jacobdavies

Clearly a pretty historic rainfall event unfolding in Argyll right now. The Lochy is more than a foot above its highest recorded level (records started in 1978). https://www2.sepa.org.uk/waterlevels/?sd=t&lc=133097

Some river gauges in Argyll, west Stirlingshire and west Highlands already at record levels. https://www2.sepa.org.uk/waterlevels/?sd=t&lc=554836 https://www2.sepa.org.uk/waterlevels/?sd=t&lc=133108 https://www2.sepa.org.uk/waterlevels/?sd=t&lc=356326

The road weather stations (e.g. https://trafficscotland.org/weatherstations/) are interesting for observing cold pooling on a still night with clear skies like last night, because both ground surface temperature and air temperature are reported (unlike the synoptic network). At higher stations on convexities (e.g. passes like Slochd, Drumochter), the surface temperature is lower than the air temperature as you'd expect from radiation cooling. At lower stations downslope of nearby valleys, the air temperature is lower than the road surface temperature (i.e. colder than it could be from radiation alone), because of the arrival and re-sorting of cold air from nearby.

Already -17C at Kinbrace, -16C at a couple of sites in the eastern Highlands. https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap Deep snow, light winds and clear skies, with cold pools built up over several days, mean perfect conditions for extreme minima tonight across the north and east Highlands. However, uppers are already getting milder from the north, so the glens of the eastern Highlands may benefit from a higher rate of cooling than Sutherland. Altnaharra paper attached. Altnaharra min temp.pdf

Bit of a race on, warmer air moving in in the next few hours

Met Office automatic forecast is showing potential for some very low minima in the west Highlands early tomorrow morning. The forecast cold pools are so small though that they could easily be missed by the weather station network though - although see tonight's forecast for Cluanie Inn, where there is a station.

I don't know if Antarctica sea ice 'isn't affected' by high temperatures - more like it has generally been cold recently in Antarctica. October temperatures were widely below average across Antarctica. Land Surface Temperature Anomaly [Night] (8 day) | NASA NEO.SCI.GSFC.NASA.GOV Welcome to NASA Earth Observations, where you can browse and download imagery of... http://climate.copernicus.eu//themes/custom/copernicus/favicon.ico Surface air temperature for October 2020 | Copernicus CLIMATE.COPERNICUS.EU

Flights being routed around the storm off SE England?

Met Office website forecast for Cambridge at 12:00 was 33c, forecast to reach 37c at 16:00. Cambridge already at 36c (+/- 0.5) at 12:00.

Areas of upper Deeside are forecast to be comfortably below -20C late this evening (screenshots from Met Office forecast map for 2000 and 2100). It's hit or miss whether these local cold pools will be near enough human habitation to be recorded, though - Braemar would still only be -13C at the time.