Scotland Regional Discussion - January 14th 2013>

[Hawesy]

Snow shower passing through St Andrews just now - unlike earlier it's proper snow, not wet and sleety - probably indicative of the colder uppers feeding in.

[blitzen]

Trouble is, I don't believe a word of it. You see, all manner of charts were posted last week saying "snowmagdden" or "incoming whiteoot" when in reality very little did occur. My question is: Why should I believe theses charts this time round?

Agree with this. I for one am certainly not lifting my guard yet after the last fiasco! Too much always appears to go wrong during count down to T:0.

[Sunny Leith]

I WILL believe it.

When I see it !

Trouble is, I don't believe a word of it. You see, all manner of charts were posted last week saying "snowmagdden" or "incoming whiteoot" when in reality very little did occur. My question is: Why should I believe theses charts this time round?

[lorenzo]

This averaged ensemble mean so just for guidance, locks in the cold until the end of Jan.

06z GFS took a downward spin on the Arctic Oscillation and is keen on buidling heights in later FI, possibly an outlier, possibly onto something or very possibly just 06zGFS, but another trend to watch along with the Jet stream dying on it's derriere.

Best snow shower of this period passed through within the last hour, followed by bright clear skies.

[Snowlover2]

Local forecast for my area on sat from meto is snow midnight-midnight. I so hope we get a lot of snow but hope the roads are ok. My hubby is self employed and needs to drive from fife to Aberdeen on Monday morning :/

Edited January 15, 2013 by Snowlover2

[Guest]

Agree with this. I for one am certainly not lifting my guard yet after the last fiasco! Too much always appears to go wrong during count down to T:0.

Hi Blitzen, how are you?

Aye, I would agree with you, there have been enough let downs so far this winter, but we can only go on what the charts are showing us, anything else is wishful thinking or overly doubtful. I can take or leave a big snow event this side of Monday night as we're moving house, I could do without it being very snowy over the weekend. However, if we do get lucky I'll be as happy as the next person (soon to almost literally be SS). If we do miss out on the snow event then there is a reasonable chance that we stay cold regardless of the snowfall, it's maybe a slightly different situation to the previous let downs?

[BleakMidwinter]

To be fair, the forecasters have spent a lot of time this last week explaining that this particular set of circs makes it incredibly difficult to forecast and that the accuracy is way down from normal, as is the timescale for forecasting...

http://www.bbc.co.uk...atures/20998895

"So the cold and snowy weather is with us. But how long will its magic and mayhem last? The honest answer is that we do not know.

SSW events not only throw the atmosphere into disarray, they also present huge challenges for computer models in predicting what happens next. Normally we can be quite confident in our predictions for up to a week ahead. But not at the moment."

Edited January 15, 2013 by BleakMidwinter

[Guest]

I WILL believe it.

When I see it !

I liked this post so much I'll have it in my sig for a while, just to remind me to ask you later if you're seeing and believing :lol:

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

(soon to almost literally be SS).

We can share snaw sentry duties.

Just don't get even closer; then I'll start getting really worried.

[Hairy Celt]

I WILL believe it.

When I see it !

I'll downgrade that further to

If I see it!!

Otherwise, a lovely cold & sunny day here, same as NL as I can nearly see his house from here when it's this clear. Icy patches in the shade building nicely, garden starting to look well-frosted. Certainly a different type of wintriness to SS tho..., blow it this way please!

Edited January 15, 2013 by Hairy Celt

[daboss]

Sean Batty said an increased risk of snow for the weekend, with a wee smirk on his face.

[November13]

Yep I agree lets not get too excited until 2 hours before the snow is due. That's as good as the models have been recently. Weathermans best friend,rainfall radar,lampost and thermometer. I am watching that band crossing Eire with interest!

[spindrift1980]

Thats good. Suggestive that lower pressure/trough will indeed be to the south and west of us.

If we got the advance warning first I'd be more concerned that any low pressure to north and west would be washing us out to rain and atlantic influence pretty quickly

So all going to plan at this point !

I hope so. The Met Office's own forecast at the moment and comments in other areas of this site lead me to fear that the front will fizzle before properly reaching Scotland.

[Guest]

We can share snaw sentry duties.

Just don't get even closer; then I'll start getting really worried.

You should be very afraid

Steady snow here, the shower is quite slow moving but should be cleared through in the next twenty minutes. Not a lot of precip around so I'm lucky to be getting something. There is a shower heading straight along the Firth of Forth with a trailing leg over Fife, could hit the Falkirk area later depending on the exact track.

[over_the_rainbow]

MetO have rain for here at the weekend (sounds about right ). Still at least the ensembles etc suggest we are not getting anywhere very warm for the next little bit so lets hope some of this weather malarkey goes our way!

Warmed right up here in the sunshine 2C and has melted everything. Been out for a pootle and not anything even up craigie etc, anything white left is in the shade.

[blitzen]

Hi Blitzen, how are you?

Aye, I would agree with you, there have been enough let downs so far this winter, but we can only go on what the charts are showing us, anything else is wishful thinking or overly doubtful. I can take or leave a big snow event this side of Monday night as we're moving house, I could do without it being very snowy over the weekend. However, if we do get lucky I'll be as happy as the next person (soon to almost literally be SS). If we do miss out on the snow event then there is a reasonable chance that we stay cold regardless of the snowfall, it's maybe a slightly different situation to the previous let downs?

Hi Catch! I'm very well thanks.

Dare I say that you have just made my day....If you are moving house at the weekend, then that surely MUST guarantee blizzards! Only kidding of course! Hope the move goes well though. You must be looking forward to the prospects that go with more eh.....elevation?

[Sunny Leith]

Blob heading Embra-wards but dying on its feet by the look of it. Hey-ho.

You should be very afraid

Steady snow here, the shower is quite slow moving but should be cleared through in the next twenty minutes. Not a lot of precip around so I'm lucky to be getting something. There is a shower heading straight along the Firth of Forth with a trailing leg over Fife, could hit the Falkirk area later depending on the exact track.

[blitzen]

I think that this shot just shows why the likes of HC and some of us in the central belt are aye moanin'

[LomondSnowstorm]

You should be very afraid

Steady snow here, the shower is quite slow moving but should be cleared through in the next twenty minutes. Not a lot of precip around so I'm lucky to be getting something. There is a shower heading straight along the Firth of Forth with a trailing leg over Fife, could hit the Falkirk area later depending on the exact track.

Clouding over here but it does look to be dying out as the flow weakens.

As for the next few days, all I want to see up to Friday is the cold air remaining in place, with daytime maxima around 0-1C at most and harsh frosts at night. Any precipitation that comes might seem like a good idea but when there's such a big prize on the table for this weekend and such high potential I'd far rather we just kept the cold in rather than jeopardise future snow chances. I can't see a setup where central Scotland misses out on a lot of snow AND it turns milder, certainly not on the current charts, but there are a few analogous frontal snowfall types that we could end up with and I'll list them here:

1) The standard SSWerly breakdown. This one is perhaps the most unlikely but I wouldn't quite rule it out totally. A good example came in March 2006 when frontal snowfall brought 6+ inches of snow very widely before things turned (temporarily) milder from the west:

This is, of course, far from ideal as we would be left in much milder air and we wouldn't necessarily see identical snow totals. However, this doesn't look all that likely.

2) The stalling Southerly-Southeasterly almost undercut. Prime example of this was February 1996, which delivered masses of snow and kept us in colder air for a good time afterwards:

This would be a decent and plausible solution similar to the GFS whereby we have a very snowy stalemate. A clear advantage is that we would maintain a largely cool-cold continental feed rather than a localised maritime feed and thus the milder air would have to travel right up the spine of Britain to get to us. However, there are better outcomes on the table still.

3) The proper undercut. If the strength of the Atlantic wanes and the fronts move further south, this kind of setup (with a 'wedge' rather than a Greenland high) could still be plausible, though very likely watered down.

Easterly or ESErly blizzards from convective showers with the fronts staying to the south for me would be the ideal setup and would maintain the cold air while bringing a likely countrywide snowfall.

4) This is one that gives many east coasters nightmares about marginal uppers and short fetch easterlies and make them seriously upping sticks to Cumbernauld or East Kilbride. We get an easterly flow, and relatively cold uppers remain, but the flow off the east coast turns everything steadily to mush while everywhere west of about Perth and Livingston is a winter wonderland.

This is an entirely plausible option, but the difference is that we have heights to the northeast this time so any flow sufficiently east for coastal marginality is likely to have a continental fetch and therefore have more resilient uppers. I think if we'd stayed at -6C we might have just gotten away with it but it rose to -5C by mid morning and from there on in it was a sleety mess. Obviously still snowy for the central belt.

I'm sure there are other options, like a slightly further south December 1978 where we end up with a slacker but cold easterly, along with a whole host of others, but these are the most common analogous ones that come to mind.

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

I think that this shot just shows why the likes of HC and some of us in the central belt are aye moanin'

I can see fort SS!

Aye, had some clients fly in to Edinburgh from England and Norway yesterday for a meeting and they were all commenting on how impressive the snaw looked from the air.

[101_North]

Thanks LS. The March 2006 event still gives me nightmares. The west and most of the central belt plastered with snow but by the time it reached here I remember West Edinburgh getting a few cm at best! I think that was the event whihc led to people in Glasgow spending the night in clubs as the snow was so bad there was no transport home.

[spindrift1980]

I managed to get a taxi out of Glasgow city centre on that Saturday night in March 2006 just in the nick of time - loads of thick fluffy snow cover the next day but it was largely gone by the Monday.

The February 1996 snow was very enjoyable - gave a good healthy covering to the Glasgow area and lasted for a good while - would happily take a repeat of that!

[GraemeB]

Was it Dec 99 around Xmas that dumped a huge amount of snow on central Glasgow ? Seem to remember never having seen that much fall in a city centre before !

[November13]

Surprised no-one has commented. Well done Strachan we are right behind you. I just hope you can sort Scotland out!

[Kayemill]

Was it Dec 99 around Xmas that dumped a huge amount of snow on central Glasgow ? Seem to remember never having seen that much fall in a city centre before !

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/2000/Rrea00120001228.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/2000/Rrea00120001229.gif

Think this was it. We had 18" of level snow!