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

[Norrance]

24 minutes ago, Norrance said:

1978 was great here too and only equalled or bettered by 2010. Inland especially in the Highlands there have been many better events but for the East coast these are the best since 1963/47 etc.

 

 

@sawel Just checked the records. Late Jan 1984, Jan1987 and Jan 1993 all had similar depths of snow in Dundee in comparison with 1978.  For higher parts in NW Dundee Feb 2001 and Jan 2013 also had around 30cms but early Dec 2010 did beat all records since 1963.

For the record 1984 and 1993 came from depressions crossing the country West to East in very cold PM air. 1987 and 1978 were Easterlies. Feb 2001 a North Easterly and i think Jan 2013 was Easterly as a depression came up from the SW into a Scandy high.

[howham]

1 hour ago, 101_North said:

Heavy Weather! Great album!

Anyone for an evening of snow related song titles

Anything by The Drifters

[Sawel]

18 minutes ago, 101_North said:

What a coincidence! I've been in Edinburgh/Currie since 1999. Moved from Northern Ireland

I come from North Tyrone (Strabane area) how about you?

[Stormeh]

6 minutes ago, howham said:

Anything by The Drifters

Up on the roof? Because the snaw is that bloody deep?

[101_North]

Just now, Sawel said:

I come from North Tyrone (Strabane area) how about you?

Bangor. About as snowless a place as you can imagine . You'll have done much better for snow near Strabane I'd imagine?

[101_North]

4 minutes ago, Stormeh said:

Up on the roof? Because the snaw is that bloody deep?

As long as it's not Drip Drop!

[LomondSnowstorm]

 

Let's just start with the money shot - both the ECM and the GFS agree that, as of Wednesday 12pm, the upper air temperatures will be sitting at -14/-15C over most of Scotland, the wind will be pretty much due east at surface level, and this is the point in the dream where a younger me would've woken up because it's far too good to be true. This time though, it's entirely real - we're now within 5 days of this chart, and within 4 days of a still very snowy looking chart that wouldn't look out of place in November/December 2010:

 

 

For comparison: 

Now there's a few differences, of course, between that spell and this one. For a start the cold pool in this instance is deeper - we don't know if the -15C uppers will verify but it certainly hasn't diminished to this point and is at least as strong as what was forecast a week ago. The thing that tempers this slightly is that the heights are slightly higher, at least initially - the Warm Air Advection which will deliver this Siberian Arctic beast is going quite literally over our heads in the next 48 hours:

This gives us a much 'cleaner' flow than in 2010 but it still amazes me that we've got down to this point given the tendency of such long track easterlies to either erode away to nothing or plough southwards into the heart of central Europe instead, with us being left in an southeasterly drift with barely a snow grain to show for it. 

However, once we get the cold pool in place with the deepest cold at our latitude or a bit to the south, the situation becomes incredibly favourable for snow - with such an impressive block in place the jet becomes out friend, strengthening the easterly flow and, along with troughs and 'kinks' (more on these tomorrow), increasing the snow risk. The GFS tonight highlights the risk of these by the end of the weekend, as you end up with a very deep low which no longer advects cold along its northern edge:

Worrying about the breakdown at this stage is silly when you're staring straight in the face at an incredible spell, but I will come back to the tendency that the models have in general to be 'overprogressive' in their thinking - this spell, while not any less spectacular than on the wildest Fantasy Island runs, has had the odd delay relative to what the models were showing at points, so if I had to bet I would suggest that it's more likely that we'll end up with a continuation of 'easily cold enough for snow' synoptics into the start of next week than not. By that point, however, we might be scunnered of the stuff...

As for the details, the basic rule of thumb with easterlies, which has served us pretty well in this forum over the years, is the models tend to underestimate precipitation. The last time we had an easterly of note the range of publicly available mesoscale models wasn't what it is now, so I'm prepared to give them a little bit of benefit of the doubt this time round, but since we're not into the 48 hour range all we have to go off from their output are the snippets from either the Met Office website or the ECM's output on yr.no.  

For fun, though, these are the 'final' snow totals on the latest GFS which look fairly similar I think to the 12Z's output:

There's no particular reason to think this is overdone - temperatures throughout to this point are likely to struggle to get above 0C even near the coast through the day from Tuesday onwards, and while there might the odd 'feature' which disrupts the flow of absurdly cold air all that would do would be to enhance precipitation. These along would be shovel-worthy for those of us on the east coast and, whisper it, there's good reason to think that the actual result will be even snowier than this IF the severity and placement of the cold pool ends up where the model consensus currently is.

 

I'm going to go into more detail on what to look out for tomorrow in terms of timing, mesoscale features, what sorts of areas might be worst hit (due east is a promising direction for the Forth-Clyde streamer...), but that's my teaser for tonight

 

[Sawel]

12 minutes ago, 101_North said:

Bangor. About as snowless a place as you can imagine . You'll have done much better for snow near Strabane I'd imagine?

I remember quite a few good snowfalls. I lived higher up than Strabane and a bit further inland and a northerly always delivered the goods. A northwesterly was also good.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Sawel

[101_North]

4 minutes ago, Sawel said:

I remember quite a few good snowfalls. I lived higher up than Strabane and a bit further inland and a northerly always delivered the goods. A northwesterly was also good.

I lived about 2mins from the beach so rarely saw snow. In fact you could go years with none. I remember the odd decent snowfall but I reckon my love of snow now is in part down to the lack of it growing up!

[Sawel]

1 minute ago, 101_North said:

I lived about 2mins from the beach so rarely saw snow. In fact you could go years with none. I remember the odd decent snowfall but I reckon my love of snow now is in part down to the lack of it growing up!

I've always loved it and my happiest childhood memories involve snow. I think this is what brings us together on a forum like this - our years grow but the little kid inside us remains when the white stuff is falling.

[DR(S)NO]

28 minutes ago, LomondSnowstorm said:

 

Let's just start with the money shot - both the ECM and the GFS agree that, as of Wednesday 12pm, the upper air temperatures will be sitting at -14/-15C over most of Scotland, the wind will be pretty much due east at surface level, and this is the point in the dream where a younger me would've woken up because it's far too good to be true. This time though, it's entirely real - we're now within 5 days of this chart, and within 4 days of a still very snowy looking chart that wouldn't look out of place in November/December 2010:

 

 

For comparison: 

Now there's a few differences, of course, between that spell and this one. For a start the cold pool in this instance is deeper - we don't know if the -15C uppers will verify but it certainly hasn't diminished to this point and is at least as strong as what was forecast a week ago. The thing that tempers this slightly is that the heights are slightly higher, at least initially - the Warm Air Advection which will deliver this Siberian Arctic beast is going quite literally over our heads in the next 48 hours:

This gives us a much 'cleaner' flow than in 2010 but it still amazes me that we've got down to this point given the tendency of such long track easterlies to either erode away to nothing or plough southwards into the heart of central Europe instead, with us being left in an southeasterly drift with barely a snow grain to show for it. 

However, once we get the cold pool in place with the deepest cold at our latitude or a bit to the south, the situation becomes incredibly favourable for snow - with such an impressive block in place the jet becomes out friend, strengthening the easterly flow and, along with troughs and 'kinks' (more on these tomorrow), increasing the snow risk. The GFS tonight highlights the risk of these by the end of the weekend, as you end up with a very deep low which no longer advects cold along its northern edge:

Worrying about the breakdown at this stage is silly when you're staring straight in the face at an incredible spell, but I will come back to the tendency that the models have in general to be 'overprogressive' in their thinking - this spell, while not any less spectacular than on the wildest Fantasy Island runs, has had the odd delay relative to what the models were showing at points, so if I had to bet I would suggest that it's more likely that we'll end up with a continuation of 'easily cold enough for snow' synoptics into the start of next week than not. By that point, however, we might be scunnered of the stuff...

As for the details, the basic rule of thumb with easterlies, which has served us pretty well in this forum over the years, is the models tend to underestimate precipitation. The last time we had an easterly of note the range of publicly available mesoscale models wasn't what it is now, so I'm prepared to give them a little bit of benefit of the doubt this time round, but since we're not into the 48 hour range all we have to go off from their output are the snippets from either the Met Office website or the ECM's output on yr.no.  

For fun, though, these are the 'final' snow totals on the latest GFS which look fairly similar I think to the 12Z's output:

There's no particular reason to think this is overdone - temperatures throughout to this point are likely to struggle to get above 0C even near the coast through the day from Tuesday onwards, and while there might the odd 'feature' which disrupts the flow of absurdly cold air all that would do would be to enhance precipitation. These along would be shovel-worthy for those of us on the east coast and, whisper it, there's good reason to think that the actual result will be even snowier than this IF the severity and placement of the cold pool ends up where the model consensus currently is.

 

I'm going to go into more detail on what to look out for tomorrow in terms of timing, mesoscale features, what sorts of areas might be worst hit (due east is a promising direction for the Forth-Clyde streamer...), but that's my teaser for tonight

 

I’m pretty sure LS that if you posted those ‘ final ‘ snow totals on the Model Thread there would be carnage from those of a SE England persuasion 

[Big Innes Madori]

41 minutes ago, LomondSnowstorm said:

 

Let's just start with the money shot - both the ECM and the GFS agree that, as of Wednesday 12pm, the upper air temperatures will be sitting at -14/-15C over most of Scotland, the wind will be pretty much due east at surface level, and this is the point in the dream where a younger me would've woken up because it's far too good to be true. This time though, it's entirely real - we're now within 5 days of this chart, and within 4 days of a still very snowy looking chart that wouldn't look out of place in November/December 2010:

 

 

For comparison: 

Now there's a few differences, of course, between that spell and this one. For a start the cold pool in this instance is deeper - we don't know if the -15C uppers will verify but it certainly hasn't diminished to this point and is at least as strong as what was forecast a week ago. The thing that tempers this slightly is that the heights are slightly higher, at least initially - the Warm Air Advection which will deliver this Siberian Arctic beast is going quite literally over our heads in the next 48 hours:

This gives us a much 'cleaner' flow than in 2010 but it still amazes me that we've got down to this point given the tendency of such long track easterlies to either erode away to nothing or plough southwards into the heart of central Europe instead, with us being left in an southeasterly drift with barely a snow grain to show for it. 

However, once we get the cold pool in place with the deepest cold at our latitude or a bit to the south, the situation becomes incredibly favourable for snow - with such an impressive block in place the jet becomes out friend, strengthening the easterly flow and, along with troughs and 'kinks' (more on these tomorrow), increasing the snow risk. The GFS tonight highlights the risk of these by the end of the weekend, as you end up with a very deep low which no longer advects cold along its northern edge:

Worrying about the breakdown at this stage is silly when you're staring straight in the face at an incredible spell, but I will come back to the tendency that the models have in general to be 'overprogressive' in their thinking - this spell, while not any less spectacular than on the wildest Fantasy Island runs, has had the odd delay relative to what the models were showing at points, so if I had to bet I would suggest that it's more likely that we'll end up with a continuation of 'easily cold enough for snow' synoptics into the start of next week than not. By that point, however, we might be scunnered of the stuff...

As for the details, the basic rule of thumb with easterlies, which has served us pretty well in this forum over the years, is the models tend to underestimate precipitation. The last time we had an easterly of note the range of publicly available mesoscale models wasn't what it is now, so I'm prepared to give them a little bit of benefit of the doubt this time round, but since we're not into the 48 hour range all we have to go off from their output are the snippets from either the Met Office website or the ECM's output on yr.no.  

For fun, though, these are the 'final' snow totals on the latest GFS which look fairly similar I think to the 12Z's output:

There's no particular reason to think this is overdone - temperatures throughout to this point are likely to struggle to get above 0C even near the coast through the day from Tuesday onwards, and while there might the odd 'feature' which disrupts the flow of absurdly cold air all that would do would be to enhance precipitation. These along would be shovel-worthy for those of us on the east coast and, whisper it, there's good reason to think that the actual result will be even snowier than this IF the severity and placement of the cold pool ends up where the model consensus currently is.

 

I'm going to go into more detail on what to look out for tomorrow in terms of timing, mesoscale features, what sorts of areas might be worst hit (due east is a promising direction for the Forth-Clyde streamer...), but that's my teaser for tonight

 

A pure Blizzard O' a post LS ?

Welcome back 

Big Innes

[Big Innes Madori]

5 hours ago, Stormeh said:

Where are you @More Snow, we all miss you @More Snow, please come back @More Snow. The beast from the East is coming @More Snow bringing more snaw@More Snow!

 

@More Snow@More Snow

@More Snow@More Snow

@More Snow@More Snow

 

 The silly buggr must hae sampled too much o' the Highland sauce and wandered aff piste!

Big Innes

[su rui ke]

3 hours ago, Norrance said:

1978 was great here too and only equalled or bettered by 2010. Inland especially in the Highlands there have been many better events but for the East coast these are the best since 1963/47 etc.

 

 

I think a short-lived and almost-forgotten easterly some time in late January/early February 1980 also brought more than a foot of snow to Dundee in a couple of days. I remember walking to school on the Monday and there being virtually no traffic!

[Ravelin]

As a kid I lived on the edge of the countryside, and just outside the estate there was an old country lane with hedgerows, and open fields to either side. I distinctly remember one winter the drifting along that lane was fantastic, especially where there were gaps in the hedge. We had hours of fun digging snow hole 'dens' into those drifts. Timing wise that was most likely 1978.

[GraemeB]

Great to see LS back.

Stockholm to Cumbernauld - sounds like the title of an Irvine Welsh book 

[JoeShmoe]

this :-)

[GraemeB]

Send.Help.

[Benvironment]

57 minutes ago, GraemeB said:

Great to see LS back.

Stockholm to Cumbernauld - sounds like the title of an Irvine Welsh book 

Agreed 're @LomondSnowstorm. I miss the Freuchie nowcasting  Welcome back!!

[jamieson87]

So... Edinburgh, does it look like we will get caked? 

 

Hearts are at home on Tuesday night. Game off? 

[Norrance]

5 hours ago, su rui ke said:

I think a short-lived and almost-forgotten easterly some time in late January/early February 1980 also brought more than a foot of snow to Dundee in a couple of days. I remember walking to school on the Monday and there being virtually no traffic!

I must have missed that one as I was working in SE England that year. Here is report about it saying it was the worst for several years. If so must have been pretty good as there was a lot of snow in1978 and 1979.

http://bygone.dundeecity.gov.uk/bygone-news/february-1980

[GraemeB]

10 minutes ago, jamieson87 said:

So... Edinburgh, does it look like we will get caked? 

 

Hearts are at home on Tuesday night. Game off? 

We can but hope.

We've been mince this season. Mad Budge Oot.

[howham]

Calm before the (snow)storm at the moment.

[su rui ke]

16 minutes ago, Norrance said:

I must have missed that one as I was working in SE England that year. Here is report about it saying it was the worst for several years. If so must have been pretty good as there was a lot of snow in1978 and 1979.

http://bygone.dundeecity.gov.uk/bygone-news/february-1980

Thanks, Norrance - that was it! Of course, 1978 and 1979 were also great and the snow lasted much longer.

So, next week is it to be the BBC's 'light snow showers and breezy' or a three-day blizzard enveloping most of the east coast?

[Ravelin]

6 minutes ago, howham said:

Calm before the (snow)storm at the moment.

This really is the worst bit, the waiting. 

2 minutes ago, su rui ke said:

So, next week is it to be the BBC's 'light snow showers and breezy' or a three-day blizzard enveloping most of the east coast?

All the forecasts/apps suggest the former at the moment, the models (and the MetO warning to an extent) suggest a good chance of the latter. As I said above, the worst bit is the waiting to find out.