Scotland - Weather Chat

[Ross Andrew Hemphill]

Drone footage of Storm West Seneca NY 4K Aerial: http://youtu.be/5m6oXJcg7aM

Watch and greet

All I can say is WOW!! Can only DREAM of snow like that here, guess I'll have to move when I'm older unless something drastic happens to the winter weather!!

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Drone footage of Storm West Seneca NY 4K Aerial: http://youtu.be/5m6oXJcg7aM

Watch and greet

 

Embedded.

 

[LomondSnowstorm]

Catch, you would most definitely get some snows staying up by the Whiteadder ! I'm not all that far away from there. Some amazing scenes when it snows, although the roads can be tricky. We also love the hopes reservoir for sledging! Also not far away.

I have no clue with the charts just now other than confusion

Keeping a daily nosey into model/strat and oor thread to keep the suspense building â„ï¸

edit: Edo just read the dark winter article. Very interesting read, Ls what are your thoughts regarding the solar minimum periods?

 

 

 

I think there's a pretty clear link established now between low solar activity and cold winters for mid latitude in the Northern Hemisphere at least, although it does appear to have some forcing on global temperatures too.

 

It's just one factor of course, but I imagine the potential for some very cold winters towards the end of this decade will be there, and could well extend right through the 2020s if the cycle is as poor as expected. If 2018/19 or 2019/20 has similar background signals to this one r i.e. east QBO, slight-moderate El Nino, big October snow advance/-OPI, then we could easily end up with something very severe. 

If we get a major volcanic eruption in that time too it could be the recipe for a general NH cooling as well, and potentially at least a temporary arresting, or even decline, in global temperatures (without getting too much into the AGW debate). 

Anyway, in the shorter term not that much of interest barring the potential for some polar maritime incursions in FI from the west and the continuing saga of the block to the east:

However, up in the strat, something interesting is brewing - heat flux is spiking, zonal winds even in the mid strat have dropped to well below average levels and with further wave 2 activity following the short term wave 1 top down warming we're seeing continued signs that we might not have to wait too much longer for a decent cold spell.

 

Oh, and RE Northern Rab's post on the strat thread in relation to this:

, I don't think there are many setups that would see so much of northern Europe, including Scandinavia and northern England, so cold and yet have an above average winter temperature-wise here - I think basically the relative warmth of Scotland in that comes from the signal for blocking to the northwest and above average heights for the north of Scotland, which, while potentially bringing above average 850hpa temps to the far north at times, would not be mild in any sense of the word on the ground.

2010/11 forecast:

2009/10 forecast vs observed (not sure how the observed warmth in the far northeast came in unless they're including the North Sea):

Very positive that:

• the forecasts for 09/10 and 10/11 look very similar to their forecast for this winter
• the erroneous localised warm signal for northern Scotland was present in both those winters
• there was a similar tendency to model moderation in the signal for Ireland, northwest France and northern Spain, which didn't materialise to the degree expected
• both forecasts verified spectacularly well, except for the above issues

[Northernlights]

Another benign day here with a few showers in the morning and some sun in the afternoon with only an occasional gentle breeze .Was 10c at 5.00pm but now 6c and falling.

Giving the herbaceous border its autumn trim today and got two grain bucket loads  twice the normal looks quite bare now . There  was some really turbo charged plant growth this last summer.

[skifreak]

I imagine the potential for some very cold winters towards the end of this decade will be there, and could well extend right through the 2020s if the cycle is as poor as expected.

Does that constitute a ramp?

[LomondSnowstorm]

Does that constitute a ramp?

Just a wee one:

(think we'll be seeing a few more though this time next month...)

[Guest]

LS, you are going to cause a full scale rampede

[edo]

Ironically Ramp is an anagram of pram which is where the Xmas toys will be thrown from if this strat analysis does not bare white snowy fruit

[November13]

Well this November has surpassed all expectations. local weather average last year 5.5c coldest _4c.This year average 8.4c coldest 2c! Let's hope December provides at least some widespread frost its not too much to ask. The charts don't get interesting until after the 7th December unfortunately. Need some base snow for the skiers.

[skifreak]

Finally some white to look at again on the webcams, perhaps a bit more in the next few days, but end of the month into early December has looked quite tasty for the mountains in many recent model runs... fingers crossed!

[snowy owl]

Thanks for the info re the low solar activity LS. will be interesting to see if we do get increased volcanic activity. Have been hearing of increased activity in New Zealand and around the Ring of Fire. Will have a look further into this.

Models still very unclear but trying not to get too excited about Strat developments !

Lovely sunny day here. In the garden doing my winter tidy up

[snawbaw]

Ben Tee has a lovely wee snow cap today as do all the hills down the Glen into Fort Bill.

The mince pies are oot! Forecast says there should be more which means I may extend my seasonal menu to mulled wine too.

[Northernlights]

Fine crisp sunny day after overnight ground frost with a maximum temperature of 5c.First day too with a frost lying in the shade all day. Currently 3.5c

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

A Visitor's Guide to Scotland

 

 

By Danny Bhoy

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Bhoy

[LomondSnowstorm]

The runs tonight aren't immediately appealing if you like snow, but a few decent features show up:

1) rainfall totals look to be fairly low - on the east coast pretty much a dry week, a bit more further north and west but given the way HP has continually managed to claw back in spite of numerous attempts to bring the Atlantic in proper I reckon many of us will avoid seeing any rain for a while altogether:

 

2) temperatures - nothing spectacular, but after a fairly chilly day today we're likely to see a continuing risk of frost and maxima suppressed as well (maxima maybe no more than 3-4C this week ( http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Freuchie/long.html ):

3) Potential. We knew we'd have to get through a more 'zonal' spell, and while many of us would probably rather have had some kind of cool zonality with a chance of snow (we may still end up with some of that in the first half of December) getting through to the MJO phase 3 mid latitude high setup without any flooding or storm risk would seem to me to be a pretty decent start to winter, especially given last winter. 

And even the flatter runs in the short term look interesting longer term - the GFS parallel for example builds a very strong vortex over Greenland, but with better WAA and a slight westward shift from 24 hours ago we're seeing it spectacularly managing to give us a cool easterly flow by D9:

The ECM is, if anything, worse than the GFS, yet still we see a pattern where cold air floods into central Europe and we end up with surface cold, before the next amplification takes place:

I think any solution which takes us to a properly cold, blocked setup before the 10th December is probably wrong, but some interesting possibilities are opening up for December, especially with the vortex taking some serious 'heat'

[Hawesy]

Morning all,

overnight low 3c so chilly by the standards of this month. My min temp for Autumn so far remains +2.3c so still waiting on that first air frost.

[skifreak]

If your near Inverness at least there is a pretty amazing sky as Sunrise approaches - can't get a photo sadly on a train and it's just not working on my phone at all! 

[Guest]

It's a sign....a crocodile in the charts. I've no idea what it's a sign of but it's there: 

 

 

[lorenzo]

It's a sign....a crocodile in the charts. I've no idea what it's a sign of but it's there: 

 

ECM0-240.GIF

Will need to add that to NL's nature weather model Catch, not sure if we have involved a crocodile before.I agree it's definitely a sign, will defer to the wildlife experts for more thorough analysis.

 

Block vs Atlantic continues... Isn't it great just not to be having a zonal onslaught like last year.

 

ECM at day 10 cranks up the Scandi ridge to 1040, a nice stone in the pond of the net westerly momentum round the globe.

[mardatha]

Oh my god it's Armageddon. I think I'll get oot the xmas cake and just eat it now.. would be a shame to waste it.

[Ravelin]

Morning all. Well the weekend was OK. Saturday started off wet but dried up enough in the afternoon to tempt me out for a run before it got dark (that's getting increasingly difficult). Sunday looked like a glorious day, but I was in a lazy mood and never got further outside than to the bin. I blame the dog as she had an operation to remove a big fatty lump on Wed, so is not allowed further than the garden at the moment. Otherwise I'd have been forced out and wouldn't be sitting in work on a Monday morning regretting my laziness. Oh well.

 

Temperature dipped down to around 2C yesterday evening but was sat at 5.6C this morning at 8am. Blue skies and a low sun make it a nice drive to work, well when I wasn't squinting into the rising sun that is. Clouding over a bit now.

 

From a quick look through the models there doesn't appear to be much of not happening this week. All of the "big 3" (ECM, GFS, GFS-P) hint at a colder start to Dec, with the potential for snow on high ground on the 1st/2nd. Then again all the models have been flipping wildly so I wouldn't trust that far ahead. On all of the models the polar vortex varies considerably through their runs, but one thing for certain, it looks like a rather strange vortex for this time of year. Very fragmented and weak.

[November13]

Well yesterday evening was the first day it felt like winter. A nice crisp day with a cold biting wiind. Nice to see the hills now have a wee dusting:

 

[edo]

Models continue to perk up and looking good for a chilly start to Dec all in line with many decent looking LRF's ....I'm happy with the outlook

[lorenzo]

When the pub run gets in about the vodka on a Monday night it doesn't mess around....

 

Great effort in the depths of FI tonight..

 

 

 

 

[LomondSnowstorm]

I think any solution which takes us to a properly cold, blocked setup before the 10th December is probably wrong, but some interesting possibilities are opening up for December, especially with the vortex taking some serious 'heat'

 

The snowmaggedon chart Lorenzo posted above is for the 9th 

Possibly a case of the GFS being a bit overprogressive (it's unusual to get such a clean transition from big Atlantic trough to the northwest to a beast from the east) but you can certainly see the trend - vortex shifts eastwards only to find its route blocked by the Scandi-Arctic high to the east and a ridge over the eastern US to the west:

 

Even if we don't quite manage something as spectacular as the pub run it at least looks as though we'll have a chance of getting some wintriness into 'nowcasting' range as we head into December.