scotland Scotland - Regional Discussion - 23/12/13 >>>

[Cheggers]

Wind really rattling though now.

[blitzen]

No wind at all here and really just spitting with rain. Supposed to pick up later though.

[skyeblue]

Good morning ducks

Feel free to swim anywhere and l mean anywhere in Scotland

Amber warning was spot on .flooding has begun in Ayrshire

Been raining the whole night

[snowy owl]

Rain belting doon here! Rattling against the windae. Day to stay in methinks.

[NUT]

Not stopped raining for about 15 hours or so now eek

[Cheggers]

Serious flooding on the A81, the A811 and the A809 in west Stirlingshire

​A701 doon in Moffat closed due to flooding, and would imagine pretty wet and wild near enough everywhere.

 

Never mind a winter kit in the car, dry a wet suit and waders.

[Hairy Celt]

Just grey & damp here; glad we travelled yesterday.

[blitzen]

Steady rain here and no wind to speak of. Speaking of wind.....had a look at the 6z and that is a helluva train wreck of a low we may have to endure this coming Sunday/Monday! The only solice I can see, is that it is behind this that things start to look up for us. We actually achieve a vortex split and very low 850s spill into Europe (probably due to the Strat forecast)  Firstly, next week's storm: followed by the vortex split and 850s. We can but dream..........

Edited December 30, 2013 by Blitzen

[Hiya]

Hmm, it's going to be in the top 10 certainly but not sure it's quite record breaking - Phillip Eden currently has the anomaly at around +2.1 to the 25th for Scotland (+1.6C for North, +2.3C for West and +2.5C for East), the 81-10 mean is 2.8C for the whole month which means we're probably running around the 5C mark to the 25th. The next few days aren't going to see anything massively mild to push that upwards so I reckon we'll be stuck somewhere between 5.1C and 4.7C for the month as a whole. Anything above 4.9C would put us at 5th highest in the rankings but I think we're probably safe from ending up in the top 4, which are:

1988: 5.8C

1971: 5.7C

1934: 5.6C

1924: 5.6C

The next ones down are '31 and '21 (both 4.9C), '74 and '42 (4.8C) and then '56 and '53 (4.7C). The lack of very mild Decembers since 1988 has been very noticeable given almost all other months have seen either record or near record highs in the 100 year series since then - 2006 at 4.4C was the mildest since then and we're almost bound to come in higher than that, so this will be the mildest December in 25 years and will bring to end the longest run of consecutive sub 4.5C Decembers in the last 100 years.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/datasets/Tmean/ranked/Scotland.txt

Seems odd to say when talking about mild months in the context of AGW/the general increase in Scottish and UK temperatures in the last 100-200 years but we were overdue a mild December

Extremes are a good way of evaluating a long range forecast. Further the deviation from the average the better since there is less chance of the forecaster being "accidentally" correct. Your forecast for December is quite impressive, certainly better than the offering from netweather, but there is an inconsistency between predicted weather and average temperature which would have moved it into the outstanding category.

[snowy owl]

Wet Wet Wet sums it up really.

 

Off to MT for a wee peek as i'm bored and still feeling rather dire!

[mistyqueen]

Afternoon all! Still very calm and mild (ish! ) here, no rain either. Something far wrong with that. I know some parts are going to get another hammering for the Noo Year, but something tells me it wont be us up here! Pressure currently 993 and rising, temp 6.5c.

[Buriedundersnow]

today we see the continuation of the pattern from yesterdays ECM 12z with the 0z and its working along very nicely but don't let it fool you we aren't quite there yet and the met office updates and what was posted here last night by DR(S)NO from the MOD that IAN F had said might just be on the mark and what we might see till the real deep cold if the pattern plays out the same as was hinted at.

 

heres the ECM 0z 240hr chart with a little paint also the ECM strat chart which backs up the ridging

 

 

YELLOW CIRCLE - is first piece of the puzzle with the start of heights going to our north but this wont be a big push just enough to block off that area.

 

RED ARROW - is I think the next move as we saw hinted at before with the residual energy from the PV which will get cycled through over us which would tie in with what IAN F said the met office are seeing that DR(S)NO posted last night with snow for us as with the weak block to the north this would help draw in cold air as the lows pass through into Europe below is the link to the post

 

http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/78858-scotland-regional-discussion-231213/?p=2878676

 

BLACK CROSS - is I believe the end game and our route to the deep chill as after the residual energy from the PV has left Canada I think we will see ridging of these heights into Greenland and with the GFS showing repeatedly a warming over our side of the hemisphere later on in FI this could open up Greenland and especially if we see charts like this morning from the GFS which is below.

 

 

and as wee see from the ECM ens this would tie in quite well as the ECM op seems tied in with its ensemble with the progression and we notice the gradual cool down in the extended I think this will be the period where we see the residual PV energy move over us and the deep cold will come later.

 

 

now this is just how I see a possible route from something I picked up on the models this by no means is saying this is where we will go but just something I am keeping an eye on.

Edited December 30, 2013 by Buriedundersnow

[November13]

Stas from my local weather station suggestion 7c average for December. It was 4.5c the year before so this has been the mildest December since the early 90's for me. Awful really for winter so something must happen in January to make up for this or the toys will be oot ra pram!

Average temperature = 7.0°C

Average humidity = 87%

Average dewpoint = 5.0°C

Average barometer = 1001.6 mb

Average windspeed = 7.8 kts

Average gustspeed = 12.3 kts

Average direction = 210° (SSW)

Rainfall for month = 165.4 mm

Rainfall for year = 748.6 mm

Maximum rain per minute = 1.0 mm on day 15 at time 00:17

Maximum temperature = 13.6°C on day 01 at time 14:27

Minimum temperature = 1.0°C on day 05 at time 21:03

Maximum humidity = 96% on day 23 at time 15:10

Minimum humidity = 60% on day 05 at time 15:51

Maximum dewpoint = 11.5°C on day 12 at time 12:01

Minimum dewpoint = -3.8°C on day 05 at time 15:49

Maximum pressure = 1033.8 mb on day 01 at time 22:44

Minimum pressure = 950.7 mb on day 27 at time 07:44

Maximum windspeed = 29.0 kts from 293°(WNW) on day 05 at time 08:04

Maximum gust speed = 45.0 kts from 270°( W ) on day 05 at time 07:20

Maximum heat index = 13.6°C on day 01 at time 14:27

Avg daily max temp :9.5°C

Avg daily min temp :4.6°C

Growing degrees days :0.0 GDD

Total windrun = 5420.3kts

[Benvironment]

2.9C here today and I'm sure there's occasional sleetiness in that miserable drizzle outside.

[Hairy Celt]

2.9C here today and I'm sure there's occasional sleetiness in that miserable drizzle outside.

You're a true 'glass half-full' man!  We still have dreich 541te that occasionally threatens to turn utterly 541te but doesn't quite make it.

 

Ok, fair enough, I see you have more elevation than anywhere on the Black Isle so maybe there's more than optimism in there!

[Norrance]

Steady rain at 4.5C. A good bit colder than the lunchtime forecasts indicated.

[LomondSnowstorm]

Extremes are a good way of evaluating a long range forecast. Further the deviation from the average the better since there is less chance of the forecaster being "accidentally" correct. Your forecast for December is quite impressive, certainly better than the offering from netweather, but there is an inconsistency between predicted weather and average temperature which would have moved it into the outstanding category.

 

Quite agree, I'm sure I found the same thing last year - getting the height composites to verify for the NH and even getting broadly the correct synoptic pattern is significantly easier than getting the temperature or precipiation forecasts close to any reasonable measure. If I'd just taken the analogue years at face value though I would've come up with a below averaage anomaly, at least using the NOAA air temperature dataset (next year I'll take the Scottish mean for the composite years and see what it comes out with). Breaking the analogues down to individual months might also help, although in general most studies tend to make classifications based on DJF as a whole, and generally conditions in terms of the QBO or ENSO don't change a huge amount through the winter. Anyway, cheers for the feedback!

 

edit: did a quick excel job to give the temperature for my analogue years for each month, Scottish mean is as follows:December: 3.15C (obviously about 2C too low)

January: 2.28C

February: 1.94C

Certainly a signal there for a 'descending' winter given the average for the 1960-2013 period (the set of years I used to select my analogues from since anything prior doesn't have enough data for ENSO, QBO etc.) is:

December 2.86C (a good 0.4C lower than the '10-59 mean) January:2.5C February:2.61C

Given this is derived from a set of 10 years (with five repeated as an attempt at weighting towards 'stronger' composite years) you would expect a smaller deviation from the mean than you would generally expect from any given month, but it's still a milder month than those analogue years would suggest.

Edited December 30, 2013 by LomondSnowstorm

[Buriedundersnow]

BBC Scotland News â€@BBCScotlandNews 2h

PICTURE:Torrential downpours cause flooding and problems on some roads across Scotland http://bbc.in/19y9rcB  pic.twitter.com/beBanQFZ77

 

 

what seriously makes people think they can drive through things like this more so the second prat that must have seen the first car

[Buriedundersnow]

some bad flooding in DUMFRIES today and its not good with more rain on the way will only add to the problems

 

[Northernlights]

Dreich day here 3c all morning with heavy rain but not much wind.   Snow falling on the tops of the Cawdor hills according to the local shepherd so its not far away

[SW Saltire]

Yes BUS, the flooding in Dumfries is quite severe an a shame for all the local businesses yet again! However, it's much worse in the more rural locations of Moniaive (to the North West, 20 miles or so) where roads are truly impassible and people are not able to get home.

Credit to the Met Office as they gave us a special Amber warning and it was needed.

More rain tomorrow morning and worryingly New Years Day could force the river higher still. The all time records are a good 6 feet higher on the old buildings but we may (hopefully not) get closer to them before January is out - according to the models out to t-240 at least

[LomondSnowstorm]

Typical - I change my LRF a couple of days ago to reflect the probability that there won't be an SSW before the end of January and then this happens:

Stonking run though, really exciting stuff for the next part of winter, especially looking at where the core of the warmth is...

[lorenzo]

The Nukes have arrived

 

 

[blitzen]

Bugger...At one stage on the 12z I thought we were heading for a 3 ridge link up until it all went pear shaped. Still, after seeing that SW forecast, who cares!!

[Buriedundersnow]

Typical - I change my LRF a couple of days ago to reflect the probability that there won't be an SSW before the end of January and then this happens:

Stonking run though, really exciting stuff for the next part of winter, especially looking at where the core of the warmth is...

 

The Nukes have arrived

 

Strat Gif.gif

 

 

yep great to see and makes me think that we might be on to Greenland after the first initial ridging being seen on the ECM just hope it keeps coming and doesn't disappear