Scottish Cold Spell Discussion 19:

[blitzen]

Gulp! Anyone watching the 18zs?

[Cheggers]

Gulp! Anyone watching the 18zs?

Yep you can here the salivating down south from here :lol:

Not that I know too much but some serious mild V cold maybe about to encroch upon us!

Edited January 14, 2010 by Cheggers

[LomondSnowstorm]

Hi everyone, also wanted to add how much I've enjoyed reading (and sometimes posting on) this friendly and informative thread. It really is incredible to think that this cold spell has been going from the 17th of Dec.

My favourite bit of info/moment was when I logged in late on the 22nd of Dec to read that there was something brewing in the North Sea that looked like hitting east central Scotland early the next morning. There had been no Meto warning given out for this, and when I looked out the next morning around 6.30am I was greeted with near white-out conditions !

Well done everybody, cheers

Same! That was an incredible morning, not least because I went to bed at 2 and it was dry, woke up at 6 and looked at the lampost to see what looked like rain, but stepped outside to find heavy snow falling and 6 inches on the ground. The other major event was the 26th/27th which was incredibly marginal but we still ended up with a further 5 inches. Lot's of minor events here, with plenty of major ones across the rest of the country too. It is really incredible to think that we've had the same snowfall here as some parts of northeastern Scotland get in even a decent winter like last one - and still feel hard done by because of lack of snow!

Anymore is surely a bonus after this, and yet it's still not looking mild in the medium term!

Apologies to all who've had to endure my endless wittering in this spell, it's just been so exciting!!!

Looking forward to the continuation of the thread!!

LS

[Mondy]

NEWSFLASH

Mondy will be mod - you have been warned

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I is joking

Edited January 14, 2010 by Mondy

[blitzen]

NEWSFLASH

Mondy will be mod - you have been warned

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Oh! I thought you were already! :o :lol:

Edited January 14, 2010 by Blitzen

[Polar Side]

Same! That was an incredible morning, not least because I went to bed at 2 and it was dry, woke up at 6 and looked at the lampost to see what looked like rain, but stepped outside to find heavy snow falling and 6 inches on the ground. The other major event was the 26th/27th which was incredibly marginal but we still ended up with a further 5 inches. Lot's of minor events here, with plenty of major ones across the rest of the country too. It is really incredible to think that we've had the same snowfall here as some parts of northeastern Scotland get in even a decent winter like last one - and still feel hard done by because of lack of snow!

Anymore is surely a bonus after this, and yet it's still not looking mild in the medium term!

Apologies to all who've had to endure my endless wittering in this spell, it's just been so exciting!!!

Looking forward to the continuation of the thread!!

LS

Not at all LS, I've enjoyed your analysis.

The 18z looks interesting

[snowy owl]

Fab news, thanks Paul and mods.

18z well what can i say .... i will happily look forward to discussing output tomorrow - off to bed for me. Night all

[Cheggers]

Even with what looks to be improving synoptics for the coming week, MODT seems to be handbags at dawn.

Any views from our resident forecaster LS?

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

I'm back and it seems we have good news.

Yes, thanks to Paul and the mods.

Looking forward to a long term kilted thread, putting in my tuppence worth, and hopefully beating the classic picnic bench photo.

[igloo]

after nearly 4 weeks of snow on the ground it looks as if the thaw has finally arrived down here this evening temps are 2.0c i dont expect much snow left after the weekend this evenings 18z run could well have us another covering by the end of next week might not have to wait long not all bad news after all

[LomondSnowstorm]

Even with what looks to be improving synoptics for the coming week, MODT seems to be handbags at dawn.

Any views from our resident forecaster LS?

The cliche 'knife-edge' was written for this very situation. The southeasterly looks to bring cold surface air from a cold continent however uppers look to be around or only slightly below -5 (talking in terms of areas likely to see showers i.e. eastern/ southern Scotland), which means, as Shuggee will tell you, marginality. However, the rules that I feel we need to add from this spell for east central are - northerlies never deliver north of Edinburgh, northeasterlies only deliver with strong troughs but can give huge snowfalls, westerlies and southwesterlies work suprisingly well, and easterlies always deliver precipitation, but whether it is snow or not depends on, basically, how 'fresh' the cold uppers are i.e. easterlies blowing into uppers of -8 don't deliver if the source air is only -5. However -6 uppers can deliver if they have just come out of a freezing continent, as we've seen many times before. Modification tends to become more of an issue when cold air is embedded at the surface but the flow is not very cold. Obviously, it looks less cold further south, which may explain the toys being thrown around.

Anyway, after that it's all to play for, and what we really need are those lows tracking south of the UK. Given the dark blues over Greenland, we need these to keep coming to pull the block westwards, otherwise the jet will just blow the block further east. http://212.100.247.145/ecmimages/20100114/12/ecm500.168.png The teleconnections look favourable late next week, with the AO heading strongly negative again http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.sprd2.gif , and the blocking forecast posted by chionomaniac on the stratosphere thread favours the westward retrogression of the high also. But it looks like we'll be on the edge of two different airmasses for a week, which means only slight adjustments in the models can change things totally, even in a very short timeframe.

Time's almost up on this particular thread, and I may post this on the new one, but if not, night all!

LS

[Cheggers]

Thanx LS informative as ever, just need to get this weekend out the way and see what happens.

I would say that the way the models are flip flopping at he moment, the outcome will be completely differnet hic!!! different tomorrow, but Mr Fish does seem confident of the cold returning, and GP seems to think another blast by end of Jan as well.

Edited January 14, 2010 by Cheggers

[LomondSnowstorm]

Thanx LS informative as ever, just need to get this weekend out the way and see what happens.

I would say that the way the models are flip flopping at he moment, the outcome will be completely differnet hic!!! different tomorrow, but Mr Fish does seem confident of the cold returning, and GP seems to think another blast by end of Jan as well.

Mr Fish was forecasting based on yesterday's (or the day before yesterday now) charts, but I doubt his opinion will have changed too much by a bit of model flip-flopping!

[Snooz]

Thanks Paul, Admins, Mods & all other powers that be !!

And thanks LS after the model thread I came here hoping you'd done a summary for us before 12 and I find a great summary and the good news that we are to survive to chat another day..

PS: the handbags were definitely uncalled for this time, is there any wonder us lesser mortals are scared to post in there

Nite All, see you in a shiny new forum and thread

[Cheggers]

Night all, hope to catch up in new thread tomorrow evening.

[skifreak]

Well I posted a picture of the big beast of a bucket thing digging out the Ski Road on CairnGorm Mountain earlier, by dusk they had got to about 100m from the Carpark, but that is just a single track trench up the down road. Snowblowers will go in tomorrow to tidy it up and start on widening the cut.

The wind is picking up and its starting to drift again! Anyway after the Road Dig, will come the Funicular Dig:

That picture will mean more to those who know the area. The first drift across the funicular railway above the mid station is actually where the underpass is that allows skiers to get from the White Lady trail on the left to the Ski Tow on the right of the track - its 10ft from ground to underside of the funicular superstructure there!

Can you see the tunnel where the Funicular goes underground?

Oh and that blob at the top left, yes its a drift over the Top Station and Ptarmigan Restaurant. Mind boggling amount of drifting and an astronomical amount of storm recovery work required to get up and running again.

Finally for this cold spell thread if it's ending, it's clear and starry with a temperature of -3 in Inverness. Snow is crispy, white and sparkling for one last night (and the street outside needs ice skates!!).

[LomondSnowstorm]

Thanks Paul, Admins, Mods & all other powers that be !!

And thanks LS after the model thread I came here hoping you'd done a summary for us before 12 and I find a great summary and the good news that we are to survive to chat another day..

PS: the handbags were definitely uncalled for this time, is there any wonder us lesser mortals are scared to post in there

Nite All, see you in a shiny new forum and thread

Thanks, I'm off now. Tried waiting up for the new thread to paste my summary in but it's too late for me.

Hope to wake up to ECM, UKMO and GFS all showing the block about 300 miles further west and the trigger low heading east - nothing beats the build up to a snow event, except maybe the snow! Having looked at the first of these threads I found the supposed ramps to actually be fairly accurate forecasts i.e. the 'how to build an igloo' guide, which I should've sourced before attempting my monstrousity!

Night!

LS

That picture will mean more to those who know the area. The first drift across the funicular railway above the mid station is actually where the underpass is that allows skiers to get from the White Lady trail on the left to the Ski Tow on the right of the track - its 10ft from ground to underside of the funicular superstructure there!

Can you see the tunnel where the Funicular goes underground?

Oh and that blob at the top left, yes its a drift over the Top Station and Ptarmigan Restaurant. Mind boggling amount of drifting and an astronomical amount of storm recovery work required to get up and running again.

I doubt they'll be struggling for snow even into July at this rate!

AGW means the end of the ski season in Scotland? How much more snow would they have got without it?!!!

[Methuselah]

'Morning folks...

Cloudy with a fresh SE wind picking-up, 2C...

[Highland Snow]

Boots sending me to Kingussie tomorrow. Blizzards forecast for the Highlands so Drumochter could be interesting!

Temp. +2.1C and light rain.

[Stuart]

light rain here in the Scottish Borders

[blitzen]

Oops sorry!

Edited January 15, 2010 by Blitzen

[Snowplough33]

'Morning folks...

Cloudy with a fresh SE wind picking-up, 2C...

Morning Pete.

I believe there will be a "Scottish Thread" of some description being set up today I think.

Will you e able to post link before this thread is closed please, so not miss it.

Thanks.

[snowy owl]

Cairngorm mountain looks surreal!! i was there recently and i can't quite get my head around how deep these drifts are! amazing pics skifreak.

[Methuselah]

Morning Pete.

I believe there will be a "Scottish Thread" of some description being set up today I think.

Will you e able to post link before this thread is closed please, so not miss it.

Thanks.

Hi SP33...I was off sick for much of yesterday, so I don't know very-much about it...I'm sure there'll be some kink of link, though...I do enjoy the Scottish thread!

[blitzen]

In a word....Dreich! Temp:3 Dewpoint:2 Wind: ESE. Yuk!