scotland Scotland Regional Weather Discussion 27/01/14

[Hairy Celt]

Well did manage to see sight of some wet snow today - allbeit washed away by copious rain.

 

This is like living in hell is it no!

 

So flippin seek of the weather.

 

Might have to have a beer to cheer myself up lol

 

Done that...

 

5C, breezy, starless and a slight dampness in the air on the way back from the pub.  Have started bookmarking various webcams in Scandy and Iceland, not good...

[snowy owl]

HC i've already bookmarked and looked at webcams in scandi and North America - This lack of snaw is causing so much anxiety.

 

To make things worse i watched Britain's big freeze and now i'm really fed up with wind and rain.

 

Maybe have that beer (not had it yet) and later some roasted cheese on toast 

[edo]

Good evening this is Perth calling.....the results from Perth are

Rain 12 points

Grey Skies 10 points

Saturated Ground 8 points

Wind 6 points

False dawns 4 points

Model Teases 2 points

Snow nil point

Seeeeeeeeeek of it but hey ho it's only the weather

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Aye Scotland.

 

Life just above the triple point of water.

[snowy owl]

Nae wonder we have such a green and pleasant land - so much bloomin rain 

 

Feeling better had my roasted cheese and worcester sauce on toast

 

and had a nosey at Carinthians post and pics

Edited February 1, 2014 by snowy owl

[jon_d1983]

I've returned from the evening walk with mutley, I was convinced I was seeing things when I thought the rain on the way home was slightly sleety but there are bits and bobs of sleet around on the weathertype radar.

Was in kilmscolm last night and woke up to snow this morning al be it short lived. Hills round about and out towardssouth covered tho.

[mistyqueen]

Morning Kilties! When I went to incarcerate the chook and ducks last night there was the most beautiful starry sky. Milky Way visible, no moon.....braw! Back to the usual pish this morning, temp 5c, pressure 982. All my weather stations tell me it's going to be sunny today. Not looking like it from where I'm sitting.

[JoeShmoe]

This winter has been nothing short of an outright disaster for coldies, still , roll on spring

[November13]

Snow level has crept up on traffic cams to around 1500ft.Seems much milder.Scunnered couldn't even ski due to wind.

[Hairy Celt]

Oh look it's raining 

[Hawesy]

Morning all,

 

Plenty of welcome sunshine this morning, albeit it's a bit breezy with a 33mph mean gusting over 45mph. 6.6c. Dry with good sunny spells.

[Highland Snow]

No comment. Next!

[101_North]

Rather bizarrely we've just had a very light flurry here despite an almost entirely blue sky! Even dragged the wife to the back door for confirmation! If the wind would disappear it'd actually be quite pleasant! 

Edited February 2, 2014 by 101_North

[JoeShmoe]

Springlike nearly today, feel like i havent blue sky and sunshine for weeks, actually warm in the conservatary now the sun is getting stronger

[Highland Snow]

BUS has left the building - nuf said about ANY possible evolution to cold!

[Ravelin]

Decent day here with plenty of sun, which is nice for a change. In the absence of snow I'll take this, although a less winy version would be nicer.

[Norrance]

Decent day here with plenty of sun, which is nice for a change. In the absence of snow I'll take this, although a less winy version would be nicer.

Yes,  had a bit too much wine yesterday too. 

Just an odd shower here today and a bit warmer than yesterday with max of 6.1C. Windy.

[Highland Snow]

Today is Candlemas Day and folklore suggests "if its fair and bright winter will have another fight". For the uninitiated Candlemas Day is the Christian commemoration of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem and the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary as ordained in the Jewish Law (Torah) by Yahweh the God of Israel in Leviticus 12.

 

It is known in the States as Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney Phil has indeed popped out of his burrow this Sunday morning, predicting six more weeks of Winter - ie. rain and gales!

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/02/02/groundhog-day-punxsutawney-phil/5101379/

 

Today we are halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox ie. Midwinter. It also coincides with Imbolic the ancient Pagan Festival.

 

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will have another fight.
If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain,
Winter won't come again.

If Candlemas Day be dry and fair,
The half o the winter's to come and mair;
If Candlemas Day be wet and foul,
The half o the winter's gane at Yule.

[howham]

A nice sunny day here today. Made a nice change to see blue sky and a sunset.

[Snowplough33]

What's happened to MO site? Doesn't look like it's updated since this morning on any of the pages

[Dave3]

This is my first post, so be gentle :-)

 

I've been lurking for a while, trying to get my head round the processes that have conspired to affect our weather so dramatically this winter.  I must admit I've found the Models forum very...er...challenging, seems to have been a lot of "wishcasting" as well as a fair amount of trolling, but some of the posts are absolutely fantastic for someone like me trying to understand the atmosphere - Gibby and Tamara in particular.

 

I used to do a lot of winter mountaineering and would always watch the 850 temps to see where the freezing level (and thus snow) might be.  I also learned a little about heights, in particular that 528 /510 DM heights would be *likely* to produce snow down towards sea level - don't know if that was right?  If it is, looking at GFS into next weekend, it looks like we will be under 510 or even 492 DM air - like the current GFS run out to 144 hours.  Does that not mean snow?

 

 

[Ross Andrew Hemphill]

This is my first post, so be gentle :-)

 

I've been lurking for a while, trying to get my head round the processes that have conspired to affect our weather so dramatically this winter.  I must admit I've found the Models forum very...er...challenging, seems to have been a lot of "wishcasting" as well as a fair amount of trolling, but some of the posts are absolutely fantastic for someone like me trying to understand the atmosphere - Gibby and Tamara in particular.

 

I used to do a lot of winter mountaineering and would always watch the 850 temps to see where the freezing level (and thus snow) might be.  I also learned a little about heights, in particular that 528 /510 DM heights would be *likely* to produce snow down towards sea level - don't know if that was right?  If it is, looking at GFS into next weekend, it looks like we will be under 510 or even 492 DM air - like the current GFS run out to 144 hours.  Does that not mean snow?

Snow risk maps are matching your post quite well so who knows, maybe something good.

[Buriedundersnow]

not been on for a while just have too much to do the now and not enough time to do it and brains a bit burst so had to prioritize and lets face it theres been nothing to shout about weather wise and must admit I am still a bit gutted at everything falling apart the way it did not sure how or why it happened but it did and it wasn't good but with how this winter has been going it shouldn't really have been a surprise.

 

not much to report here on the weather front just blah blah blah blah f**king bleeding blah and no sign of anything white.

 

we must not forget we can still get cold weather in the first month of spring but just cant help getting the feeling that this pish will continue through spring as well and lead to major flooding issues and not just south of the border but plenty up here as well.

 

hope that's wrong and we get dried out cos it is sorely needed at this point.

 

I think we have missed any chance of this happening this winter and will need to wait till next winter to see if we can win

 

 

EDIT: welcome to the forum DAVE3 good to see more people joining in our little corner of the site

Edited February 2, 2014 by Buriedundersnow

[Hairy Celt]

4.5 hours is a long time for no comments in winter!

 

Windy again on the north coast, no stars, no frost; what a tedious winter.  Oh, for a northerly blast...

[LomondSnowstorm]

This is my first post, so be gentle :-)

 

I've been lurking for a while, trying to get my head round the processes that have conspired to affect our weather so dramatically this winter.  I must admit I've found the Models forum very...er...challenging, seems to have been a lot of "wishcasting" as well as a fair amount of trolling, but some of the posts are absolutely fantastic for someone like me trying to understand the atmosphere - Gibby and Tamara in particular.

 

I used to do a lot of winter mountaineering and would always watch the 850 temps to see where the freezing level (and thus snow) might be.  I also learned a little about heights, in particular that 528 /510 DM heights would be *likely* to produce snow down towards sea level - don't know if that was right?  If it is, looking at GFS into next weekend, it looks like we will be under 510 or even 492 DM air - like the current GFS run out to 144 hours.  Does that not mean snow?

Welcome to the forum!

Generally yes, low heights mean colder airmasses, but they're also correlated with low surface pressure as, of course, lower pressure at the surface generally means that the height of a given pressure higher up in the atmosphere decreases. Therefore, to control for low pressure systems we tend to use the 500-1000hpa thicknesses, which is essentially the difference in altitude between the 500hpa (or milibar if you prefer) level where the 'height' is measured and the level of 1000hpa, which in the case of Saturday morning would in reality be underground. If the 500-1000 thickness is sub 528dam then you're generally looking at snow, and 510hpa represents the kind of Arctic airmass we can only dream about at the moment.

The thickness chart for that timeframe isn't quite so promising, although you can see the cold Polar Maritime airmass coming in at us around the west of the low pressure system from Eastern Canada and eventually swinging northwards towards us, bringing a snow risk over us by Sunday:

A good way to remember it is that if the surface pressure is above 1000hpa then we're looking for 528dm on the height charts, and if lower we really need some pretty low heights for the same snow risk.

For example, on this chart, the heights over us are above the heights shown for next Saturday, but a look at how high the surface pressure is shows that in reality this is a much, much more promising setup for cold and snow:

When the heights decrease from light blue to dark blue as you move from low pressure to high pressure the coldest air does correspond fairly well to the lowest thicknesses, but these are fairly rare setups usually involving very cold airmasses with low pressure sitting well to our south.

Anyway, an insightful question and hopefully I've helped answer it