Scotland Regional Discussion

[Hairy Celt]

Mild and windy this morning after overnight rain,currently 12.4c and sun breaking through.Correct decision made to keep cows and calves out as bedding inside cattle was a very warm job this morning. Sudden changes in temperature not good for man or animals.

Spoke to a joiner this morning who said he was hoping to lay foundations for a new house in December. Told him he might have to wait till spring,he didn"t believe me!!!!

Quite a few Highland folk are going for a mild wet winter, based on what, god alone knows. Their Great Aunt Jessie's tits liking coconuts to indicate the imminent appearance of a Bartlett. Possibly.

And yes, some heavy rain in the small hours to wake us up by bouncing off the windows; brightening now though.

[Cheggers]

What an absolutely gash wet day. Blowing a hoolie, and flooding an issue in a lot of places.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20391296

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Their Great Aunt Jessie's tits liking coconuts to indicate the imminent appearance of a Bartlett.

I did say birds were crucial in winter predictions. I'm assuming that's what you meant anyway.

[Hairy Celt]

I did say birds were crucial [...]

Indeed. Especially Great Aunt Jessie.

[LomondSnowstorm]

That ECM at +168 is looking quite a pretty sight in itself:

[LomondSnowstorm]

And finishes very strongly too:

Looks like a bit of a slow burner but if we were going into the start of December with that kind of base set up I would be ecstatic. Just look at the greens across the pole and the yellows starting to build into Greenland.

Looks a bit similar to this right?

[LomondSnowstorm]

Some other slow burners for comparison:

November 2010:

Nothing really special there, uppers across the continent certainly nothing to write home about. However, 7 days later:

12th December 2009:

9 days later:

Moral of the story? Look at the bigger picture. In both of those instances there were major clues to what was likely to come next even though in both instances the real cold was initially progged about a week earlier than what materialised. That's not to say it will work out well for us this time, just that the building blocks are there once again.

Edited November 19, 2012 by LomondSnowstorm

[Northern Strath]

A 9 degree swing in temperature from this time last night, currently 10.3C. A dreich start to the day developed in to a mild and meh November's day all round. So bring on the cold, let's hope these building blocks build something tasty!

Edited November 19, 2012 by Northern Strath

[Shadow]

Its 11.2 here, having to have the back door open as its way too hot indoors. Would be nice to just have a bit of cold but dry. Not looking forward to the winds midweek.

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Some other slow burners for comparison:

......

Moral of the story? Look at the bigger picture. In both of those instances there were major clues to what was likely to come next even though in both instances the real cold was initially progged about a week earlier than what materialised. That's not to say it will work out well for us this time, just that the building blocks are there once again.

So is it time for this sort of thing?

(Starring NL - at a cinema near you).

Or are we still at this stage?

EDIT.

Here's the video. Weirdly funny (part of a BMW advertising campaign apparently).

Edited November 19, 2012 by scottish skier

[LomondSnowstorm]

So is it time for this sort of thing?

(Starring NL - at a cinema near you).

Or are we still at this stage?

EDIT.

Here's the video. Weirdly funny (part of a BMW advertising campaign apparently).

You do find the most obscure things on the internet.

In reply, I think a fairly small but effective ramp is called for at the moment:

Best keeping the German (or it could be Dutch actually) agricultural ramps for when the 10,000 cars get there:

The day of that chart was a veritable Oktoberfest of ramping.

[LomondSnowstorm]

Having said that, Stewart(Glacier Point) seems to have been on a massive ramp for the last fortnight, suggesting that we could be looking at a very negative NAO establishing and dominating and intensifying through into January.

However, EUROSIP, an agglomeration of long range models, apparently tells a very different story, one of a +NAO and mild winter. While it may be true that weather models within 5 days are generally speaking (with the exception of convective snowfalls from easterlies of course) more accurate than simply extrapolating from the current data, at the seasonal level human brains combined with a growing volume of historical data and more reliable oscillation forecasts has still proven more effective than simply taking the model output at face value. If this winter finally sees the models catching up with the fantastic insight of people such as Stewart and Ed(CHiono)then that would represent a giant leap forward for meteorology, though not exactly a happy one for snow lovers. Regardless, the current ECM 32 dayer apparently contradicts this somewhat and gives high confidence in high latitude blocking for the next month, so another reason to keep on ramping.

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Having said that, Stewart(Glacier Point) seems to have been on a massive ramp for the last fortnight

Aye, a brief incursion into the model thread earlier and I saw his latest post. Sounds confident.

Something interesting to watch anyway.

[snowy owl]

Very interesting M Thread discussions. Looks like in 7 days we would be much colder and then some potential. Plenty to watch and learn. Loving it, also enjoying the fact i have time to do a little bit of model watching this week. New Part time job has its perks )

Hope you are all well, its nice to be back.

[lorenzo]

This pretty much sums up the trend - what a difference a week makes Resident trough not just lifted out.. 'tis vanished in a Block Party.

Pub run has got it's dartboard out in lower resolution. GFS winding up lows ! Crazy looking chunk of Canadian vortex at 276..!!

[Coast]

Scottish flooding: Flood warnings remain in place after heavy rain

A number of flood warnings are in place after heavy rain and flooding caused disruption across Scotland. There are 11 flood warnings in force on Tuesday morning - 10 in Tayside and one at Whitesands in Dumfries.

Tayside Police said there were still some pockets of water in the Perthshire village of Comrie, where about 100 homes faced a flood risk on Monday. A Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) spokesman said the same areas would see more rain on Tuesday. Some Comrie residents were evacuated when the river Ruchil burst its banks on Monday. Two rest centres were set up.

The village was badly flooded in August, when the river previously burst its banks. In the Bridge of Earn and Forteviot areas, there is concern some small water courses which run into the Tay could burst their banks. Marc Becker, from Sepa, said: "Following yesterday's flooding which affected many central and southern parts of the country, we are expecting a further band of rain to move north eastwards this morning. "We are not expecting this rain to be as heavy or persistent as yesterday's rainfall, it should move through fairly quickly, but given the existing high river levels and saturated ground conditions, further localised flooding may well be experienced. "This rain fall will be moving through peak travel times so some travel disruption may be expected as well."

About 30 officers from Perth and Kinross Council were deployed to Comrie on Monday and a number of them remained in the area overnight. Elsewhere, an estimated 100-150 tons of debris fell at the Rest and Be Thankful section of the A83 in Argyll where torrential rainfall blocked the drainage system, causing severe flooding on the road surface. The landslip closed the road for the fifth time in five years, but later reopened.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20405763

[Hairy Celt]

Dull with cloudy interludes; moderately mild and somewhat breezy but not too windy. Blimey.

Later...

Edited November 20, 2012 by Hairy Celt

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

In the meantime, I found the whole 'ramp' (spoof) documentary.

If you have a weird sense of humour like me, you might enjoy it.

http://vimeo.com/5512573

Edited November 20, 2012 by scottish skier

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

12Z GFS shows blocking right out, although T850s still on the high side. Good potential pattern change though...

ECM looking interesting. Out to T168 right now, rest by 7.00 pm of course:

ECM similar story to the GFS with blocking the name of the game.

T216

with colder air creeping around it in from scandi by T240

Certainly more interesting model watching than of late!

Edited November 20, 2012 by scottish skier

[Northern Strath]

Enjoyed the vid SS, sort of a 'Christopher Guest does the Wickerman' vibe about it More amusing than the weather here anyway. A dull day with a maximum of 12.8C, very mild indeed. Currently 8.9C. Not looking forward to the wind and rain forecast for tonight. Any hints toward a period of cold coming our way are all the more alluring given the banality of the weather at present.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Northern Strath

[lorenzo]

Nice viewing on the ECM run this evening, always feels a little better when it's on board..

Although no clear huge lump of freezing cold air mass to tap straight into, you can just see the uppers cooling off at the tail end of the ECM run, that euro warmth being slowly eroded.

Nice big fat -5 attached to the NE coast of Scotland like a flag

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Although no clear huge lump of freezing cold air mass to tap straight into, you can just see the uppers cooling off at the tail end of the ECM run, that euro warmth being slowly eroded.

From Reykjavik to Helsinki and beyond!

[LomondSnowstorm]

Quite a nice looking pub run tonight, and more critically the ensembles are still very keen on positive height anomalies over southern Greenland and low heights over continental Europe:

Nothing dramatic has changed since last night and the evolution still looks on, the issue of uppers will be addressed when the models are actually in a reliable time frame but just to give you an idea of how much things change from shallow FI to verification take a look at the uppers from the GFS ten days before the November 2010 easterly kicked off:

Not bad, but bear in mind that in all of those instances those were pretty much the coldest frames of the entire run. What actually happened:

Now those four runs were impressive in their accuracy from that kind of range but even so the difference between shallow and deep cold for us is so small that it's not worth worrying about where we get the uppers from until we get into a reliable timeframe. Most likely this would be synoptically similar to the +240 - +288 part of the pub run and the operationals do have a habit of getting the details wrong at this range, especially when we're looking at a 'pattern change'.

All in all, a relatively stress free day, though I guarantee you that the MT will have at least 2 more proper TOORPing spells before we get the full picture.

[lorenzo]

That CPC chart is an absolute peach !

[Cheggers]

If you no able to sleep... http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/Europe.html