spindrift1980

I could see that smoke plume from Motherwell, where it looked like it was coming from the Bothwell/Uddingston area. Quite a few miles beyond that!

Completely rubbish in my neck of the woods too. A few centimetres of wet, slushy snow in East Kilbride at 150m asl and nothing at all lying in Motherwell when I left for work. The GFS seems to have been closer to getting the track of the storm and the snow on its northern flank right than the Met Office/Euro4. Looks pretty good up in the Pentlands though.

It's been an astonishingly poor season for snow in the Scottish mountains, at least as bad as the worst years in the 2000s. Still time for things to change but I wouldn't hold out much prospect of any/many of the usual snow patch sites holding snow until the first snows of 2017/18. The ski centre operators must be tearing their hair out then when a storm does eventually arrive, it ends up well to their south. Lowther Ski Club might be taking Friday off work though!

Heavy snow shower in EK at the moment but it looks as though it will be fairly short-lived judging by the radar.

Back to grey gloom today after seeing the sun yesterday for just about the only day this week! Managed to get out for a walk in the Southern Uplands yesterday afternoon and it was ideal crisp walking weather. Frost lingered in the shade all day - I took this photo in the Dalveen Pass and you can clearly see the parts where the sun failed to reach contrasting with the late afternoon light higher on the hillside.

There was very little in Motherwell - a thin layer of wet snow on most surfaces early yesterday which partially thawed and then froze into a hazardous icy glaze on the pavements. Have spent most of the time in EK, which has a decent covering, and got to see some thundersnow, so that has made it feel more wintry.

Thundersnow here in East Kilbride! A flash of lightning just there and the place seems to have disappeared in a great cloud of white.

Similar level of cover to this in East Kilbride, after another heavy shower on the way here. A smattering of wet snow in Motherwell, as the snow only appeared to have start lying in the hours before dawn.

Knowing Ben Lomond, it could just as easily be a Glaswegian jeans and trainers and bottle of Irn Bru expedition!

Going to the hills in winter conditions CAN be fun if you use your head to choose a suitable time, but there are days where you just need to say that it's not a hill day, and (as you say) it's not as though today's conditions haven't been well forecast and advertised!

Ben Lomond is (unfortunately) along with Ben Nevis, and to a lesser extent The Cobbler and some of the other most well-known hills, a magnet for people who treat the hills and weather casually. These are the kind of conditions in the Highlands today (albeit on a 4,000-footer, a good bit higher than Ben Lomond), from a video on the Scottish Avalanche Information Service website. Anyone who goes to the higher hills today needs their head examined (although I'm hoping to go up a hill of some kind on Saturday!!) I walked to East Kilbride town centre at lunch time in a short-lived sleet blizzard

It's not reverse psychology, just good old-fashioned Scottish pessimism!

The snow level on that animation is generally about 200-300m above sea level away from the most inland/central Highland parts, though, so suspect it will largely be a non-event for low ground. Hoping to be wrong though!

A definite downgrade on the Met Office updates IMBY this afternoon with more emphasis on words like 'sleet' and 'wintry showers' - precipitation symbols on the graphical forecast have lower % chance precipitation, sparser showers and even rain at times overnight How are the dew points looking for later? I've revised my expectations to 0cm lying snow at home in Motherwell once again, and maybe 2-5cm on higher ground like East Kilbride. Hoping to be proved wrong though.

Friday now subject to Met Office snow warnings for just about the whole of Scotland in the northerly flow - two slightly different warnings north and south of the central belt. Not convinced about my own location as it notes that "Some inland areas, sheltered from the northerly wind, seem likely to escape most of the showers." But it looks promising for some parts, and it does seem to have the 'wishbone' effect on the showers very far south (northern England). Model Thread is also getting excited about upgrades for Friday, which perhaps augurs less well!