Scotland Cold Spell Discussion Part 12

[Sunny Leith]

Another week of this type of stuff and they'll be dropping food parcels into Livi from the air...

They just keep on materialising... it's a constant..

[Highland Snow]

Sadly since last Saturday night's dumping Perth has had little snow. What there is left is an icy mess.

[Mark H]

Met office sneaked this warning out at 22.42. Showers to keep going through the night for Lothian and Borders.

http://www.metoffice.com/weather/uk/dg/dg_forecast_warnings.html

[shuggee]

lol well sure enough that meto warning has put a dampner on it - showers fading now.

[Sawel]

Well today has had a very different feel to it here and the first day of this spell that the traffic has had real problems within the city. There's not much happening at the moment but it looks like there is plenty of potential in the next few days. For me, to be a real east-coast event it would have to produce around 30 cm of snow. I saw that several times in the late 70s/early 80s including early February 1980, when I clearly remember measuring the snow at 50 cm. No-one ever seems to mention that time however as I think it only affected Dundee, Angus and north-east Fife, although it was generally cold across the rest of the country. It needs a few days of these showers to get up to those sort of depths though!

Wow, Dundee had 50cm of snow in Feb 1980? that is incredible... I was born in 1980 and moved to Dundee in 1999. Since I moved here, The heaviest fall i've seen is probably 15cms during my time here...

I found an article on the Dundee City Council website from the bygone news section for February 1978.

"Dundee was shakily recovering yesterday after the worst blizzard to hit the city and the East Coast in 30 years. The city was covered by a 10-12" blanket of snow. Householders undertook a variety of snow-clearing operations digging out their cars, clearing footpaths etc. Motorists appeared to have lef their cars at home except for essential journeys and because of this central streets in Dundee still carried several inches of snow."

Do you remember how Dundee fared in the Jan 1987 event? how about Feb 1991?

Edited January 3, 2010 by Sawel

[Sunny Leith]

It totally has LOL ! We've been under 2 very bright radar returns on the last couple of showers but nowt to show for it here at least - despite it being "on top of us".

How typical is that of the Metoffice though. Situations like this, they only do knee-jerk reactive forecasting ie nowcasting ... and having reacted, they still don't do any real dilligence on the next few hours. Just a lazy extrapolation it seems like to me. Things are going quieter here so now they'll get their "forecast" wrong in the other direction now....

Makes you wonder what the hell goes on in there and how much attention to detail is really being paid sometimes...

lol well sure enough that meto warning has put a dampner on it - showers fading now.

Edit: we're right under a bright one just now, looking out the window the sky is full of it but clouds are scudding south rather than west ... some weird coastal convective thing going on perhaps ... and that seems to result in it not actually snowing ! (well not in Leith anyway...).

Edit: pressure up another millibar, DP down another degree. Wind probably looking to back a bit to the north ... things are going to quieten down now. No complaints

Edited January 3, 2010 by by-tor

[mountain shadow]

Any chance you ferkers cans stop hogging all the friggins snow? My mither is snowed in in Dundee and I'm geting little englander jealousy syndrome here!!!!

[Mark H]

It totally has LOL ! We've been under 2 very bright radar returns on the last couple of showers but nowt to show for it here at least - despite it being "on top of us".

How typical is that of the Metoffice though. Situations like this, they only do knee-jerk reactive forecasting ie nowcasting ... and having reacted, they still don't do any real dilligence on the next few hours. Just a lazy extrapolation it seems like to me. Things are going quieter here so now they'll get their "forecast" wrong in the other direction now....

Makes you wonder what the hell goes on in there and how much attention to detail is really being paid sometimes...

Agree with that,dont like to knock them but the Met have been poor for us,and seem to be getting worse.

[Sunny Leith]

Yup, checking through the records , both Edinburgh and Durham reported 30 cms on Feb 11th 1978 ... so Dundee was reporting the same then ... all convective snow from NE England through to east-central Scotland. I remember that spell vividly (but enough of nostalgia...)

So my recorded 40 cms was probably measured in an area of "multi-storey flat vortex" produced snow LOL !

Wow, Dundee had 50cm of snow in Feb 1980? that is incredible... I was born in 1980 and moved to Dundee in 1999. Since I moved here, The heaviest fall i've seen is probably 15cms during my time here...

I found an article on the Dundee City Council website from the bygone news section for February 1978.

"Dundee was shakily recovering yesterday after the worst blizzard to hit the city and the East Coast in 30 years. The city was covered by a 10-12" blanket of snow. Householders undertook a variety of snow-clearing operations digging out their cars, clearing footpaths etc. Motorists appeared to have lef their cars at home except for essential journeys and because of this central streets in Dundee still carried several inches of snow."

Do you remember how Dundee fared in the Jan 1987 event? how about Feb 1991?

[Snowplough33]

Very cold this morning. Good cover from yesterdays showers afternoon and evening.

Looks like a quite day here so will be able to do family things away from this computer and not staring out the window. There will be plenty of that as we go through the week I am sure. Snow forecast on NW is the best its been with a full week predicted of uppers never higher than -8 from Monday onwards, and a dip to possible -12 late in the week or weekend. As for precip, who knows, but with those temps you can garuntee a few falls probaly everywhere. They will take care of themselfs. Some indications we may have an NE / E going for a few days later in the week which should give whole East side plus right through the Central belt good snowfall. Be interesting to see how we deal with that. Look how much snow fell from a couple of hours of low temps and convective showers late yesterday........and the best of it, no forecast of it!! .

I am sure LS will keep us updated with the finer detais of specific snow events as they are about to occur. Here is to another week of great snow watching...............

[Richard Taylor]

Good morning aII. Iight snow shwrs faIIing this morning.

[Guest]

I am sure LS will keep us updated with the finer detais of specific snow events as they are about to occur.

I think LS will have a busy week coming up then

There is starting to be some good agreement on the precip with GFS seemingly picking up the front/fronts shown on the FAX charts moving south over the next few days. To some extent the precip does the old split and miss routine round the highlands, so for anyone directly south of the mountains (i.e. me) don't hold your breath for a lot of snow. I think perhaps the further east you are then the more chance of snow, so shovels on stand-by this week for anyone east of Glasgow. That's just my take on it. With 500 temps falling very low and 850 temps also very low, who knows what will happen??

To paraphrase a weather forecaster:

At least it won't be mild.....

[Mondy]

-9C this morning

[Snowplough33]

I think LS will have a busy week coming up then

There is starting to be some good agreement on the precip with GFS seemingly picking up the front/fronts shown on the FAX charts moving south over the next few days. To some extent the precip does the old split and miss routine round the highlands, so for anyone directly south of the mountains (i.e. me) don't hold your breath for a lot of snow. I think perhaps the further east you are then the more chance of snow, so shovels on stand-by this week for anyone east of Glasgow. That's just my take on it. With 500 temps falling very low and 850 temps also very low, who knows what will happen??

To paraphrase a weather forecaster:

At least it won't be mild.....

Sure doesn't look like it will be mild

Whats your take on the wind bending somewhat to the east as the week goes on ?? Mondy, what are your thoughts too?

Edited January 3, 2010 by Snowplough33

[su rui ke]

Yup, checking through the records , both Edinburgh and Durham reported 30 cms on Feb 11th 1978 ... so Dundee was reporting the same then ... all convective snow from NE England through to east-central Scotland. I remember that spell vividly (but enough of nostalgia...)

So my recorded 40 cms was probably measured in an area of "multi-storey flat vortex" produced snow LOL !

Sawel, my 50 cm was measured in one of the highest parts of the city but I would say estimating 30 cm for the city centre on that occasion (1980) is reasonable. I was just saying, as By-tor's figures also show, that along the east coast it's quite possible to get around a foot of snow from these showers if they last more than a day or two.

In February 1987, I think there was also around 30 cm, although I had to go back to uni in Edinburgh at the weekend when it all started and before the snow had reached its maximum depth. (That was some journey back!) 1991 was not all that severe here - its fame is due to how bad it was down south - although there was snow, of course. I don't think it ever got deeper than 15-20 cm.

Back to today and its all very quiet here - literally - now that my neighbour has given up his fruitless attempt to get his car up our street!

Edited January 3, 2010 by su rui ke

[Methuselah]

Good morning, all...And a cold one!

[NorthernRab]

Ready for things to start becoming interesting once again Pete?

[Mondy]

Sure doesn't look like it will be mild

Whats your take on the wind bending somewhat to the east as the week goes on ?? Mondy, what are your thoughts too?

I make it a slack NE'ly wind (if any breeze) and bloody freezing!

[Methuselah]

Ready for things to start becoming interesting once again Pete?

I sure am, Rab!!! Sometime tomorrow??

[Gilly]

-4C at the moment.

A front coming down tomorrow afternoon will no doubt give many of us a spell of snow with following showers, but no sign of any let up over the next seven days!!

More sub zero temperatures to come I fear.

I love the snow, but roads can be quite unforgiving when the snow and slush freezes becoming rutted and icy. Burst water mains are also a real threat.

Water ways freezing over and birds are desperately looking for water to drink............ so please don't forget to put water out of the birds folks, they need water as much as food.

[Guest]

Sure doesn't look like it will be mild

Whats your take on the wind bending somewhat to the east as the week goes on ?? Mondy, what are your thoughts too?

I'm not quite sure the easterly ever really gets going for Scotland. I suppose long term it isn't important, the important development is the high retrogressing back over the UK to Greenland over a week from now. If that happens then we're back to the start of the cold spell 3 weeks ago, I think?!

[Highland Snow]

Good morning all. -11.2C last night. I will take yesterday's precipitation now, thank you.

[NorthernRab]

I sure am, Rab!!! Sometime tomorrow??

Aye!! I'm thinking of a wee Highland drive today, get some flicks of Fannich and Teallach maybe.

I wonder when the Met Office will update the warning and forecasts for Sneck and the rest of the Highlands? Oh, they won't.

[john mac]

Does anyone know how much snow the cairngorms have had, i bet it looks amazing up the there, im very jealous

[NorthernRab]

Does anyone know how much snow the cairngorms have had, i bet it looks amazing up the there, im very jealous

Cairngorm mountain has about 120cm of snow, with drifting up to 160cm.