Scotland Regional Discussion 4th January 2013>

[tempestwatch]

Our latitude is probably a good thing in the longer term though, especially when atlantic fronts start knocking on the door from the south. Most likely we're looking at some kind of easterly still for the weekend onwards and most likely remaining cold but whether we can get retrogression to Greenland or a strengthening of the Scandinavian ridge or some kind of messy Atlantic return for a time is hard to say. Still a massive deep cold signal for the end of the month though whatever happens after this coming cold spell.

I agree, the indications are looking stronger for a deeper more sustained cold period for the end of the month lets hope there are not too many down grades beforehand. I am always wary of where the PV ends up as it is so important as to whether we get deep cold or not. Fingers and everything else crossed we will be downloding more satelite photos of a white Britain before winters end.

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Snaw.

[NUT]

Snaw.

Look at that big blob oot to the north sea. That would be fun if it came across us!

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Mair snaw fir SS,CMD et al.

Nice enough run into FI too

Attempts at heights to the NW again on this one.

Edited January 7, 2013 by scottish skier

[LomondSnowstorm]

Mair snaw fir SS,CMD et al.

Nice enough run into FI too

Attempts at heights to the NW again on this one.

Interesting, that's the second GFS run today to bring in a second easterly in around 8-10 days time, even with some synoptics which look on paper to be less than inspiring the upper cold pool is pretty much sub -4C throughout high resolution (after the cold arrives initially)

UKMO gives similar to the GFS at +120 but brings in a mid latitude block at +144:

Common feature? Fairly potent surface cold...

[blitzen]

Encouraging run. Liked IF's statement on the MOD that the SSW ISN'T showing up in the charts yet. The weekend outlook, if it materialises, could be a nice little bonus then. I do hope that the models start to settle down soon and that this run is not yet another taunt! I am starting to suffer from model fatigue!

[Soaring Hawk]

Off on a tangent here but can any new members or longer term lurkers pop up a post today, we don't bite and you can't do worse than some of us on here, including myself, chief kilted spammer that I am Normal rules of not keeping on topic if at all possible apply (i.e. anything goes, just ask Hairy Celt )

Happy New Year to you all!

Oh it’s a joy to be back in the sacrosanctity and saneness of this Scottish thread! I confess I strayed (into the MT) and am now in need of a strong single malt or three.

Well, we went home and I would like to talk about the proud warrior nation, that comprises my Outlaws, complaining about the English b***tards in Government in London but they were cowed into silence. Depressed, dulled silence.

It rained.

It rained the entire journey up the M74.

It rained the entire time we were there.

It not only rained the entire time we were soggily seeping around the Southside; it hurled itself with the intensity of The Three Furies at the windows and kept Himself and I, softened by our exile Down South, twitchily awake and stunned with fatigue for 4 out of the 5 nights we were confined to our Ten Foot Apart Single Beds in the guest room.

Even my sleep deprivation-induced nastily provocative “it must be the English at Faslane firing missiles at Holyrood to see the New Year in†in response to the older Outlaws’ “what on earth are they†– (Chinese Lanterns, just after the bells, wheeching across from West to East at about 170 mph) was met with indifference and no comment.

I think the last 13 months of constant rain has finally pushed them over the edge. For their sanity I fervently hope this does indeed happen…….

[BurntFishTrousers]

Nice...Holiday?

A wee Winter break after the Xmas break

[LomondSnowstorm]

Possibly the best shorter range ensembles we've seen this winter:

Huge scatter past the 14th but very few of them show a mild or even an average setup at the surface and the mean averages 0C once the initial cold arrives:

[BurntFishTrousers]

O/T (as requested). I shot this short vid in July this year about 250 miles off the coast of NYC. Decided to upload to YT as I wonder if anyone can hazard a guess as to the height of the Cb cloud? I know some of the monster Cbs can reach almost 60000ft, so..?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgqDAXVK0PA

Edited January 7, 2013 by BurntFishTrousers

[Snowplough33]

I'm just about to play catch up in the MT.

I see that Ian makes some reference to the fact that this cooling over the next few days is not likely related to the SSW and that's not likely to appear till 10d. (This puts end to various posts from last night). Curious, not IMBY, but perhaps in terms of UK / Europe, what are the possible outcomes????? What are the possible options that MAY materialise end on the January ? Of course at this stage it's speculation, and everything's still on the table, but Exeter must have ideas ???

Thoughts from the specialists would be of great interest. Not looking for a ramp, genuinely interested.

[Norrance]

I'm just about to play catch up in the MT.

I see that Ian makes some reference to the fact that this cooling over the next few days is not likely related to the SSW and that's not likely to appear till 10d. (This puts end to various posts from last night). Curious, not IMBY, but perhaps in terms of UK / Europe, what are the possible outcomes????? What are the possible options that MAY materialise end on the January ? Of course at this stage it's speculation, and everything's still on the table, but Exeter must have ideas ???

Thoughts from the specialists would be of great interest. Not looking for a ramp, genuinely interested.

Don't go there[mt]. There is some real pish being spouted in there atm, even more than usual.

[LomondSnowstorm]

Don't go there[mt]. There is some real pish being spouted in there atm, even more than usual.

Yes, yet again another one run showing a poor setup past +144 is taken too seriously by some. Not exactly what we want to see but to be honest the ECM has been just as poor as the other two big models in the last few days and so the longer term uncertainty continues. Still some kind of easterly on the cards though in all models, pretty slack for here by the time the big uppers appear but still with the potential for convective snowfall and still the chance of a longer lived cold spell.

[A Winter's Tale]

What a grey, dark and wet day it has been here. Thank goodness it'll turn brighter and colder this week and I wouldn't rule out some wintry precipitation affecting parts of the country come the weekend. Some b******s tonight in the model thread and as LSS says, some people are taking charts beyond 5 days too seriously. Another thing that needs to be stressed, whatever the synoptics are within the next 5-10 days or so, they won't be a direct result of the true tropospheric effects of the SSW and some of the interest in appearing in the models around this coming weekend is not the conclusive effects of the SSW. Fergieweather and GP I think have both stressed how it'll be much further down the line that we see the full tropospheric effects. Anyway, no matter if we get the beasterly that some folks crave for, or instead some surface cold for the weekend, then it will certainly make a nice change from what we've seen so far this month and it would be great to have some frosty conditions for the first time since just before mid-December.

[November13]

Well I am so glad that the countdown to the cool weather starts at 3pm tomorrow. This mild weather is driving all my work colleagues mad.Our office is in winter mode but the outside temperature is causing us to overheat as the thermostat is set at 21c. This is fine when outside it's cold. However anything above 11c and we start to melt like the witch in the wizard of oz. Or it could be that we are all on a downer from the first day back after the holidays. Or it could be me being crabbit all day as I got stuck in a 3 car pile up in Castlecary!! Aghh!

[LomondSnowstorm]

I'm just about to play catch up in the MT.

I see that Ian makes some reference to the fact that this cooling over the next few days is not likely related to the SSW and that's not likely to appear till 10d. (This puts end to various posts from last night). Curious, not IMBY, but perhaps in terms of UK / Europe, what are the possible outcomes????? What are the possible options that MAY materialise end on the January ? Of course at this stage it's speculation, and everything's still on the table, but Exeter must have ideas ???

Thoughts from the specialists would be of great interest. Not looking for a ramp, genuinely interested.

Hmm, not all that many good examples of total vortex shredding, but potentially something along the lines of this:

Vortex feeding through Russia into the European continent, strong Arctic heights ridging somewhere to the north of us, secondary vortex chunk over the US, pretty much worldwide reverse zonality. Specifics a bit up in the air of course and you need to avoid being unlucky with the blocking but it could be something very special. Also, somewhere would be likely to see a proper cold wave, not just with the usual deep cold and snow but with the vortex setting up over them. In December 2009 we had a smallish fragment of the vortex sitting over us for a few days but at this time of year with the cold pooling we'd be looking at genuine Arctic temperatures wherever that landed, though more severe over the continent of course. For example the above chart gave sub -30C temperatures to Chicago with -60C windchill and saw sub zero temperatures making it into central Florida.

I think we maybe saw the first sniff of something along those lines at the very end of the 00Z GFS run:

[lorenzo]

JMA is certainly worth a run through tonight east coast getting served a pool of -10C uppers at 144.

This then turning to a more Northerly influence at 192hrs.

ECM then JMA

Will be a fun evening seeing what NOAA analysis make of the current myriad of solutions and of course again where that operational run from ECM lives among the ensembles, would tend to agree with the thoughts that it is again in the milder cluster of runs in respect of the recent Ens H5 charts.

Still on track for SNAW at the weekend..

[BleakMidwinter]

the tendency for some to latch onto a fantastic looking chart way, way beyond the point of reliability and then to be despondent when it changes a day or two later is just baffling.

See, this is where living in Scotland gives us the edge over the rest of the weather-watching snow-lovers - we get practice by supporting the Scotland rugby side. We're so familiar with that keen, eager, desperate hope being raised, looking so possible, even likely and then... nope, it's gone, nothing, we lose...

Then when the incredible does happen and Andy Nicol holds up the Calcutta Cup with blood dripping down his chin, we enjoy it all the more!

Thus, when we do get the major snow, or even any decent snow, or let's face it two snowflakes in the same hour at one lamp-post, we celebrate wildly - but when the snaw disnae fa', we don't get all morose and glum over it, let alone TOORPing...

[Snowplough33]

Thanks very much for that LS.

Really quite fascinating. Lets hope we land fortunate. There must be pretty good background signals for something to be pending.

Great fun to watch anyway.

Still reminisce the first night the cold air arrived in December 2010 (i think) from the east with the Thundersnow and bright pink sky. :-)

Snowporn

Edited January 7, 2013 by Snowplough33

[LomondSnowstorm]

JMA is certainly worth a run through tonight east coast getting served a pool of -10C uppers at 144.

This then turning to a more Northerly influence at 192hrs.

ECM then JMA

Will be a fun evening seeing what NOAA analysis make of the current myriad of solutions and of course again where that operational run from ECM lives among the ensembles, would tend to agree with the thoughts that it is again in the milder cluster of runs in respect of the recent Ens H5 charts.

Still on track for SNAW at the weekend..

That's a lovely run, about as clean an evolution as I've seen from any of the models. Doesn't make it right unfortunately.

There was a trend today to leave residual energy over Iceland which is a bit unfortunate, the best of the big models so far today was the GFS 00Z which chucked pretty much the whole lot under the block and cleared it into the continent.

There are alternative though, including what the JMA and to an extent UKMO show, with ridging from Azores to Scandinavia either prolonging the easterly or bringing in a UK type high to eventually retrogress. The other good possibility is to allow the Icelandic trough to develop but with a ridge across the mid Atlantic which will eventually head northwards towards Iceland/Greenland with the trough sinking southeastwards, a la the 12Z GFS. The only scenario I can see where the Atlantic comes back in involves the erosion of heights in the mid-north Atlantic and the low to the west phasing with the Icelandic trough, which is precisely what the ECM does. It's an outside solution of course for the moment but that doesn't mean it's wrong of course.

Shorter term looks quite good though, very slight northwards adjustments for optimal positioning perhaps still, on face value most runs favour some snaw over the weekend. I've got a funny feeling we're going to be glued to the NMM and NAE from Thursday onwards.

[Norrance]

Thanks very much for that LS.

Really quite fascinating. Lets hope we land fortunate. There must be pretty good background signals for something to be pending.

Great fun to watch anyway.

Still reminisce the first night the cold air arrived in December 2010 (i think) from the east with the Thundersnow and bright pink sky. :-)

Snowporn

28th november it was. A day to remember.😊

[Allyw12]

28th november it was. A day to remember.������

It was Norrance, I remember the pink sky & getting woken up by the thundersnow at 5am I hope I get the chance to experience thundersnow again in my lifetime but I think the 28 Nov 2010 was a one in 20/30 years event.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Allyw12

[Snowplough33]

It was Norrance, I remember the pink sky & getting woken up by the thundersnow at 5am I hope I get the chance to experience again in my lifetime but I think the 28 Nov 2010 was a one in 20/30 years event.

That night was particularly disturbed but there were quite a few Thundersnow showers followed during that cold spell. It's a more common event than you think when we have convective conditions and low uppers.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Snowplough33

[karimac]

My god is anyone else actually roasting??? Ive got all the windows open! Its actually difficult to believe that its ever gonna get cold, let alone see some snaw! Tropical glenrothes in january, whodve thought?

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Death by chocolate snaw. Muh ha ha

No bad pub run.

http://cdn.nwstatic..../h850t850eu.png

Liking the pincer movement :-)

http://cdn.nwstatic..../h850t850eu.png

Edited January 7, 2013 by scottish skier