Scotland/Alba Regional Weather Discussion - 16/01/2018 Onwards

[Hairy Celt]

12 minutes ago, Stormeh said:

 

London and the SE would come to a standstill 

Hmmm    perhaps 

[Hairy Celt]

Glen Cannich was today's hit. Nice to be out. The drive over was a bit hairy with black ice early on - I don't get quite the same churning stomach that I used to get on bikes though.

All of these pictures were taken from quite close to the road, within a very few miles of the road end at the dam.

       

 

 

 

And finally, this chap just posed. The deer are fed by the road

[Polar Gael]

@Hairy Celt Great snaps and that last one is a cracker. What a glorious sight. 

[Polar Gael]

Donned the protective gear and ventured into the TOORPing thread, and there does appear to be the start of decent model consensus that it will turn caulder heading into next weekend and beyond.

The Met Office is fairly bullish about it being a decent and possibly prolonged cauld spell coming up.

March 2013 demonstrated that for us kilters that can mean winter keeping on going well into meteorological 'spring'.

Still not convinced there will be epic snaw, but the usual maxim applies: get the cauld in first - and then go find a lamppost to watch. 

[chemikal]

March can deliver serious snow even to very low levels in Glasgow. 11th/12th in 2006 being one of the best. Only beaten by January 1987 when I lived in Scotstoun, Glasgow. Can't complain about 2009 or 2010. First photo is of Sasha (rip) watching the snow come down.

Next photo is when enroute to Garnethill as my wife's dad (rip) said he was going out for a packet of fags. He was in his late 70's. Former Batman during the war. Look it up. We said no and went into the city centre and went  via the newsagents to get him the fags. Since we were there he took advantage of the crutch of us and we went to watch the football. I remember it being a game from Edinburgh at being struck that 1. The game was on. 2. How little snow was there while we were buried. Sorry @101_North

 

[Mr Frost]

I will just leave these here...ECM charts for 26/02, 27/02 and 28/02.

Just incredible for all! (850’s going through South East England are insane - total carnage)

 

[ciel]

Frosty out there this morning – not good for my Raynaud's.

Mainly blue sky with just a few cirriform around and a hint of stratus over the hills. No wind to speak of, temp -1C.

Maybe a gardening day.

[Polar Maritime]

2 weeks and I will be back up in God's land (Strontian) hopefully the cold spell will be in full swing then.

[Ravelin]

1 minute ago, CatchMyDrift said:

Easterly to a northerly is written all over those charts. Look at the high heading west to Greenland.

It is beginning to look very promising, maybe us NEers will finally see a decent snow event in the next couple of weeks. Interesting change in the GFS ensembles between the last 2 runs. A lot of the milder members have suddenly disappeared... 

 

I still prefer the look of the ECM run though, even if the cold does come a little later. 

[Stormeh]

06z GFS...

[mardatha]

I canny do charts. Just somebody tell me when to get excited and I'll do me best.

[Gogoslo]

There is a fair amount of ramping going on in the MT.

We must be close to this cold spell appearing on the longer term forecasts.  My 7 dayer from the met o shows no real cold.... yet.  

 

 

 

 

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

ECM ensembles London T. very full of eastern promise.

GFS 06Z is fairly day after tomorrow stuff.

Edited February 18, 2018 by scottish skier

[Hairy Celt]

7 minutes ago, Gogoslo said:

There is a fair amount of ramping going on in the MT.

We must be close to this cold spell appearing on the longer term forecasts.  My 7 dayer from the met o shows no real cold.... yet.  

 

 

 

 

It should do soon. The cool-down should be on next weekend, although whether it'll feel like a midwinter freeze will depend on cloud cover to a large extent. Today, we have a good bit of sun here and there's enough heat for us to get hot water off the solar panels for the first time since October, but when it's cloudy, it can still feel raw if there's a wind.

I'm quite looking forward to a mild, dry interlude before the Big (Promised) Chill...

Gardening note - given the damson tree its oily wash this morning.

[Norrance]

21 hours ago, Hawesy said:

I’m not sure easterlies often deliver as far as Scotland is concerned. SE of England certainly and that’s why it’s the holy grail for folks down there. In January 87 Glasgow got the best of the snow in Scottish terms because of upsloping along the Forth-Clyde valley. Many areas of Scotland saw little or no snow in that event and I think that’s often the case in an easterly or south easterly ( NEly is different). The other factor is that with a long sea track the air really does need to be cold to get snow in winter....more so in Scotland than in SE England where the sea track is much shorter. In general I would say only the eastern borders, parts of the central lowlands and east coast do well from a cold easterly or south easterly (but of course quite a lot of folk live in those areas so you are probably right in terms of population!). Of course outside of winter it’s a miserable wind direction for those same areas with cold grey skies and the risk of haar! 

There was a level 45 cms in Kinross in Jan 1987. Here in Dundee there was around 30 cms which drifted as streamers came up the Tay estuary. There were drifts in Riverside Avenue. You may not believe it but even the Ferry got this! It tended not to get to the West of even modest hills though in this area.

Edit. Just checked my weather records and noted that the snow started on the Saturday afternoon and the showers intensified through the Sunday and Monday to be almost constant before dying down on the Tuesday afternoon. I was at the United v Celtic game on the Saturday and remember the snow blowing through at the floodlights. Incidentally very different times as United actually beat Celtic that day!

Edited February 18, 2018 by Norrance

[Serac]

The direction of flow for us does look v good. Varies from SE to NE and with everything in between. And with the uppers forecast , the week starting 26th looks pretty much constant convection

For my location that means I can activate the biggest lamppost / radar in the world : when the rail bridge disappears it’s imminent major snowage

It’s all starting to look like high entertainment potential. 

[Hairy Celt]

I detect some moderate ing starting, with some poorly disguised  

Well, why not....?

[Polar Side]

The models look amazing at the moment. Growing up as a school boy through the 80's it appeared as if there were frequent easterlies throughout the winters and they would bring dry powdery snow at times. One minute the sky could be clear and within minutes you would see the advance of dark grey clouds to the east and it would soon be near white-out conditions which would appear out of nowhere. 

January 87 produced a lot of snow here but I remember Fife bore the brunt of it.

Feb 86 also produced a lot of dry powdery snow here and very low temps but after reading about it recently it mentions that a lot of the U.K. were just cold and dry.

January/Feb 85 also brought snowy easterlies, so it's not just south east England that benefits from these Synoptics.

A wee pic of my street in 2010 which gave over 50cm !

[Norrance]

Here's what I want to see in town from this Easterly.

 

[lorenzo]

Bone chilling stuff from the GFS 12z the model hits just keep on coming, insane output..

Much fun ahead!

[NUT]

IF this easterly came off in the middle of the summer maybe heatwave conditions?

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Just now, NUT said:

IF this easterly came off in the middle of the summer maybe heatwave conditions?

That's probably when it finally will come off based on past experience. 

[Stormeh]

It’s time for you guys in the East to get the snaw 

If the models do verify then this will be a memorable epic spell of cold and snowy weather.

Let’s hope the ECM continues to show this later on!

[Hairy Celt]

Fkn RAIN now. dog biscuits!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hawesy]

1 hour ago, CatchMyDrift said:

Certainly in western and central parts. Here it would be 7C and haar.

Beat me to it. 

Thanks for that info, @Norrance, really interesting. Apparently even Crail did very well in January 87, so it was one for the ages. I still maintain the 50cm in East Kilbride was the biggest snowfall in Scotland  during the Jan 87 event. 

Central Glasgow was just crazy though, never seen snow like it. As I said 35cm in my garden in Kings Park. It was one of the top 2 winter events I experienced in Glasgow (the other being the 5 day December 1995 freeze, culminating in the record -19.8c temperature being recorded at Glasgow Airport). The winter of 81/82 would be the best all-round. 

Anyway, let’s face it, this easterly has got France and Spain written all over it....the whole thing will adjust southwards.*

*I’m employing the reverse psychology strategy, folks. 

Edited February 18, 2018 by Hawesy