Leuchars was reading -9.1 at one point - you don't often see that!
Also, the met office seem to have backtracked on today being a 'mild' day here. On Sunday they were forecasting a maximum of 5, which had changed to -1 by yesterday evening. Maybe we'll get away with just a brief thaw tomorrow!
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Edinburgh airport now already a balmy 0c and has been this last 2 hours. Wind onshore from between E and NE. Here in Leith, yesterdays immovable hoare-frost on cars and roofs is steadily disappearing. Other Scottish reporting stations to the south of here also all flirting withe the 0 mark.
Sky is cloudy but nothing convective in sight. The estuary seems to mark the currrent boundary between yesterdays absolutely freezing surface air ... and this arriving modified maritime air.
Interesting to see to what extent this air now makes its way up and into ... all points west and north of here, as FifeNess/Leuchars are still reporting -7c as I write. Fife will be next in line I'd imagine, certainly at the coast.
I'd speculate its possible that we could hit our warmest day here today in Edinburgh ... maybe 3 or 4c if the onshore flow aggressively sources air from the north sea itself (seen that happen before so its possible).
Saving grace is that dew poitnts are still at -5c at time of writing and any grass surface is itself very cold so would be surprised to see too much melting, Could be a marginal day or so coming up though.
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2 observations from having just seen the BBC Scottish News/ BBC National Weather Forecast
1) Pete Irvine of 'Unique Events', who organise the Edinburgh Hogmany celebrartions saying that.... "at least there wouldn't be any weather worries this year, just wrap up warm". He might be better getting his advice on Hogmanay weather from this Netweather thread, rather than (I presume) the metoffice ... as there is a fair chance that could prove to be yet another "famous last words" kind of statement that he's just utterred there...
2) Rob McElwee's Wednesday forecast had a single small cursory random blob of cloud/precipitation on the Scottish east coast (looked like a token afterthought) If they get the next few days as badly wrong as they did some 12 days ago ... then their credibility in these parts will go from its current shaky level ... down to an absolutely permanent zero,zilch,nada,nowt, nuffink...
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Its takes time Mondy.
I can only recall a few times in my life (I admit I'm 49 years old) when I ever heard the shipping forecast indicate "light icing" in the north sea regions to our due east or south-east. Give it a few more weeks though of natural seasonal cooling - throw in the possibility of this cold spell continuing, or at least re-emerging later in the season - and the warming effect will diminish by a couple of degrees at least from these values...
Would make any marginal snow events ... well, non-marginal !
OOPs - warmer!!
Talking of the Dee freezing over maks me wonder about the recent temps quoted for the North Sea as a whole. 7 or 8C i think.
As this cold spell continues, particularly coming from the east/north east, actual temps in the N.Sea must be lower than 8c
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Don't sweat it Sawel, things can change and probably will. I'd never bet my mortgage on the precision of anything past t24 !
I think that shortwave off the coast off Norway is being a real pain in the backside. It's stopping a proper NE flow and seems to be holding the coldest air back, then when the shortwave hits our shores, there's very little PPN left!
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I'm not against ramping as such, I mean theres nothing I'd like better than to see Edinburgh hit by 1 metre of level snow (Edit; obviously without any road tragedies or OAPs frozen solid to the toilet seat
)But I'm a realist and from experience I'm happy to take whatever snow comes my way ... a few inches is enough at the end of the day to beautify the cities and countryside, or to build snowmen and go sledging.
Dissapointment is imminent dahn sarf with too many punters on the model thread hopecasting record snowfall totals (why ?) in the midlands or in wales... fronts stalling and blizzards and drifts engulfing the country.
The dissapointment when these hopecasts fall flat on their face will be tangible and bitter ... glad to say I haven't seen that mentality on here as it inevitably leads to bipolar threads and unwelcome hangovers when the white stuff doesn't deliver to its overly hyped up extent.
Ironic that we've had 12 days of the stuff up here so far - been realistic about whats happening and about expectations - and we're possibly the least hyping/ramping "cold spell" thread on NetWeather ! Long may that continue
I think a lot of people in the South are going to be disappointed if the weather pans out ala Ian Fergusons's comments on the South West thread.
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Possible that anything arriviving at the east coast tomorrow may only be snizzle initially and with only inland/upland areas profiting initially.... but we'll see.
Bottom line to me is ... that is that it might be all very nice for us all to sit under blue skies, hard night-frosts, and get the skates out on hard frozen ponds and canals over the next 5-10-15 days.. but I suspect that many of us are snow freaks at heart, and in order to land more of the white stuff we have to take our chances with marginality. Or to torture a phrase "no (marginal) pain, no (snowy) gain".
Personally I'm happy to take my chances over the coming days and see see what comes out of the sky and what sticks to the ground. I'm putting a small bet on with myself that in Embra we'll have more snow on the ground by Saturday ... than we do currently (and we have plenty enough just now city-wide). I expect that to be the case elsewhere too but lets leave that for nowcasts and herecasts nearer the time, scanning the radar and gazing at the horizon.
Good luck to all !
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I never take the models as gospel truth at whatever range. But in so far as GFS is worth looking at for the immediate trend ... it looks like the 528 dam line and -5 850's would be sitting somewhere over Northern England/Southern Scotland over the next couple of days but gradually advancing southwards leaving us in increasingly colder air. We could be snowy in eastern/central areas to begin with ... or as LS says, perhaps more sleety on the immediate windward coasts . The North Sea does look to be generally at about 8c to the east of us and although Scandinavia is frigid ... Denmark, and north-western mainland Europe isn't currently - so no frigid fetch at the surface if the low-pressure is sourcing air from there.
Trend for cold and snow all looks good from midweek onwards - whether it kicks off snowy though I honestly dunno. "Inlandness" and height will probably help out right at the start, beyond that it looks good regardless of those factors.
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I look only at the models/model thread for a combination of entertainment (for any eye candy synoptics) ... and for some genuine trends to show up over the course of the coming week or so (maximum)... I stopped slitting my wrists on it years ago, the weather does what it wants and no amount of wish-casting will ever change that.
The discernible trend up here (as LS says) is for ongoing cold and the ongoing possibility of snow. The next week or so looks likely to take the Scottish cold spell to something approaching 3 weeks by that stage... which would be absolutely extraordinary in recent winters. And the best thing of all on here, is that local forecasting and knowledge ... and the judicious use of radar and nowcasting has beaten the metoffice in these parts over this last 11-12 days !
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Thats what I failed to understand LS, when all this began 11 days ago. "Heather the weather" called it wrong the night before, despite the synoptics absolutely screaming the classic east-coast/central belt scenario ... which of course subsequently took place and kicked off the current cold spell. It was a poor piece of forecasting for that setup and the met-office seem keen to repeat it.
Now of course its not inevitable ... but on the balance of probabilities - and from experience - its likely that we'll be delivered something similar this week. Go figure why they can't or won't call it !
Maybe if they spent more time and money on weather forecasting the here and now ... rather than forecasting the climate in 50 years time ... they might do a better job I should be punished, I too posted on the model output discussion!! Just a vague attempt to move away from IMBY posting dominating what should be an interesting thread.
Anyway, the UKMO are still not calling snow for eastern Scotland Tuesday evening onwards, at least not in a big way. I think that the met risk looking very stupid again by the lack of a warning for eastern Scotland and Northeast England - time and time again, they just miss this setup. Perhaps with a Scottish Met Office, easterly convective events, which are notoriously underestimated by forecast models, would be picked up on more effectively, and not just have a forecast which seems to be automatically generated.
This winter, I think, will be remembered for a long time as a turning point, not just as a return to a spell of colder winters after a spell of milder ones, but as the winter that people, not just in Scotland, became disillusioned with the current Met Office and, just maybe, AGW. Joe B has actually had a great winter so far, predicting the cold entrenched in the continent spreading southwest towards the UK.
The winter of 2009/10 is shaping up to be a classic, one that will be remembered for a very long time
LS
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Looking good init CMD ? I'm going to have to take a break from this for a few hours and temporarily get a life ! Like you, I think my wife is now convinced that all this time in the box-room hunched over the keyboard, is really just a sneaky cover for viewing Danish porn sites 24x7 :blush:
:lol:
A limp breeze from the east with the chance of snizzle :lol: No, seriously, how much snow do you think there will be in Scotland with an easterly breeze of 20mph+ coming off the North Sea and 850s of -8C on Weds/Thurs??? The whole run is a beauty, 2 weeks of winter. Although it has been binned by some in the model thread as it doesn't show snow for them due to technical difficulties. I do feel sorry for them though.
Mind where you step as there seem to be toys scattered all over the place too, I have no idea where they came from.
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Dominant mode is from east to west from Tuesday onwards. Looking at least cold and potentially very cold. Ye olde traditional east-coast/central/central belt corridor attack from the east. Not counting any chickens but looks potentially great.
Edit: best thing to do is to go and look, you know you want to
I try avoid there and looking at models, but what's it showing?
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Amazing how hard it is to shift that stuff. Took me 20 minutes of serious hacking and gouging this afternoon just to clear the immediate area around our tenament entrance, absolutey welded to the pavement... Like the stuff you can never shift when you're defrosting the freezer... The walk from here to the co-op requires crampons and pitons and if you're an OAP in your 70's or 80's then I'd think it's close to impossible. If there aren't by-laws about tenament owners clearing their own immediate area, then there bloody well should be.
A&E must have had a busy few days and looks like its going to get even worse.
cloudy with sleet and wet snow on and of all day with a slight thaw max temp was 1.7c snow is solid slabs of ice 5inch thich on the pavements and side roads if it freezes tonight which is forecast to do its going to to a ice rink
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Looks like this will be our warmest day of the last 11... Generally 2c, 3c and more elsewhere from the central belt south and up the sea-level east coast.
Surprsing how much snow is still in the back gardens now I'm back at Leith. I overlook a bowling green and thats still entirely white and even, although its flattened down to a pancake of an inch or two after the 6 inches here of 5 days ago ... cold ground has done its job I guess despite 3 days of snizzle and often rain. If we can get past tonight - and manage a decent frost - then looks like we could have a basic continuity of snow cover going into the next cold spell even here in balmy Leith.
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Ditto here at Liberton/Gracemount. Redeemed itself for last nights almost bizarre rainfall and theres a gloss coat of white to cover up the damage from that. Maybe just over 1cm but welcome enough and the roofs are white again.
Every day is interesting just now and throwing up unexpected situations !
Wet snow now here too - looks like the cold air is undercutting as it pivots
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Congrats to all who added to their totals overnight
Real messy situation here at Liberton, Embra. Snow coming down this last 30-45 minutes is trying to make up for the rain damage of last night. And given time it might make good, at least to cover up the mushy patches I woke up to an hour ago.
Surprised to see from the Princes Street webcam that the middle of town has held onto as much as it has, so just maybe it won't be a total bust here. Not pretty any more, buts its there !
Not looking forward to going back to Leith which will be the biggest local casualty of the marginality of the last 48-72 hours but fun and games to come whatevers happened !
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Incredibly we're on marginally on the wrong side of everything at Liberton at 400 ft ASL. It almost makes no sense. Marginal temps but I'd have thought we'd just be dipping into 0c and snow, not rain. Geographically - and checking the radar and the trafficcams, the snow is falling just outside the western city boundary ... and as rain to the east of that. 10 miles... or another 1F drop... or wind flow NOT off the sea... and we might have shared in some bonus snow.
But rain..
I give up ! Oh well, the weather does what it wants where it wants
Heavy snow here, although the snow fall is a bit wet but can't complain as that 's now 11 days snowfall on he trot . Not bad for the even larger teapot
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Bizarre. All the trafficscotland cams on the extreme western edges of the city are showing heavy snow falling and lying on road surfaces. Either thats heading east ... or the city is doing its heat-island lothian coastal rivieria impression. Would be agony for it to be chucking it down with snow just outside the western suburbs ... whilst the snow-cover within the Embra city boundaries gets destroyed by rain at 33F !
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Nothing marginal here in Edinburgh either, outright steady rain up here at Liberton and this is 400 feet ASL and one of the higher parts of the city. Dissapointing to say the least. I don't pretend to know all the factors that seem to work against Edinburgh in these situations but its certainly happening tonight.
Wind is reported as being ENE at the airport so at the surface we may have dragged in some estuary air, if the wind was sitting SE or ESE we might at least have pretended to be more inland rather than patently onshore. Hard to know how much of the snow will still be kicking about tomorrow, at best I'd think patchy and claggy.
Ho freekin' hum
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Would rather it didn't show up here JS and left us to a frost instead. Each of the events we've had the last 2 days in the Embra area has been more and more marginal ... rain, sleet, air and dew-points just above 0 in daytime at least (thats at the aiport, degree or two higher in town, and certainly by the time you get to Leith) ... its made things progressively mushier at ground level.
Theres still a lot on the ground Embra-wide ... 3 inches or so up here at Liberton but the condition of the snow gets worse every day. If that stuff gets here from the SW then I'd think the most likely outcome is rain, sleet at best and further impact on whats on the ground. I'm in snow-preservation mode for the next 24 hours at least !
Looks like the rain band in SW Scotland is organising itself nicely - current;y -3c and -3 dewpoint here although im not sure the uppers support snow to low levels
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Same here Shuggee. 9th consecutive day with snow on the ground here and temperature hasn't got above 2c at the airport in all that time. Bloody fantastic. Everything/anything that happens over the next 5-10-14 days is pure bonus material as far as I'm concerned.
Would like to see a bit more frost digging in to really ice up the ponds and canals , and consolidate the snowcover. Although naturally I do not want to see any OAP's freezing to death or wildlife going hungry
Don't know how everyone else feels, but I'm really enjoying not really giving a monkeys about the detail of the models - just the trend is enough, knowing we're in for more white stuff over the next week. Must be how a Russian, Finn or a Swede must normally feel looking in on the intensity of the model thread when there's a whiff of cold in the air!
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I give up ! 
Scottish Cold Spell Discussion 9
in Spring Weather Discussion
Posted
I honestly don't know JDH. Looking OK as I write ... DewPoints still a couple of degrees below zero so anything that falls should be snow.
It could go a bit pear-shaped for a day or two though, if all we end up pulling in from the east is mid NorthSea air in the mid 40's ... throw in a bit of modification from the cold lozenge that constitutes the still frozen east coast and we could end up with a "mild" couple of mid-to-high 30's days. Bit like Aberdeens hit last week ... Depends how agressive this fetch of air is, the slacker the better at this point ... if it got strong to gale-force (unlikely I think) then we could take a slushy hit to lying snow.
Anyway not worried at this point, the ground surface still seems extreemely cold and worst case I expect us to hang onto that, with the upside of a possible increase to snow (ok its really just crusty frozen snow now...) depth.
Think this is stall a battleground area Blitzen (OK not much of a battle going on but definitely some kind of transitional area). I'm back home now and the far distant Fife horizon looks clear and sharp - so still very cold there I think.
To my south and east we have scuddy cloud motoring past at a fair pace and thats either going to snizzle, snow... or do nothing. Aiport says 1c/DP -2c so still looking good if anything at all was to fall from the sky (nothing here though since the slight snow shower of 2 hours ag)