thejailender

My back garden has had a covering of snow since 16th December. Although the snow in the front garden (south facing) did clear for 2 days, the back garden remained covered in snow (well pack ice if truth be told) no sun gets to that garden. Friday morning brought more snow though, as did Friday night right through until today - in fact snowing at the moment. Currently have around 3 inches. BTW - I live more or less at sea level. It was the length and severity of the cold after the snow that caused it to hang around for so long.

I said earlier int he thread we got -12.5'C last night which was our coldest temperature of the cold spell, but already we are down to -9.3'C so I guess we could well beat that temperature tonight.

Still -5.5'C with us here and bright sunshine. Today has been one of the coldest we've had in about a week. I must admit I wouldn't be too disappointed if we were to get the wind and bring in warmer temperatures. As for a thaw. It's going to take an age to thaw. The pack ice in my back garden is measuting 12cm which is about 5 inches. So even with temperatures around +4 or 5 it's going to takes ages to melt.

A very cold night with us last night, we dipped down to -12.6'C and considering I am more or less right ont he coast that's pretty cold ! At present, the temperature is -6.8'C and has been rising slowly for the past few hours, we don't have the fog that others seem to have though, we have the clearest of blue skies, but as usual at this time of year the sun doesn't rise very high and is blinding me as it shines in the window. Attached are a couple of pictures I took yesterday when I went a walk to the top of Cnoc Fyrish. The snow up there was about 3 feet deep but frozen solid. Very hard walking in it as you pretty much walked on concrete then all of a sudden hit a sfter area and your leg sinks to about your hip. There was also some very deep drifts in areas, must have been maybe 10 - 12 feet deep in places.

Anyone know if that cloud coming down from the North will produce any snow for the Noorthern Highlands ? There doesn't seem to be many echos in the radar, but as the first bands of cloud approach some showers appear to be popping up

Very fine snow falling with us, enough in the last 45 minutes or so to cover the car and the path, although the road is still black. The funny thing is though, that it is not showing up on the radar, the fine flakes must be too small for the radar to detect them.

There are some pictures on this guys flikr site of the train, looks to have gone well into the trees. Flikr Pictures also a video of the scene Video Link Seems to be a bit of carnage, the line will be closed for some time

It looks like the wind is begining to swing more Northerly now, I wonder if that will change the track of the showers

No, but the duck pond in Dingwall has ! Seriously though, it would take some going for Loch Ness to freeze over ! But a lot of the rivers were frozen over last week. The temperatures since Friday have not been as cold (in the North of Scotland anyway) as they were for the 10 days previously. So although the edges of the rivers are still frozen, I don't know of any in my area that are still frozen over completely. There was pictures in the paper today of a river in Aberdeenshire somewhere that was quite frozen

One of the showers following on behind the main band has hit us now and it is indeed of snow, although quite light snow at the moment. But at least the temperatures have dropped enough to produce snow and not rain anymore. Edited to add - Also the wind has picked up after the initial band went through, nothing major, but enough to blow the falling snow about

I see the A9 is starting to take a pounding at the Slochd. Traffic Scotland Cameras

Could be right. I've been looking at the readings fromt he stations further North, and they all seemed to have peaked during the time the band came over. Obviously the ones away fromt he coast peaked at a lower temperature than we have, so they still got snow, while we got rain/sleet. Looking at my own readings, we the temperatures have now fallen to 1.6'C (were up at 2.6'C an hour or so ago) and it has more or less stopped raining, so maybe any further bands will be of snow

We had a spell of big flakes of snow hidden withint he rain, but it has got a lot lighter, and is now just rain. Looking at the radar though, it does seem to be falling as snow anywhere more than a mile inland. The fact that most comminities up this way are built along the coast will be the reason we are nearly all reporting rain, I guess when it gets further south where more communities are away fromt he sea, then these will get hit with snow.

Looking at the latest radar I would say the rain/snow is less than 30 minutes away from us. However, since our current temperature has now risen to 2.3'C I can only see it falling as rain, unless there is a suddent drop in temperatures, but it has been rising for the last couple of hours so I assume we are looking at rain shortly edit - It has arrived a bit quicker that I thought, and it is indeed falling as rain here.. I'm only about 30 meters above sea level though

I've been keeping an eye on the radar this morning, and as you see the main band has not long come into contact with the North coast, but I notice that ahead of it there seems to be a bit of convection, especially within the Moray Firth which is now hitting the Moray coast. There is also a few showers forming over the land too, one of which has just crossed over here. Very light snow from it though, and if you weren't looking for it, you'd probably not have known it happened it wa sthat light. Temperaturs have risen ion the last hour or so, currently sat at +1.1'C - Lets hope it doesn't rise much further.