scotland Scotland - Alba Regional Discussion 20/03/13 21z ------>

[spindrift1980]

One of my own photos of Culter Fell ,near Biggar, yesterday. Not quite on the scale of the massive drifts shown on the news recently, but still managed to walk over the top of one gate and fence on a drift of 4 feet or so!

[Blizzardo]

Convection off the North Sea is slowly increasing. Looks promising.

[Poots]

Light snizzle here all day so far with a biting wind. WS is saying 2c windchill -2c, but it feels so much colder.

[Buriedundersnow]

had a few showers on and off all morning nothing of note that would settle but atleast the flakes are bigger today so gives me some hope if we can see something heavier later on

[Methuselah]

Stunning deep blue sky this morning!!

Your snow-shield must be almost as efficient as mine!

[Polar Gael]

Snawgrains on and off here through the morning and still raw, though a wee bit less windy than it was over the weekend.

Mainly grey though - which is getting a bit dull.

Currently 1.9ºC/-5ºC and enough snow falling to build a tidy nano-snawman.

Of course, it could be a lot worse. At least we're not looking at this. Yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

'Mon the Big Yellow Warm Thing!!! You know you want to!!!

[lorenzo]

Cannae beat getting all your work done in a morning and sneaking a half day - especially with Friday off due to Easter. Now a 2.5 day week ! Ha !

Pepperpot and icing sugar showers visible up and down the east coast. Little grains of snow here and there , as yet nothing substantial, here are our now common place Sc cloud sheets, they really are a pain in the proverbials - the bringer of dull, cold, greyness and graupel. Although looking at radar a little intensification for the very North East corner of the country, perhaps more of the coast will see the same this afternoon..

Last night spent a wee bit of time plotting and here are March to date temp anomalies for the last few years, prepare for a barrage of charts..

2013 first of all and instantly exceptional in comparison to recent history, especially considering the 2 stunning Winters of recent years.

Then over the last decade or so, 2006 stands out as having a similar anomaly - yet 2013 looks much deeper in terms of the depth of cold.

2012 / 2011 / 2010 / 2009

2008 / 2007 / 2006 / 2005

2004

Also, some notable others..first the Daddy of them all..( 63 not 47 as 47 not available on dataset).

Then a few more March sets that followed a Stratospheric warming in January.

1955 / 1968 / 1971

1987 / 1999

Here you can see a better pattern fit akin to where we are now.The 2013 re-analysis speaks for itself, an amazing set up for March and given recent years pretty noteworthy, fingers crossed for some heavier showers into this afternoon.

[Buriedundersnow]

just thought i would post this as there may be people in here who think the sun is having an affect on our weather and if the sun really is driving things lately as is thought that it does during periods of low activity then it could be good news for all those looking for cold and snow in the winter.

predictions for the next solar cycle have been made and they are predicting a max smoothed sunspot average of just 5 and that is really low i think this solar cycle the smoothed average so far is 66 and unless we see some major activity it wont be shifting far from there.

[Big Innes Madori]

Snawgrains on and off here through the morning and still raw, though a wee bit less windy than it was over the weekend.

Mainly grey though - which is getting a bit dull.

Currently 1.9ºC/-5ºC and enough snow falling to build a tidy nano-snawman.

Of course, it could be a lot worse. At least we're not looking at this. Yet. http://en.wikipedia....ithout_a_Summer

'Mon the Big Yellow Warm Thing!!! You know you want to!!!

Eh, last year wiz a year withoot a fkn summer PG

Big Innes

[Polar Gael]

just thought i would post this as there may be people in here who think the sun is having an affect on our weather and if the sun really is driving things lately as is thought that it does during periods of low activity then it could be good news for all those looking for cold and snow in the winter.

predictions for the next solar cycle have been made and they are predicting a max smoothed sunspot average of just 5 and that is really low i think this solar cycle the smoothed average so far is 66 and unless we see some major activity it wont be shifting far from there.

The sun is and remains very quiet just now and you're spot on, it is 'solar maximum' and it's been a low one. Further dips are forecast. The other thing that is intriguing me is whether the increased Arctic sea ice melt is having any impact on our winters.

It does look like there's been a step change to our seasons since c.2007 and I doubt we're done yet.

[Matty M]

The SC sheet is becoming a bit more clumpy with cloud tops increasing slightly, also there seems to be some taller clouds exiting Denmark with a sign of some slightly deeper convection.

[Polar Gael]

Eh, last year wiz a year withoot a fkn summer PG

Big Innes

Mibbe! Course, given that's Bonnie Scotia's lot most years, we should be well equipped for it...

Edited March 25, 2013 by Polar Gael

[Glaswegianblizzard]

Can't believe what's happening on Arran. Looks mental over there.

Any more predicted for the Glasgow are this week?

[Buriedundersnow]

The sun is and remains very quiet just now and you're spot on, it is 'solar maximum' and it's been a low one. Further dips are forecast. The other thing that is intriguing me is whether the increased Arctic sea ice melt is having any impact on our winters.

It does look like there's been a step change to our seasons since c.2007 and I doubt we're done yet.

i have read and looked through qiute alot of things and there is some thoughts that the sea ice melt is contributing to the colder winters as with more melt in the summer that is allowing the sea temps there to rise and more evaporation from the sea up there as winter kicks in and the waters start to cool which in turn is adding more moisture to the atmosphere which aids in early winter snow cover across the northern hemisphere.

would add aswell i'm sure i read somewhere that it might be helping with SSW's aswell as there is a thinking that early big snow cover can help with the onset of SSW'S

Can't believe what's happening on Arran. Looks mental over there.

Any more predicted for the Glasgow are this week?

doesnt look like much around u might catch a shower or two but no frontal snow on the horizon

Edited March 25, 2013 by Buriedundersnow

[lorenzo]

The SC sheet is becoming a bit more clumpy with cloud tops increasing slightly, also there seems to be some taller clouds exiting Denmark with a sign of some slightly deeper convection.

Close to heavier showers here now, where are you viewing the cloud tops Matty?

[LomondSnowstorm]

I was just thinking that, with the low sunspot activity and the NH blocking pattern in its current state, a major volcanic eruption would be utterly devastating to society and agriculture in particular in the temperate latitudes. At the moment it's not awful because we still have most of the growing season left for temperatures to recover to average (mid April switch around to warmth is forecast at the moment) but after the string of wet summers and the cold late winter any particularly below average spells temperature and sunshine wise will be felt far more acutely than would otherwise be the case.

[Blizzardo]

Close to heavier showers here now, where are you viewing the cloud tops Matty?

During the week I've generally just got phone access and I use the weather pro app. On that if you click satellite I find it gives a good view of cloud types. From that I noticed earlier the clouds moving into North East and similar moving out from Denmark area.

[101_North]

During the week I've generally just got phone access and I use the weather pro app. On that if you click satellite I find it gives a good view of cloud types. From that I noticed earlier the clouds moving into North East and similar moving out from Denmark area.

I use the same app. Very useful. This sites also handy:

http://www.sat24.com/en/gb

[Buriedundersnow]

I was just thinking that, with the low sunspot activity and the NH blocking pattern in its current state, a major volcanic eruption would be utterly devastating to society and agriculture in particular in the temperate latitudes. At the moment it's not awful because we still have most of the growing season left for temperatures to recover to average (mid April switch around to warmth is forecast at the moment) but after the string of wet summers and the cold late winter any particularly below average spells temperature and sunshine wise will be felt far more acutely than would otherwise be the case.

i think we will prob see a wetter summer again this year cos if u look back through history during periods of climate change it is mostly felt here in northwest europe and in eastern asia and that has to be down to northern blocking diverting low pressure systems into areas they dont usaully visit all that often.

i've wanted to say this for a few weeks now but people will probably think i am a little crazy.

we are in a period of climate change there is no doubt about that but i really think there is a couple of things we really need to keep an eye on in the coming years while we pour over the charts and that would be near permenant disruption of the polar vortex and either a real weakening of the northern jet year round or possibly the northern arm disapearing all together.

[jon_d1983]

what effects would there be then BUS if that happened?

[Buriedundersnow]

bbc weather just said we could see showers coming in from the east intensify over night but nothing disruptive

[Polar Gael]

I was just thinking that, with the low sunspot activity and the NH blocking pattern in its current state, a major volcanic eruption would be utterly devastating to society and agriculture in particular in the temperate latitudes. At the moment it's not awful because we still have most of the growing season left for temperatures to recover to average (mid April switch around to warmth is forecast at the moment) but after the string of wet summers and the cold late winter any particularly below average spells temperature and sunshine wise will be felt far more acutely than would otherwise be the case.

Agreed. Hence, I hope we don't see anything like that which preceded 1816!

We'd have nothing super-economy value burgers to eat, but the ski centres would be open all year round*.

*assuming they could get the access roads cleared...

Edited March 25, 2013 by Polar Gael

[Polar Gael]

Could always be much worse than grey cold skies with snizzle.......we could be in cyprus

Heard from a friend there that they are struggling to get fuel at petrol stations theres people at ATMs trying to get as much money as possible out even though its futile and generally its a mess.

Cyprus 'solution' is EU Orwellian speak for theft. Let the global looting begin...

Back on topic: still cauld.

[Buriedundersnow]

what effects would there be then BUS if that happened?

general cooling.

the reason i came up with this is when u look at the last period of cooling when they say the sun was quiet i think the summer england average was only around 6c and the only way we can get those kind of averages during summer is through periods of northern blocking and we need the polar vortex to be disrupted to allow this to happen.

the jet thing is just a thought of mine and dont really have anything to back it up.

[tempestwatch]

Agreed. Hence, I hope we don't see anything like that which preceded 1816!

We'd have nothing super-economy value burgers to eat, but the ski centres would be open all year round*.

Well with the pacific in its cold phase and the Atlantic due for a cold switch in the coming 5-10 years we could have a generally colder scenario liken to the 1970's. Model watching would be very interesting, even more so than the last 4 years

*assuming they could get the access roads cleared...