Scottish Cold Spell Discussion 19:

[Allyw12]

Morning,

Alot of our snow has gone over night, it was +3.5 when I got up, its now +2.8, I thought is was to get milder It's a bit strange looking out the window and not seeing snow . Fingers crossed we all get at least one more good dump of snow before the end of winter .

Edited January 16, 2010 by Allyw12

[Snowplough33]

06z GSF looking like "close but no cigar". At some points the beast is like half way across the North Sea, so plenty chance of a shift west.........I hope

Edited January 16, 2010 by Snowplough33

[Ross B]

Thats our long lasting snow and ice cover pretty much gone! Only a few slithers of ice and some brown snow piles left :lol:

[Snooz]

Morning All, A lot gone here too, still big piles though, higher up behind the house on the other side of the trees which is directly exposed to the SE it's very green and our wooded area is saturated.. the neighbours weather station is situated there and recorded a wind gust of 47KTs earlier 4am.. and is still averaging 23kts. In other words real windy.. and is also pouring with rain.

Our and many front gardens still have total snow cover - it's west facing and is sheltered from the winds - and though the rain is trying it's best to remove it, don't think it's moving too far yet.. which is not a bad sign re: the old wifies tale that it could be waiting around for some more :lol:

Worse.. tree branches came down and snapped our Sky cable :lol: small child not amused so DH & I got well and truly soaked and froze our fingers off temporarily rejoining it.. not a pleasant day out there at all!!

[Guest]

Worse.. tree branches came down and snapped our Sky cable :lol: small child not amused so DH & I got well and truly soaked and froze our fingers off temporarily rejoining it.. not a pleasant day out there at all!!

I hope the wee one appreciated your efforts!! Thankfully we just stick to council telly, if the wee ones get bored they have plenty of DVDs. We'd never see the telly if we had Sky :lol:

Pretty wet here too, although the wind didn't ever stir up to much last night. It never does here in a southerly gale. A sneaky wee part of me hopes the polar vortex sets up over Greenland and the high sinks south-west into Europe so that we get a very Atlantic dominated late January with fierce windstorms.

Edited January 16, 2010 by CatchMyDrift

[Hairy Celt]

Overnight max of 9.9C. Not much left around here now, hills and fields only white in patches now.

[skifreak]

Yesterday evening the snow was firming up despite +6[c] in Inverness, but then the wind well and truly got up and it's the classic hairdrier effect. Sizable patches of green opened up overnight, 6inches of compacted snow on the shed roof gone overnight. The Hogmanay Snowman who suffered the indignity of the wind blowing it's head off last night, has been on a crash diet overnight!

Still the FL only got close to not above the Summits of the Cairngorms, snow got rain soaked lower down, very wet snow mid-mountian, good for base building as a re-freeze followed in quickly with it back below -3[c] at the Summit of CairnGorm and 0[c] on the lower slopes. From the radar should have been 6-10inches of snow on the upper parts and still more drifting. Road Crew have a nightmare, their now practically blowing concrete with the snow blowers!

Nevis Range had 18 inches fresh on the upper mountain overnight.

[LadyPakal]

What a revolting day!!!

Was woken in the night by what appears to have been next doors tv aerial & old sky dish ladning on my patio. Frightened the s*** out of me. String gusty wind & heavy rain now - roads are awash.

Was thinking - we've had 'Ice Age', now 'Ice Ace: The Meltdown', we going to be seeing dinosaurs next...?

[snowy owl]

Well smow has has real shift today, lots of ice left on our wee road though - hope it goes soon!

Still looks like things can change for next week. will be keeping a close eye on progress over the weekend methinks.

Sky is black at one side and sunny at the other! and i have to go out - think i better take a raincoat!lol!

[LadyPakal]

The River Dee is really quite high today - combination of melt water & rain I guess.

[Guest]

The River Dee is really quite high today - combination of melt water & rain I guess.

Some flood watches and flood warnings out across Scotland:

http://apps.sepa.org.uk/Floodwarnings/default.aspx

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Surprisingly, it is not that warm here; 2.2 C. I was expecting much higher Ts. Apparently, I'm still in a cold spell!

Thaw continues, but plenty of snow still on the ground. The bands of heavy rain seem to have largely missed here, splitting to leave a gap over us as they passed, so I guess that has helped.

[howham]

Wet and windy. Temperature has been falling from an overnight high of 6.1C and is down to 3.4C. Still snow in the garden though!

[Blizzardo]

Early Met Office warning out for South West Scotland for Wednesday for heavy snow that gives an indication that its not a straighforward situation this week of the Atlantic pushing in and blowing away the block to the North East.

Sometimes a knife edge situation can produce the heaviest snowfall i.e. when a relatively warm moist air meets cold dry air and it would be nice to get a rain to snow situation this week.

It still looks to me thats there is a reasonable chance of the cold air from the North East pushing back towards us but even if not there is a lot of cold air to our North West that might soon come into play.

Loads of possibilities, more cold than mild.

Edited January 16, 2010 by Blizzardo

[LadyPakal]

River is getting really high and fast now and there is lots of ice being washed down from upstream. At least the rain has eased off now and the radar doesn't sugest much more to come.

Edited January 16, 2010 by LadyPakal

[Cheggers]

Was expecting worse today, still lots of ice about but wind and rain minor by comparison. Currently 5.3 and very grey but feels a lot colder. Not much in the way of white stuff around Glasgow today, been both sides of the river.

Got this from the dark side for those that don't like to venture there... interesting read.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8462890.stm

[Northernlights]

Remaining snow is starting to firm up as air temperature is 2c, skies clearing and the wind has died away. The countryside still looks white here.

[Norrance]

Bee colder than I expected today [3.3C currently] but the rain washed away a lot of the remaining snow and ice last night. Only piles and patches in sheltered areas left plus a bit of ice here and there.

For Aberfeldy where I visited my folks this morning there is still a good cover but now slushy after the rain. Good for a day or two more I would expect. Lots of surface water about as I suspect there is everywhere away from the higher hills.

Shame the football was off in Perth due to a waterlogged pitch with the club having put so much effort in to getting the pitch cleared of snow and ice. Missed a chance to jump up the league a good bit. :lol:

[Mondy]

Currently 1c here. What's all this talk of mild?

Edited January 16, 2010 by Mondy

[Allyw12]

Evening all

Really suprised with tonights, temp it's been around +3 most of the day, But noticed it has been dropping steadily the past few hours it's now 0.6. I though temps were going to be alot higher??

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Currently 1c here. What's all this talk of mild?

Agreed. I'm still waiting for the end of the cold spell.

While it has been thawing slowly now for quite some time, temps have hardly been 'mild' and the landscape remains white. 6" still lying in the garden and only 1 C right now.

I can't see all the snow having gone before some more arrives. We're only mid January.

Mild for me is when the jet is tracking to the north of the Scotland and places reach the mid teens when a particularly warm sector swings over. That kind of weather was what killed skiing in scotland from the late 90's to late 00's; a base could never form as a big dump was followed by 'tropical' conditions. Has not happened the last few years and if anything, things have been getting progressively colder/snowier.

As far as I can see, the big band of rain today mainly fell as snow in the ski areas, albeit a little wet at times, although this should have the benefit of reducing drifting problems and firming the base.

Some tantalising prospects for late next week emerging... All to play for I feel; I'm certainly not convinced that we're suddenly going to go hard into a mild wet winter that we became used to over the last decade.

[LomondSnowstorm]

Hi all. Not sure what I can really add to last night's summary, other than the option of cold zonality looks to have become the favourite in the medium term. This means a similar pattern to mid January last year and also January 1993 i.e. lots of snow for northwestern areas and high ground, fairly cold everywhere with temperatures mainly between 0 and 5C and the possibility of big frontal snow events for some, though these are always going to be marginal away from high ground and possibily low ground further north. Western coasts are always going to struggle to see much cold and snow from these situations, with central areas and inland eastern areas probably favoured to see more cold and snow, though frosts are likely to be intermittent and less harsh due to the constant threat from atlantic lows.

Anyway, the first potential snow event here appears to be Tuesday night/Wednesday, as a shortwave tracks east, bringing in a temporary colder continental feed along with precipitation.

http://www.wetterzen...ics/Rukm961.gif

At this stage it looks a bit unfavourable for most, with dewpoints a bit above freezing for most, though note the bitter siberian air lurking just to our east:

The extent of the cold air across us varies widely, as does the timing of the precipitation arriving, so it's really going to be a case of waiting until it comes into the 36 hour period so we can use the NMM model. There is a similar event on Thursday as the low moves east but in this instance the cooler uppers are moving out ahead of the front, therefore if the first event doesn't produce at least snowfall, the second one cannot as the colder air only moves in as the first band moves through (though colder surface air is likely across inland Scotland on Wednesday night this would be unlikely to cause snowfall from the second band). It may not be the most spectacular even in light of the rest of this winter but in previous years we would be genuinely excited, or at least interested, about the possibility of an event like this.

There's nothing very warm after that, with uppers around -3 and lows staying just to our northwest and shortwaves forming to our south, though these look unlikely to do anything other than aid the trough to move eastwards.

http://www.wetterzen...cs/Recm1441.gif

http://www.meteogrou...thgt850_144.png

By next week, the trough looks set to move southeastwards, bringing milder air in, though potentially followed by an arctic blast, or even a more sustained northerly depending on heights to our northwest.

http://212.100.247.1.../ecm500.216.png

(Note that these charts are very unlikely to pan out, but are indications of plausible outcomes in the longer term).

http://charts.netwea...264/h500slp.png

http://charts.netwea...300/h500slp.png

Most of these involve the trough relocating in some form to Scandi as many have suggested, giving a colder north/northeasterly flow, with height rises to the west occuring behind, though whether an Azores high or a north atlantic/ridging north high is also up in the air:

http://212.100.247.1...c70f686cd615d2b;

http://212.100.247.1...c70f686cd615d2b;

It still doesn't look like getting that much above average though that's for sure!

LS

edit: Just thought I'd add this 'hot off the press' FAX chart which brings the 528 dam line tantalisingly close to eastern Scotland:

http://www.meteociel.fr/ukmo/fax/fax96s.gif

LS

Edited January 16, 2010 by LomondSnowstorm

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Hi all. Not sure what I can really add to last night's summary, other than the option of cold zonality looks to have become the favourite in the medium term. This means a similar pattern to mid January last year and also January 1993 i.e. lots of snow for northwestern areas and high ground, fairly cold everywhere with temperatures mainly between 0 and 5C and the possibility of big frontal snow events for some, though these are always going to be marginal away from high ground and possibily low ground further north. Western coasts are always going to struggle to see much cold and snow from these situations, with central areas and inland eastern areas probably favoured to see more cold and snow, though frosts are likely to be intermittent and less harsh due to the constant threat from atlantic lows.

Anyway, the first potential snow event here appears to be Tuesday night/Wednesday, as a shortwave tracks east, bringing in a temporary colder continental feed along with precipitation.

http://www.wetterzen...ics/Rukm961.gif

At this stage it looks a bit unfavourable for most, with dewpoints a bit above freezing for most, though note the bitter siberian air lurking just to our east:

The extent of the cold air across us varies widely, as does the timing of the precipitation arriving, so it's really going to be a case of waiting until it comes into the 36 hour period so we can use the NMM model. There is a similar event on Thursday as the low moves east but in this instance the cooler uppers are moving out ahead of the front, therefore if the first event doesn't produce at least snowfall, the second one cannot as the colder air only moves in as the first band moves through (though colder surface air is likely across inland Scotland on Wednesday night this would be unlikely to cause snowfall from the second band). It may not be the most spectacular even in light of the rest of this winter but in previous years we would be genuinely excited, or at least interested, about the possibility of an event like this.

There's nothing very warm after that, with uppers around -3 and lows staying just to our northwest and shortwaves forming to our south, though these look unlikely to do anything other than aid the trough to move eastwards.

http://www.wetterzen...cs/Recm1441.gif

http://www.meteogrou...thgt850_144.png

By next week, the trough looks set to move southeastwards, bringing milder air in, though potentially followed by an arctic blast, or even a more sustained northerly depending on heights to our northwest.

http://212.100.247.1.../ecm500.216.png

(Note that these charts are very unlikely to pan out, but are indications of plausible outcomes in the longer term).

http://charts.netwea...264/h500slp.png

http://charts.netwea...300/h500slp.png

Most of these involve the trough relocating in some form to Scandi as many have suggested, giving a colder north/northeasterly flow, with height rises to the west occuring behind, though whether an Azores high or a north atlantic/ridging north high is also up in the air:

http://212.100.247.1...c70f686cd615d2b;

http://212.100.247.1...c70f686cd615d2b;

It still doesn't look like getting that much above average though that's for sure!

LS

edit: Just thought I'd add this 'hot off the press' FAX chart which brings the 528 dam line tantalisingly close to eastern Scotland:

http://www.meteociel.../fax/fax96s.gif

LS

Thanks for these summaries LSS; seems you can consider yourself resident scottish model summariser. Certainly colder zonality with the option for a few freezing interludes is prefered to a bartlet high and 10 C plus daily maxes (typed whilst touching wood).

[LomondSnowstorm]

Thanks for these summaries LSS; seems you can consider yourself resident scottish model summariser. Certainly colder zonality with the option for a few freezing interludes is prefered to a bartlet high and 10 C plus daily maxes (typed whilst touching wood).

Very much so. Glacier Point has just done a very nice summary on the expert thread which I'd advice you to read, which basically seems to back up the idea of the second FI chart I posted more than the first.

edit: Having re-read the post I'm a bit unsure if the above is the case at all! But he thinks we should be looking northeast for the cold.

LS

Edited January 16, 2010 by LomondSnowstorm

[Cheggers]

Interesting read from GP. Currently 1.8 here which is way off what Met predicted, ice around now very slippery, Forth and Clyde canal still frozen over between Bonnybridge and Allendale but wouldn't want to chance walking on it.

just looked at the 18z and it would seem that the cold air to our east seems to be encroaching ever closer with each run, albeit only slightly. Whether it will make it this far is another matter, but time will tell.