The Weather Watcher

Suppose I may get up, go get some milk and put petrol in the car. The green is getting too close on the Eastern edge for my liking.

Wee line of showers pushing up the Irish Sea I am also watching.

Frosty used to torture me with 1 million questions all the time lol. Then when he didn't get snow he cracked up, badly

The only issue for me is being right on the East coast. Worried it'll just be the sleet/freezing rain option here. Can always jump in the car and drive inland a little though.

I hate the graphics the BBC use. Because they include cloud cover it can be easy to confuse what is snow with cloud cover and vice versa.

Only because they haven't been potent enough, there has never been a good cold pool to the North this winter. Plus I think sea temperatures are a little above average this winter.

That's the height of it. Meto was waiting on firming up and has amended their forecasts accordingly now. Any snow seen from the initial band will barely reach here in the NE and it looks like showers (of which I have had practically zilch) will begin receding through the day as winds swing more NE. Total bust for here. Never again will I be optimistic for an Easterly. Northerly all the way.

GFS 00Z has the front Thursday/Friday stalling over NI and fizzling out, then another front Monday 15th, again not pushing East, nor the milder air winning out. We then get thrown back into an Easterly for a few days before a Northerly plunge lol.

Just tested the cat out in his new backpack. Ground control to major tomcat.

I don't think it is streamers just yet. May just be high thin clouds unleashing their load as they hit land. Possobility that Downpatrick area is starting to see convection from the sea.

Intensity picking up around the Downpatrick region. Unless it is moderate to heavy in intesity it isn't going to lye. Graupel here melting as it hits surface.

Yep, tiniest flakes/graupel in Bangor, right down to the coast.

The SE regional thread was a right laugh this morning because the precipitation started out as rain. Some members did indeed take it badly and started bad mouthing some of the main MOD posters.

Coldest 850 temps not arrived yet, but looks promising precipitation wise. -10 line doesn't hit our shores until the afternoon, currently around -7 850's.

Showers/streamers already showing for South Down. Anyone in the area to confirm? I'll not be able to start snow hunting til the afternoon and Monday.

Yes, to add to MS's posts. Don't be disheartened by the lack of precipitation showing on BBC/Meto updates at the moment, it is always like this in an Easterly, and they literally don't update it until precipitation is showing on radar. Shower activity can pop up out of the blue once those deeper 850hpa temperatures are over the Irish sea. It was only recently we seen an example of this with 850's around only -7. It's going to be a radar watch from Sunday night onwards.

With 850's around -8/-10, they'll either be graupel or snow. They only say "scattered" for now because it is going to depend on wind direction and streamers for where will get hit. But looking at wind streams over the week, there is a great variance of Easterly winds (from SE to ENE) that will help get long enough sea tracks for nay on everyone in the North, East and South. Western areas more reliant on organised bands making it across land or indeed any frontal events creeping in from the West. Also the potential of a reload from the North in some ensemble members. It's going to be an interesting week coming up.

I urge caution on the cold outputs for the weekend and into next week. The spread in ensembles from 72 hours is quite subsantial in regards to 850hpa temperatures with a 7/8c difference from highest to lowest (-2 to -10c). The spread gets greater from then on, although the highest temp gets colder, in fact, right down to -7c or less for the whole Island at one point. No doubt it is going to get colder, it's just how cold, how long for and what kind of precipitation or snow chances can we expect that is up for debate. The low causing all the fuss either drops South and East and we get the very cold Easterly with convective chances and frontal events from the SW. The other is a low that loiters around the UK bringing cold uppers (cold enough for snow) but with frontal events more prominent for all areas, albeit with the risk of mixed milder uppers and a quicker breakdown of the spell. I think we are still 48 hours away before we can be sure, as that is where the divergence in the model ensembles seems to begin.

I'm about 200m........from walking down and touching the sea . Not good as an IMBY perspective, but I do have some local hills that may get a good covering.

I would think it is because of Easterly wind on windward coasts, most likely be sleet/rain in these areas due to sea temps.

If it's anything like last week it'll be nowcasting. Remember we weren't expecting the front to be so far North (supposed to remain at the border area), it ended up being close to Derry in the end. Unless there is a major shift in the front, I'll be keeping an eye on its progress on the day.

I've lost faith in the meto updates. They didn't show snow or mention snow in their text or automated forecasts for the Saturday past event for my area. Looking at the charts shows particularly Saturday to hold interest, and even with Sunday, it's things on a knife edge before milder air heads NE again. I think by Friday night we will know best.

It turns Milder, but the colder air doesn't move too far away and we do see some transient colder spells and battleground situations are a possibility with the -5 line just sitting around Scotland really. So whilst it may look grim, there's nothing to rule out more surprise falls over the next couple of weeks. Also, on the plus side, with the cold air sitting so close, subtle changes could change the ouput only a matter of 72 hours out.

Yep, I live at Bangor Seafront and was up all night. Watched the snow come in at 3am as snizzle, then after a few hours it got heavier as the front backed West. Everything frozen. My car windscreen was freezing up even as I was driving my daughter back to Lisburn. video-1611527019.mp4

Me and the daughter built this Been quite a few years since snow like that right down to the coast.