Sunny Leith

Snaw has been hammering down here in Leith for about 30 minutes, first time the radar has shown a perfectly aligned showed band hitting us. First decent covering here for 3 or 4 years I would say.

Aye my window faces due west. Earlier on it was all going north of us and hitting Fife, and then it all started going south of us. The Embra snow-shield taking the p1ss as usual !

Quite enjoyed it in a funny way. Apart from a relatively few genuinely mild days and nights it's always felt like Winter here. That makes a change from so many winters where folk post about daffodils sprouting in January and it certainly doesn't look like that's on the cards either. But yeah, I would like it to throw up a memorable cold /snow event, I think the chance for that is still there for us over the next couple of months.

Just had a very heavy hail shower here in Leith as well. Enough to give a wee coating of slush.

Could have been worse I guess. Just debating whether I should take me and the boy up to The Braids for a bit of sledging. If they've put an inch or so on that crusty layer from a few days ago then it might be a goer. If I win Euromillions I'm going to fund a PhD for someone to work out why we're generally cursed in otherwise potentially very promising situations here.

Nae luck. Hoped it might loop back on us from the north and west but seems to be barreling through, west to east. Snow still falling here but clearance looks imminent going by the radar. Proverbial dusting here in Leith (a few millimeteres) but higher parts of town may have got a centimetre or two.

Yeah, that split worked its way up to Edinburgh as well. No rhyme or reason for it that I can understand other than random chance. (A random chance that happens time and time again mindyou !)

We were under that clear slot in the radar for too long. Some improvement in the radar picture this last 30 minutes but little to show for it despite being "under it". For you and me we have to hope that the whole snow feature pivots and tilts so we get a second bite at the cherry but I think our chance may well have passed. EDIT: snawing decently now in Leith. Might get a covering yet !

I actually think Edinburgh has a wee shout at something in this set up (dependant on verification obviously and probably a dozen other things). If the flow is relatively slack, wind backs NW or West, still under decent precipitation that doesn't clear through too quickly, plus reasonable uppers, dewpoints etc etc etc Certainly seen it happen even if it just ends up as half an inch of sloppy slush in town. Higher parts of the city probably favoured (Liberton, Inch, Fairmilehead, Braids etc). Therefore a good shout for 101_North as well. I would certainly expect you, Scottish Skier and Weather Wonder to be in with a very good shout indeed.

Sure that's not dandruff There's off/on barely discernible lamp-post snow here in Leith. But the radar has some stringy blobs out there and maybe they'll beef up this next 24 hours...I'm semi-optimistic still. Noticed the gritters were out and about earlier, overkill but fair enough to take no chances.

Certainly far from giving up hope on it yet, putting my parochial Edinburgh/Leith hat on for a second, we do need the circulation/wind direction to gradually back to the East, and then hit ENE. If it does that and the window stays open long enough then we should see something in the next 24-36 hours. Anything S of East though and we'll be gazing at lampposts in the dark for flakes falling at the rate of 1 per minute...

Yup, I find it hard to imagine we'll see nothing from this Catch. If anything these situations are underplayed before they set in and then we wonder why we weren't confident enough just to outright forecast it based on previous experience ! Obviously the usual provisos apply about uppers, dew-points, wind direction, coastal/city effect, (sleety in Leith ? maybe or maybe not). Doesn't seem like it'll set-up long enough to make it memorable but I'd take any 24-36-48 hr event at this point

Somehow this part of Leith managed to catch a talcum powder deep level of snow sometime earlier on (a random shower, if I said it was even 2 millimetres deep I'd be exaggerating). However it has turned the pavements and road surfaces into sheet ice in my local area. As usual not a drop of road grit was deposited despite the forecast.

Just for the heck of it for next years 2017/18 winter forecast Catch, I'd like to see hee-haw early Eurasian/Siberian snow cover, sod all wacky jet stream/polar vortex, bugger all stratospheric warmings, an explosion of sun-spots, useless NAO/AO/PDO and the rest, sweet fanny adams mountain torque or Indian Ocean this that and the other. Given what favourable cold pre-cursors they've variously been cited as in so many winter forecasts I'll go the full contrarian for next year !

Insane if this reading today from Wick is verified ! Surely spurious ?

For fans of Joe Bastardi (the most entertaining met guy out there IMO) then check out his US "Saturday Summary" for today at: http://www.weatherbell.com/ Scroll up and down a bit and you'll find it. Although he's US focused you can read between the lines for the UK if you want to with his 62/63 analogue ;-)

They're beautifully written. But with all the UK/local predictive ability of a roulette wheel.

There's been many brilliantly written technical forecasts in the model thread this last winter or two. I enjoy reading them, and absolutely appreciate the depth of knowledge. Unfortunately almost all of them have been predictive failures. All these factors of october siberian snow, stratospheric warming, polar vortex, mountain torque and all the rest of the unprecedented this that and the other, have resulted in basically hee-haw favourable outcomes for the UK. My only hope for December was that the open-air Edinburgh ice rinks wouldn't end up as the slushy puddles they were last year, but its looking like there be at least a few days like that in the next couple of weeks. Yeah its frustrating that so much technical insight produces so little predictive return over the timescales we'd like, but ultimately we're on the easternmost edge of a bloody big warm-ish ocean and we're stuck with the high-percentage probability of pretty mundane outcomes most of the time. Still, we can hope...

Hammering down with rain/sleet in Leith just now, local snowline is somewhere between you and me !

Ha ! It truly is taking the p1ss. And I thought I was done with this game !

The Pear Tree ? Bloody students ;-) Edit: gone off here and I can see Fife clearly now (one of the only 2 useful measurements I can make from my window). Usually not a good sign unless the whole mess can muster one final nudge south and west.

Think I agree. Still scope for east of us as it sinks south a bit more but I don't think the bulk of it is being sent our way. Bit unlucky overall, from Angus to Berwick the North Sea is full of it. If the whole lot was just 50 miles west it could have been quite a mess out there tonight from Glasgow to Edinburgh. Edit: certainly lots of wet snow coming down here just now but just too marginal in every respect.

I'm scrunching my eyes up on the radar to try and anticipate the track of the east coast blob but not convincing myself it'll make much of a south-westwards move. Plenty cold sleet coming down here in Leith, the raggy stuff showing up on the radar, but we'd need to get under that heavy blob for intensity ....plus throw in just a tiny nudge down in temperatures, uppers, dew points, wind back west of north...the usual.... Probably hoping for too much locally at least ;-)

I'm guessing the feature itself is wanting to keep moving east and south a bit, just at the same time as it's trying to send precipitation down around it's western flank. Very hard to say how that will pan out over the next few hours. Does the big blob off the Fife coast get re-circulated down and around south-westwards or does it all get pulled away and just affect east lothian/east borders ?

Sleeting away here in Leith. Wind direction at Edinburgh airport has beeing veering this last few hours from E to ENE to NE to NNE. Get it just W of N in the next 3-4 hours,and if precipitation holds up then there could even be something lying in many parts of the city by the time it finally clears - real back edge/trailing stuff if it comes off.