Sunny Leith

Massive kudos to all of you on here who called it right for Aberdeen/Angus/Fife/Central/Lothian overnight. Shuggee the precip forcast for 6AM that you posted last night was bang on the money for these parts. Congrats to all. I can scarcely believe that the metoffice are unable to use the tools at their disposal to make local forecasts in this same way. I don't know whether its down to incompetence or their London-centric view of the cold-spell. Either way its inexcusable and just through radar and reporting stations , they should have been able to do a hell of a lot better than they did. I admit that I didn't call it though LOL ! I crashed on the sofa last night , glanced at the radar at 3AM and saw the big big blob moving southwards down the eastern side. I confess I still expected nothing in Leith ... thinking "snow never gets here this way" and staggered to bed expecting Fife to grab whatever was going . But ... My wife works out Wishaw way and always leaves here early - a bad bad drive these last few days - and when she woke me to the whiteout outside at 6AM, the radar was off the scale in these parts. Again big congrats and medals to all round here who had the courage to forecast it. The metoffice though ? Bah-bloody-humbug to them ! Edit: measured level depth in the back garden around 14 to 16 cms at the 6 points I measured. Whether we got more or less snow here because of any "tenament vortex" effect I dunno !

Just been down the back garden and made a monster family snowman, the snow is in utterly perfect snowman-making condition before the frost gets it later. Thought I'd save the metoffice issuing a "be-aware" weather alert so here it is. Avalanche alert for Leith issued at 1240. Be aware of imminent slab and cornice avalanche danger from tenement roofs as people turn up the heating and put the hot chocolate on. End of forecast.

Tailing off now in Embra, clearnce visible to the north, and looks like that might be the last hurrah snow-wise today (fine !)Temperature also marginal at around (or probably just above) the 0 mark. No matter, what we have on the ground now, we keep for a few days yet at least ! Wife couldn't drive through to work today so we're just heading down the back-green to make a snowman with the 8 year-old and the other big kid (ie ME) :lol::doh:

Never thought I'd say this CMD but I don't care now :lol: Theres enough on the ground here already, a White Xmas (in all the ways that matters, snow on the ground) is pretty much in the bag for I hope many of us. It it sleets up on boxing day and beyond I won't care too much, the last 7 days have been fantastic and will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the memorable spells of the past :lol: Edit: snowing lightly again, northern remainder of the "comma" feature around Embra before it stops completely I'd think

I have to laugh. The traffic up to town alomg London Road is all backed up. Obviously punters and shoppers have taken matters into their own hands and so the pavements are full of folk walking up to town. The scene resembles nothing less than one of those enforced WWII refugee marches across a snow-blasted tundra. The only thing missing is the stiff frozen arm of a corpse sticking out of a snowdrift :o Looking at the radar we're in the clearance just now but surrounded by a comma of cloud to the north, the west and the south .. and the whole comma itself is moving due south. If it doesn't dissipate we might get another parting gift from Fife in an hour or so

Wouldn't worry too much HS. Looks like most of in the east/central/north us are in the (ahem) warmer side of the feature and sitting at 0+,1,2 degrees ... its the price we pay for having snow at all, its often marginal one side or the other. Might be some minor thawing on house roofs, car roofs as the day goes on but the ground temperature will be resolutely zero or below I'd think just now ... its not going to take much of a hit at ground level. Even a snow-paranoid like me can see that 95% of what we all have around us is going precisely nowhere !

Lived in the same street here in Leith for 17 years, heaviest snow we've had in all that time. Not measured it yet but looks about 4 or 5 inches level snow. All the classic old-school snowfall indicators are on display. Its drifted and sculpted around parked cars and on roofs and chimneys. No pavement/gutter/street transition at all. Banked into peoples window ledges and up against their windows. And thats Leith - higher parts of town Liberton, Gilmerton and (gulp) Fairmilehead must just be plain off the scale this morning. Total Christmas card Edinburgh wide !

Seems to be 0+, 1 or 2 degrees in most of the air behind the "L" just now ... seems to have displaced the frigid local cold pool that we had up until end of yesterday. Not concerned. Snow cover at ground level is extensive and the low ground temperatures will hold onto anything thats lying currently. We can afford a bit of wobbling around the 0 mark I think.

If it does, then many of us *might* get a second bite at the cherry !

Don't want to be too hard on the metoffice but what the hell I will. If they spent less time hand-wringing on global warming and hundreds of millions of quid on global warming forecast models ... .. and spent more time and attention on local forecasting, looking out of the window and using their own radar ... then they'd be doing a damn sight better job. The current UK-wide snow lets them off the hook. In terms of local forecasting in Scotland though this past week they've been downright shabby on many days and in many parts of the country.

Cant tell yet if the current "L" shape of this cloud and snow is stil moving southwards and westwards ... whether it will split ... move east ... or just fizzle out. We took the hit from the bottm of "the L" but what happens now ? All bets are off !

I'm sure we'll get a few posts from the regulars up there. Looks like they're at least temporarily sitting in a maritime 3c after the relatively slack flow they've had the last few days. They can probably take a hit for a few hours in 2-3c without losing too much snow cover ... probably making the current snow a bit wet and claggy just now though, at least at street level.

Prolonged blizzard just slowing up now in Leith. Drifting in weird shapes all up and down the road everything covered to a serious depth. Probably even worse up town. Main roads covered - no gritters. Credit to LS, Shuggee and otthers who saw this coming as the day wore on yesterday. The metoffice/Heather the weather ... didn't even get a sniff at it. Probably Edinburghs worst snow in 15-20 years !

In one of my other favourite mini-obsessions in this cold spell I'm trying to guess the eastwards track of the snow in the west from its recent movement. If I had to guess just now, then its on track to skirt to the south of Edinburgh meaning the borders would land the prize later tonight. Plenty time to go though and it could head a little north as it heads east - too early to tell for sure.

Sorry I'm being a bit dim here. I can see the blob covering Glasgow/central-west but the metoffce charts aren't too helpful in characterising this one ... what exactly is the feature thats moving west-to-east today across southern-central parts ? Small low, organised trough ? Not that I'm bleating for more. Just took the youngster sledging on Calton Hill at the top of Leith Walk ... about 4 inches up there .. I'm already well happy and (tempting fate here I know...) a white Xmas in all the ways that matters (snow on the ground) already looks set for Embra/Leith. Happy days. :lol:

Another moderate snow shower in Embra/Leith and again a direct hit on the radar sitting right over the city. Last nights showers hit us from the SW, this one came down the estuary from the WNW. Total bonus events and the 8 year old will be hyper when he sees out the window this morning ! Like many here, its the 6th consecutive day we've had snow falling and only now does it look like a truly worthwhile covering for some snow fun and games. Edit: reporting rain at the airport but its definitely non-marginal snow here in town. Noticed quite a few times they've reported rain in the last few days when in fact its falling snow. Go figure !

Seemed to intensify as it got nearer to us, god knows why. Its just finshing up after a good 40 or so delightfully slow minutes over Embra. Next landfall Fife, curious if it inensifies more over the Forth or whether its just gasped its last. That was a bonus. Its a lottery but good luck to yourself, right place right time and you'll be sorted Edit: looks like it was part of a shower band stretching all the way from Glenrothes to Peebles (3 blobs). Maybe the original stream of showers that you refer to ?

Thanks for the info CMD. From Girvan with love by the look of it and a direct hit on Embra dumping a couple of cms. Latterly it seemed to be getting guided nor-eastwards by the Pentland hills. Ridiculous size of snow flakes a few minutes ago and Leith is the whitest its been since all this kicked off on Thursday. I think as per Shuggees post earlier almost anything could happen in the current setup, your place, my place, any place !

First part of 2 blobs of showers heading over from Embra ? The first one was light but this second one is pretty decent, even in Leith. Its gone all white again and bizarrely I watched this one on the radar come out of virtually nothing 30 to 40 minutes ago. Just expanded and consolidated as it got nearer Edinburgh. Slow moving and doing a nice job here ! Edit: bizarre, on the radar its just about sitting withing the entire city boundary and almost stationary. Heaviest snow we've had for a few days ! Edit: unexpected winter wonderland outside. Edit: tipping it down outside the window. White white white !

I don't take the Beebs charts at all seriously since they pretty much abandoned pressure charts and replaced them with colour graphics and semi-random shading/polka dots for rain/snow. Heather had it down as east-coast sleet/rain and to be honest good riddance to her. She badly missed a predictable synoptic pattern last week with the easterly and then was absolutely squirming on the Xmas day forecast ... suggesting "white with frost". I'm well aware of the met-office definition of a white Xmas but more pragmatically if theres snow on the ground most of us would call it a white Xmas. Would have been sensible for Heather to indicate that with no real thaw for those who already have snow... that to all intents and purposes a white Xmas is in the offing. Close the door behind you "Heather the weather"

Good to see the BBC 6 o'clock national news running reports from the frozen north, about the heavy snow and airport closures... ...Leeds and Manchester. Ahem.

Glasgow and Greenock both 3c reporting rain. Edinburgh 2c reporting rain. Total pants Oh well.......

Couldn't possibly comment CMD

Nothing homogenous about this low pressure thats for sure. I think we all kind of hoped it'd be a low-pressure snow event - turning out to be a real mixture though of localised temperature rises and drops, snow, then rain, then snow, then drizzle/rain ... a total and utter mess really. Saw the ITV met forecast an hour or so ago. Way off the mark on tonights Scottish minimums ... suggesting -3 generally. Suspect that many of us from Dundee southwards will struggle to do any better than 0 or 1c. Too much cloud cover, onshore wind from the west is sourced too locally (its no longer an arctic fetch) ... starting to think its heading just the wrong side of marginal. Not complaining, still an interesting setup

ROFL :lol: I think my wife views my weather obession with equal suspicion and she's had to put up with it over 15 years of marriage. As obsessions go though its one of the best. Right at the heart of how the natural world operates around us, never the same, often hard to predict but always bloody interesting !