Scotland/Alba weather discussion - Jan 2021 onwards

[Hairy Celt]

7 hours ago, 101_North said:

Not changed this naysayers mood much 

As a consolation, should it go mammaries verticus here, there should be plenty of decent photos being posted! 

Still looks like a sleety mess (at best) on the coast. 

[101_North]

1 hour ago, Polar Side said:

Ok, that’s my ramp over. Probably jinxed it for me and 101 now.

I'm already checking your old posts, working out exactly which bit of Currie I can hunt you down in 

[Hairy Celt]

49 minutes ago, Blitzen said:

pot-noodle-mens-subli-tee-FRONT_640x640.webp 48.55 kB · 2 downloads

Not clicking on that, the potential for grossness is fair to middling, Ms Blitzen.

[Polar Side]

15 minutes ago, 101_North said:

I'm already checking your old posts, working out exactly which bit of Currie I can hunt you down in 

Sorry about that, no sooner than I had posted a little ramp, Mr. Frost came along with his Ukmo model and poured cold water all over it.

[101_North]

2 minutes ago, Polar Side said:

Sorry about that, no sooner than I had posted a little ramp, Mr. Frost came along with his Ukmo model and poured cold water all over it.

All to play for! We'd have less chance if we sat under a warning and the Met were ramping it up

[Polar Side]

2 minutes ago, 101_North said:

All to play for! We'd have less chance if we sat under a warning and the Met were ramping it up

True, still in the game plus BBC are still ramping.  

 

[Stormeh]

Stuck in work so can’t really catch up with the latest posts until later but it’s good to see the thread is busy. Hopefully a memorable snow event for some of us this week

[metallikat34]

I am not enthused looking at the latest ensemble snowfall output. The majority of the ECMWF 12Z ensemble members show some snowfall in Edinburgh, which is good news. But the numbers have skewed low. Likely a reflection of the more suppressed nature of the storm center. 

[Eastern Scotland WX]

ICON suggests the risk of potentially significant snow across central and eastern Scotland Wednesday night but very little tomorrow night. By tomorrow we should have a much clearer picture on what to expect. 

[Polar Side]

8 minutes ago, Mr Frost said:

@Polar Side Don’t worry - has been wrong a couple of times this month already! 

As always - radar watching/looking out the window the best bet!
I was walking through two/three inches of snowfall here the other day up at 140 meters...which wasn’t even forecast by anyone! 

Nice example below of the warm and cold air boundary colliding...

Wednesday 01:00 snapshots:

 

Could be anything for you higher ground Currie guys! Heavy rain, sleet or snowfall! 

@shuggee is that you under the heavy snowfall!? My geography might be wrong! 

No worries mate, all to play for.

[aggy]

Im Absolutely not getting my hopes up for the nauld . Staying away from all charts and forecasts and I’ll just now cast . Canny cope with the disappointment 

[metallikat34]

4 minutes ago, metallikat34 said:

I am not enthused looking at the latest ensemble snowfall output. The majority of the ECMWF 12Z ensemble members show some snowfall in Edinburgh, which is good news. But the numbers have skewed low. Likely a reflection of the more suppressed nature of the storm center. 

Jeez. Unless I am reading this wrong, the GFS ensembles continue to be feast or famine with low level snow.

 

[edo]

1 hour ago, asjmcguire said:

As I've been out of the weather circles for a bit, because of the previously given reason - I just wanted to ask a quick question. Have the various lockdowns, restrictions and grounding of flights - had a noticeable impact on the accuracy of the weather models?

Yes I read an article on this recently, and it links to an old netweather debate that happens every year at Xmas about the models struggle because less data available. 

Apparently there is far less data from flights now but better than it was and the data received on a normal day in these times is now comparable to xmas data in normal times. 

So the short answer is yes covid has affected the amount of data if the article was correct.

 Somebody posted it in the model thread a few weeks ago.

[LomondSnowstorm]

Hi folks, apologies for a relatively lengthy absence there despite some pretty interesting weather (a couple of modest snowfalls here in Coatbridge before a quick thaw the second time). The upcoming potential (I'll leave it at that for now) has got me intrigued though, and it's very difficult to say quite where we're heading.

I think I'll leave a full summary until tomorrow, because we're really looking at a massive range of outcomes for most of us with both a foot of snow and completely dry entirely possible, away from the immediate coast, but so much depends on the timing, placement and angle of the low that is really impossible to pin down even at this range.

The most recent ICON, which generally tracks with the ECMWF, has slightly lower totals than the mammoth amounts we saw on the (synoptically pretty similar) 12Z for southern Scotland but with more for Fife:

We saw some level of convergence between the UKMO and other models as far as the placement goes, but as was previously posted the UKV is categorically not playing ball, bringing everything much further north much earlier and, while giving some snowfall chances tomorrow night further east, really doesn't see anything on Wednesday night.

It will be interesting to see how the Met Office responds if there's no convergence between their modelling and the ECMWF/GFS - I'd imagine tomorrow night is something like a yellow warning for ice and snow for the Borders up to maybe Fife, but beyond that it would seem to be quite incredible if we have some divergence between the TV forecasts and the Met Office warnings.

The UKV is an excellent model, so I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be wrong on this, but I do think that when the uncertainty is around the track of a low rather than the intensity of precipitation associated with a front/convective precipitation/ mesoscale processes per say, I don't know that it's really that much better than the ECMWF or GFS and their respective mesoscale models. Certainly the latest GFS does seem to at least maintain a reasonable snow risk and potential for similar accumulations to the latest ICON:

 

Longer term, the latest ECMWF monthly (great minds think alike Mr Frost!) and continued strat disruption is quite promising, as well as the pattern which immediately follows this potential frontal snowfall and possible secondary lows moving in from the northwest behind it, but hard to look past the potential for Wednesday night just yet even if it could easily end up as a non-event for most of us.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by LomondSnowstorm

[shuggee]

41 minutes ago, Mr Frost said:

@Polar Side Don’t worry - has been wrong a couple of times this month already! 

@shuggee is that you under the heavy snowfall!? My geography might be wrong! 

I do appear to be under a red blob. My phone says an inch. Early starter with gourmet meal 24 hours later, or greasy kebab and bed? 

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

I was going to ask where u were @LomondSnowstorm last we knew u were seeing your girlfriend I was worried she had handcuffed you to the bed and threw the keys away 

[LomondSnowstorm]

Just now, Kirkcaldy Weather said:

I was going to ask where u were @LomondSnowstorm last we knew u were seeing your girlfriend I was worried she had handcuffed you to the bed and threw the keys away 

Well I suppose in the sense I'm now stuck in North Lanarkshire until the restrictions ease I'm somewhat 'locked up', especially with the amount of coding I've had to do for my Masters recently, but fortunately nothing quite that drastic

I have managed to squeeze in some nice walks though - while I do miss the Lomonds there's enough decent walks within North Lanarkshire or the 5 mile limit of the local authority to keep me occupied in between uni work and chart watching, especially when the lochs freeze up:

[edo]

6 minutes ago, Kirkcaldy Weather said:

I was going to ask where u were @LomondSnowstorm last we knew u were seeing your girlfriend I was worried she had handcuffed you to the bed and threw the keys away 

She found out he is obsessed by models and got a wee bit jealous. 

 

Looking fwd to an LS masterpost tomorrow night predicting the Christoph outcome

[Ravelin]

GFS 18Z keeping the low to the south, the same as it's 12Z output and the ECM 12z. That doesn't mean the UKMO will be wrong though.

[Hawesy]

Evening all,

’Away from the immediate coast’. Was there ever a more cruel phrase in the English language? 

Interesting times but looking for more clarity and model consensus tomorrow. Needless to say no expectations of anything here on the immediate coast! 

[blitzen]

1 hour ago, Hairy Celt said:

Not clicking on that, the potential for grossness is fair to middling, Ms Blitzen.

You're not wrong!!

[LomondSnowstorm]

6 minutes ago, Hawesy said:

Evening all,

’Away from the immediate coast’. Was there ever a more cruel phrase in the English language? 

Interesting times but looking for more clarity and model consensus tomorrow. Needless to say no expectations of anything here on the immediate coast! 

I immediately thought of you when I wrote that sadly It isn't the worst setup for you but I do feel like the upper air temperatures associated with the centre of the low are going to be too high, and the wind speeds too high at the surface. St Andrews might have a little more luck though, maybe?

[LomondSnowstorm]

Final post of the evening - the UKV has edged a little closer to the rest of the mode output and brings the front/low a bit further south after the pivot:

Certainly a positive trend, and hopefully one that continues tomorrow...

 

[LomondSnowstorm]

1 hour ago, CatchMyDrift said:

UKMO looks far more in line with the GFS now:

Synoptically yes, and yet the UKV looks if anything even more out of line with the precipitation modelling than the GFS or ICON (both of which give a fair whack of snow and a good amount through Wednesday night well into Thursday for most of us)

UKV has the front pivoting around the borders but with the second band of precip (I guess, presumably, a cold -edit: actually it's occluded - front if I was looking in more detail) well to the north again by midnight on Thursday. It would maybe come back over us but a fair difference from the 21Z run. The 03Z goes out further so hopefully that'll shed some more light but while things are moving in the right direction as far as the position of the low going further west the "stand off" remains in some form (this may change by the time I'm properly awake!). 

Edited January 19, 2021 by LomondSnowstorm

[Quinach]

Lovely frosty start out there, clear skies, calm conditions and currently -3c.

Marginal definitely still summarises the coming few days, if anything the various automated forecast models for here have trended more towards rain.

Met Office though have never given any false hope, rain forecast since the weekend!  Braemar and that area though, going to be interesting - pity they don't do a timelapse for the snowgate. 

Snowgate Webcam - Braemar

BRAEMARSCOTLAND.CO.UK

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This image will automatically update every minute. This webcam is located beside the caravan park on the A93 at the southern entrance to Braemar. Webcams covering other snowgates can be viewed at this link