Scotland Regional Discussion - Cold Spell Part 2

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Makes you wonder if this is political more than anything else:

http://iceagenow.inf...ial-gas-crisis/

Nope. It's a real problem. EDIT. I mean the current europe supply problems, not an imminent ice age! :winky:

Hence when doing up the old farm cottage I live in, we opted for super-insulated with off peak electric + a coal fire. Gas and heating oil prices are going to continue going up....

Ridiculous in Scotland given we export 90% of what is produced here. When at St. Fergus consulting for TOTAL it's incredible watching the flow meters (££££££/s); ~25% of UK gas comes ashore there alone.

Edited February 6, 2012 by scottish skier

[Mr Frost]

If the UKMO/GFS 12z 's are anything to go by it could be a long time before we see any lowland snow again.

I am now looking forward to Winter 2012/13!

Let's hope it won't be a repeat of this one! (This has been a truly abysmal winter)

Edited February 6, 2012 by Mr Frost

[A Winter's Tale]

I've got to say that February is looking like a big fail! Everyone said that the winter would start rubbish and get better, well in actual fact it started off fantasticly and got worse as it progressed. But, it's been a decent winter - not a harsh one - but more than satisfactory with another brilliant December on the snow front - some interesting spells of weather in January and some snow falls but disapointing in the sense of proper lying snow - some cold towards the end was nice, February - decent for cold and sunshine but looks set to be an almost snowless month.

For the third year running, December is the best month for winter weather and February is the poorest. On the otherhand, the models may change and it's only the 6th of February and whatever happens this month won't dent the fact that this winter has been decent but I'd rather see a balance in winter weather. One decent snowfall with proper lying snow in January would have made for a fantastic month considering the storms and the great frosty spells - and another in February would be nice but having almost two months since the last decent snowfall is very disapointing for winter. Now if winter fails, then hopefully that Azores High and PV will disapear for March resulting in greater chances for great snowfalls and winter weather aswell as the other things that Spring brings.

But in this moment in time, despite the fact that this winter has been succesful in having more than one decent cold/snow spells (sometimes akin to the last few winters) in my favourite time for snowy weather, the disapointing thing is the Big Failure of a February as it looks set to be the poorest month of the winter compared to the fantastic start. All this talk about wait for February, patience, backgroung signals has been a real let down - but thank god that December was good and it's success has made winter a little bit more than acceptable and there is a Spring next which will have more oppurtunities for winter weather aswell as Spring stuff.

Hope I'm wrong about February being a let down.

[Isolated Frost]

I've got to say that February is looking like a big fail! Everyone said that the winter would start rubbish and get better, well in actual fact it started off fantasticly and got worse as it progressed. But, it's been a decent winter - not a harsh one - but more than satisfactory with another brilliant December on the snow front - some interesting spells of weather in January and some snow falls but disapointing in the sense of proper lying snow - some cold towards the end was nice, February - decent for cold and sunshine but looks set to be an almost snowless month.

For the third year running, December is the best month for winter weather and February is the poorest. On the otherhand, the models may change and it's only the 6th of February and whatever happens this month won't dent the fact that this winter has been decent but I'd rather see a balance in winter weather. One decent snowfall with proper lying snow in January would have made for a fantastic month considering the storms and the great frosty spells - and another in February would be nice but having almost two months since the last decent snowfall is very disapointing for winter. Now if winter fails, then hopefully that Azores High and PV will disapear for March resulting in greater chances for great snowfalls and winter weather aswell as the other things that Spring brings.

But in this moment in time, despite the fact that this winter has been succesful in having more than one decent cold/snow spells (sometimes akin to the last few winters) in my favourite time for snowy weather, the disapointing thing is the Big Failure of a February as it looks set to be the poorest month of the winter compared to the fantastic start. All this talk about wait for February, patience, backgroung signals has been a real let down - but thank god that December was good and it's success has made winter a little bit more than acceptable and there is a Spring next which will have more oppurtunities for winter weather aswell as Spring stuff.

Hope I'm wrong about February being a let down.

Feb looks bad?? We are only on the 6th?? God man! Picture looking very promising for a very cold February.

[Severe Siberian icy blast]

I've got to say that February is looking like a big fail! Everyone said that the winter would start rubbish and get better, well in actual fact it started off fantasticly and got worse as it progressed. But, it's been a decent winter - not a harsh one - but more than satisfactory with another brilliant December on the snow front - some interesting spells of weather in January and some snow falls but disapointing in the sense of proper lying snow - some cold towards the end was nice, February - decent for cold and sunshine but looks set to be an almost snowless month.

For the third year running, December is the best month for winter weather and February is the poorest. On the otherhand, the models may change and it's only the 6th of February and whatever happens this month won't dent the fact that this winter has been decent but I'd rather see a balance in winter weather. One decent snowfall with proper lying snow in January would have made for a fantastic month considering the storms and the great frosty spells - and another in February would be nice but having almost two months since the last decent snowfall is very disapointing for winter. Now if winter fails, then hopefully that Azores High and PV will disapear for March resulting in greater chances for great snowfalls and winter weather aswell as the other things that Spring brings.

But in this moment in time, despite the fact that this winter has been succesful in having more than one decent cold/snow spells (sometimes akin to the last few winters) in my favourite time for snowy weather, the disapointing thing is the Big Failure of a February as it looks set to be the poorest month of the winter compared to the fantastic start. All this talk about wait for February, patience, backgroung signals has been a real let down - but thank god that December was good and it's success has made winter a little bit more than acceptable and there is a Spring next which will have more oppurtunities for winter weather aswell as Spring stuff.

Hope I'm wrong about February being a let down.

O my goodness its only the 6th isnt it?! The charts are having a wobble, they done this two wks ago just before the cold spell to suddenly pick the trend back up at a much nearer time frame, i think by mid wk things will look a lot better again .

[A Winter's Tale]

Feb looks bad?? We are only on the 6th?? God man! Picture looking very promising for a very cold February.

I said that:

"I've got to say that February is looking like a big fail! Everyone said that the winter would start rubbish and get better, well in actual fact it started off fantasticly and got worse as it progressed. But, it's been a decent winter - not a harsh one - but more than satisfactory with another brilliant December on the snow front - some interesting spells of weather in January and some snow falls but disapointing in the sense of proper lying snow - some cold towards the end was nice, February - decent for cold and sunshine but looks set to be an almost snowless month.

For the third year running, December is the best month for winter weather and February is the poorest. On the otherhand, the models may change and it's only the 6th of February and whatever happens this month won't dent the fact that this winter has been decent but I'd rather see a balance in winter weather. One decent snowfall with proper lying snow in January would have made for a fantastic month considering the storms and the great frosty spells - and another in February would be nice but having almost two months since the last decent snowfall is very disapointing for winter. Now if winter fails, then hopefully that Azores High and PV will disapear for March resulting in greater chances for great snowfalls and winter weather aswell as the other things that Spring brings.

But in this moment in time, despite the fact that this winter has been succesful in having more than one decent cold/snow spells (sometimes akin to the last few winters) in my favourite time for snowy weather, the disapointing thing is the Big Failure of a February as it looks set to be the poorest month of the winter compared to the fantastic start. All this talk about wait for February, patience, backgroung signals has been a real let down - but thank god that December was good and it's success has made winter a little bit more than acceptable and there is a Spring next which will have more oppurtunities for winter weather aswell as Spring stuff.

Hope I'm wrong about February being a let down."

I would love to have confidence that the background signals will be right but I won't be convinced until the model outlook improves and the met office outlook too! I'm no expert to models and to whether they are having a wobble or not and I don't know how background signals work. Still learning here - "ignorance is biss" - lol

Greetings from Scotland/Alba

Edited February 6, 2012 by Campsie Snow Storm

[Hawesy]

Just back from Amsterdam at the weekend where I was treated to three days of fine winter weather: a 3" snowfall on Friday and subzero temps throughout. City looked great with the canals frozen up.

Meanwhile, back here I've heard unconfirmed reports that there may have been a sighting of a rogue snowflake in Crail on Saturday but can't be sure....it would have been the first of the winter. One thing remains for certain and that's that there has been no lying snow here this winter.

[Cheggers]

Good grief CSS, you sound like a Depeche Mode single. I think NL has touched on it in the past, we are far enough North that cold snowy weather is possible right into late April. Nights maybe getting longer, but the temperature certainly ain't. -2C here already, with a lot lower later in he week, and may persist for a while longer. After this who knows, but it has made for some good weather watching.

Just chill, enjoy the banter, and continue your learning curve as you have made some good contributions with your new knowledge thus far.

[blitzen]

Much happier with the ECM tonight. PV doesn't look nearly as all consuming. I think we shall see more changes in the right direction within the next couple of days. Comparisons of 850s first from 00zs ECM:

Now from 12z ECM:

Certainly a lot of cold air out to the east.

Edited February 6, 2012 by Blitzen

[A Winter's Tale]

Good grief CSS, you sound like a Depeche Mode single. I think NL has touched on it in the past, we are far enough North that cold snowy weather is possible right into late April. Nights maybe getting longer, but the temperature certainly ain't. -2C here already, with a lot lower later in he week, and may persist for a while longer. After this who knows, but it has made for some good weather watching.

Just chill, enjoy the banter, and continue your learning curve as you have made some good contributions with your new knowledge thus far.

Haha! Yes, my post above was a bit of an emotional roller-coster with some sensible optimistic points to the OTT. I think it's best that I stick to my more sensible and realistic posts instead of the frustrated and out of context ones. :blush:

I do see that there are tentitive improvements in the model output and it does seem that they have gone a bit wacko recently with a PV reforming and disapearing within the space of 12 hrs. That does prove that FI is beyone 96hrs and perhaps those background signals are more than worth-while to rely on for a good quality output in general.

In life it isn't best to throw your toys at the pram and have hissy fits and feel frustrated - best to be as optimistic as possible. But god, the last week or two of model watching has felt like watching Scotland trying to qualfiy for a major footballing championship or our Boys playing in the 6 Nations.

I do believe that my more active involvement of reading and taking part in the model thread since October has done me no good and I think I was better off back last winter when I always stayed in here and read what everyone had to say about the models - rather than the emotional strain I've had to face in the past few months of seeing the models changing and reading winters over posts - which till now I've sounded like a broken record in saying no need to be negative Read my winter blogs to see my gradual slide from optimistic to pessimistic during the winter -

Anyway, that's enough of the emotional explanation as a result of being drawn into Model Watching - Let's see what the weather's doing:

Very foggy and cold in Glasgow today and got frozen at lunch. I see that most of the country is well below freezing!

[A Winter's Tale]

Please ignore my earlier post and focus on the more valid things in bold - I'm a bit embarresed of letting all that frustrated and immotive energy out in one go.

Been on a bit of an emotional roller coster today - here's my post from earlier and the bits in bold are the sensible things - everything else is probably just a bit of immotive energy released by a sudden surge of frustration - lol!:

I've got to say that February is looking like a big fail! Everyone said that the winter would start rubbish and get better, well in actual fact it started off fantasticly and got worse as it progressed. But, it's been a decent winter - not a harsh one - but more than satisfactory with another brilliant December on the snow front - some interesting spells of weather in January and some snow falls but disapointing in the sense of proper lying snow - some cold towards the end was nice, February - decent for cold and sunshine but looks set to be an almost snowless month.

For the third year running, December is the best month for winter weather and February is the poorest. On the otherhand, the models may change and it's only the 6th of February and whatever happens this month won't dent the fact that this winter has been decent but I'd rather see a balance in winter weather. One decent snowfall with proper lying snow in January would have made for a fantastic month considering the storms and the great frosty spells - and another in February would be nice but having almost two months since the last decent snowfall is very disapointing for winter. Now if winter fails, then hopefully that Azores High and PV will disapear for March resulting in greater chances for great snowfalls and winter weather aswell as the other things that Spring brings.

But in this moment in time, despite the fact that this winter has been succesful in having more than one decent cold/snow spells (sometimes akin to the last few winters) in my favourite time for snowy weather, the disapointing thing is the Big Failure of a February as it looks set to be the poorest month of the winter compared to the fantastic start. All this talk about wait for February, patience, backgroung signals has been a real let down - but thank god that December was good and it's success has made winter a little bit more than acceptable and there is a Spring next which will have more oppurtunities for winter weather aswell as Spring stuff.

Hope I'm wrong about February being a let down.

[spindrift1980]

Fairly dense fog here too. Although not great for lowland snow (so far!) this winter has at least provided a good range of different weather types.

[Hairy Celt]

I like the 'ignorance is biss' part meself...

The firth has been stunning today, lovely shades of blue then the sunset colours and it looked like it was on fire... oh god it's that song again - well at least it's not Baker Street now!

I have Blitzen's optimism too, with all that cold floating around, sooner or later it'll waft over here.

[blitzen]

Well HC, with me being the oldest codger on this thread (I think) it used to be a toss up between Gilly and I, you do become aware of your own micro climate. As I said earlier, when ice hangs around, even with our highs of 5.6c today, then usually what happens is it just sits there or increases until there is a snowfall. Not all of my garden is in shade, and the sun got to most of it today but it is all still there. Dunno, but I do think there is going to be a big turn-a-round by the models soon, once they get to grips. Then again, I could land up with a huge amount of egg on my face. Which wouldn't be the first time!

Edited February 6, 2012 by Blitzen

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Much happier with the ECM tonight. PV doesn't look nearly as all consuming. I think we shall see more changes in the right direction within the next couple of days. Comparisons of 850s first from 00zs ECM:

Certainly a lot of cold air out to the east.

You subbing for LSS now Blitzen?

LSS - watch out, you've got competition. :lol:

EDIT. Lots of surviving snow patches here too in the shade. Snowman still alive in the gairden but starting to look a little drunk.

Edited February 6, 2012 by scottish skier

[su rui ke]

So far it's one of the most snowless winters ever (well in the past 40 years or so) here. There have been some brief snow falls but no 'snow lying' days - or did I miss one?

It's still been quite an interesting winter though. I wonder how the sunshine total compares to the average - I suspect it's quite high.

[LomondSnowstorm]

Models still in a bit of a transitory phase, i.e. wildly fluctuating between zonal and amplified. At least the rot of the absurdly strong PV has disappeared, and I doubt it'll return - it simply wasn't plausible. That's not to say we're in the clear because there are other ways we can end up on the wrong side of even an amplified pattern but at least we're in with a fighting chance now.

http://cdn.nwstatic.co.uk/gfsimages/gfs.20120206/12/102/h500slp.png

A bit more amplification of the pattern from that and we could end up here: http://cdn.nwstatic.co.uk/gfsimages/gfs.20120206/12/102/h500slp.png

And from there the month would write itself http://cdn.nwstatic.co.uk/gfsimages/gfs.20120206/06/312/h500slp.png

The ECM again looks more promising for height rises to the northwest http://cdn.nwstatic.co.uk/ecmimages/20120206/12/ecm500.144.png

Nice looking NAEFS parallel run too

I remain convinced that a Greenland high will set up in the next 10 days, the charts may not be fully onboard but the are far from horrendous.

So far it's one of the most snowless winters ever (well in the past 40 years or so) here. There have been some brief snow falls but no 'snow lying' days - or did I miss one?

It's still been quite an interesting winter though. I wonder how the sunshine total compares to the average - I suspect it's quite high.

I think you're probably right, we had two in December from a dusting from showers pushing through overnight from the west but that was about it. Not technically a snow lying day but we did have another dusting on Saturday around midday before the warm sector got us.

[blitzen]

You subbing for LSS now Blitzen?

Git!...

Just to pi55 you off..... Here are some interesting pictures. (If you have'nt already seen them) Jeez I got a fright when I came to the one which looked as if someone was trapped under the ice!! Turned out it was a woman looking out of a window! Really creepy!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096402/Rome-snow-Colosseum-closes-drivers-abandon-cars.html

Edited February 6, 2012 by Blitzen

[Guest]

I like the 'ignorance is biss' part meself...

The firth has been stunning today, lovely shades of blue then the sunset colours and it looked like it was on fire... oh god it's that song again - well at least it's not Baker Street now!

I have Blitzen's optimism too, with all that cold floating around, sooner or later it'll waft over here.

It's got to come this way eventually...you'd think rofl

[LomondSnowstorm]

Well HC, with me being the oldest codger on this thread (I think) it used to be a toss up between Gilly and I, you do become aware of your own micro climate. As I said earlier, when ice hangs around, even with our highs of 5.6c today, then usually what happens is it just sits there or increases until there is a snowfall. Not all of my garden is in shade, and the sun got to most of it today but it is all still there. Dunno, but I do think there is going to be a big turn-a-round by the models soon, once they get to grips. Then again, I could land up with a huge amount of egg on my face. Which wouldn't be the first time!

We've all ended up with egg on our face at one point or another this winter so I wouldn't worry about it!

I think you're right though, the cold air is quite well embedded across the east even without snow cover widely, so it will be tough to shift at the surface. I feel it's only a matter of time before we get a decent cold/snowy spell. March 2006 and late February 2005 are recent examples of this and though I hope we won't have to wait that long again I'd still take a spell of that kind of severity.

[Hairy Celt]

Just to pi55 you off..... Here are some interesting pictures. (If you have'nt already seen them) Jeez I got a fright when I came to the one which looked as if someone was trapped under the ice!! Turned out it was a woman looking out of a window! Really creepy!

http://www.dailymail...andon-cars.html

Wtf? Daily toilet paper being linked here, you'll get the naughty step for that!

[blitzen]

Wtf? Daily toilet paper being linked here, you'll get the naughty step for that!

I agree about the toilet paper HC but I liked the pics. Just lets you see what is going on over there. I really feel a bit ashamed for wishing for something like that here as clearly many people are suffering. Especially the further east you go.

[LomondSnowstorm]

I agree about the toilet paper HC but I liked the pics. Just lets you see what is going on over there. I really feel a bit ashamed for wishing for something like that here as clearly many people are suffering. Especially the further east you go.

I must say the DM is quite good for covering snowfall in random places (and toilet roll). I was particularly drawn to the Majorca snow photo, though I do find the 'Uruguay' grafitti in the background a bit mystifying!

[Hairy Celt]

Well it won't win me any prizes but it gives you an idea of my late afternoon potter...

Edited February 6, 2012 by Hairy Celt

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Wtf? Daily toilet paper being linked here, you'll get the naughty step for that!

Och come on.

It's like a book for bairns - lots of lovely pics and very simple language. :winky:

My 4 year old likes it, although she has questioned me about its apparent right-wing political bias...

Well it won't win me any prizes but it gives you an idea of my late afternoon potter...

HC for best 'Sunset over Moray Firth' pic Feb 2012!

Got my vote.

Edited February 6, 2012 by scottish skier