Scotland/Alba Weather Discussion 2019

[Hairy Celt]

10C & swifts eh@CatchMyDrift? Luxury. 6C and heavy showers here - south of Fyvie. Pfft. Could have done with my longjohns this morning. Sunny but still cold this evening. 

[Hairy Celt]

@mardatha - your description of swallows is so good. I love the way they just burble away but they drive youngest HC to distraction. Strangely, he likes gulls shrieks and can't stand pigeons cooing but I'm the other way round.

[ciel]

Distinctly chilly on the dog walk this evening, but quite nice unusual light effects over the hills:

[mardatha]

14 minutes ago, CatchMyDrift said:

I think this is a hawk, do I get a prize?

Juvenile sparrowhawk. Murderous wee sods!

[Quinach]

Ah, the pleasures of a dry useable day for a change after the last few days monsoon.

Downright cold though with a max of 11c, though pleasant enough in the sporadic appearances of the sun.

House Martins out in force tonight round here, though as others have said they look less numerous this year. 

This article from the BBC seems to confirm this is a UK trend - link.

The local bats also not doing well as very few sightings so far this year.

[shuggee]

Chilly night at -0.2C. Hope my wee flowering plants aren't affected too much - only did the hanging baskets on Sunday. 

[Northernlights]

Cold sunny start to the day at 1.5c with a ground frost. Looks like the only dry day of the week coming up.  Farmers now complaining about the wet as lots of spraying to do ( timing related to crop growth stage important) and lots of silage to make both need dry overhead conditions at the minimum and dry leaf conditions if possible.

[Hairy Celt]

Ground frost first thing by Peterhead too.

[Northernlights]

Lots of flies going round cattle this morning and humid a sure sign of rain. Would normally see a lot of swallows and sand martins swooping over the grass fields feeding on them but hardly any. Still only 3 swifts screeching around so my estimation of 70% less all round still holds. To me this lack of migrants is the saddest part of this spring..

[NUT]

Wee bit damp not particularly warm either

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

Sunday storm risk diminishing (could be a case of the GFS being over progressive with the low) but still a few runs further out in FI showing plume type potential    

 ICON models take on Sunday still showing the chance of some warmth / storms    

Heavy shower just arrived here 

[mardatha]

Any sign (says she hopefully) of any good summery weather coming back anytime?

[Norrance]

After a bright start it soon clouded over and there has been light rain this afternoon. 10.9C currently so not particularly warm.

A new visitor to our bird feeders this afternoon. Just after it jumped across from the old shed a crow, another unwelcome visitor, arrived and caused quite a commotion. Only a mile or so from here there are red squirrels but looks like the greys are in charge right here.

[mardatha]

I don't bloody want wet and warm, I can sit in the bath and get that!

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

2 hours ago, CatchMyDrift said:

Nothing settled and hot, however @Kirkcaldy Weather mentioned a chance of a Spanish plume. This is our best hope of warmth but it'd be wet n warm:

At the moment it all looks slightly too far east.

I think this could be a repeating pattern of lows nearby to the UK and IF they end up in the right place could draw in some warm air from the S/SE, for a laugh this run from the GEFS has over 1000 CAPE associated with this        

[Mr Frost]

@Kirkcaldy Weather @CatchMyDrift

Not sure if you both remember this (anyone else?) or had anything similar but this was the greatest thunderstorm/thunderstorms of my lifetime and I have never seen anything like it since! (In Scotland)

Three hours of the most insane fork lightning, thunder, torrential rain and hail!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/4974858.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4974998.stm

Proper long lasting thunderstorms seem to be a thing of the past - nowadays a 5 minutes few rumbles of thunder and a few flashes of lightning seem to be the norm! (And that’s about twice a year! )

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

26 minutes ago, Mr Frost said:

@Kirkcaldy Weather @CatchMyDrift

Not sure if you both remember this (anyone else?) or had anything similar but this was the greatest thunderstorm/thunderstorms of my lifetime and I have never seen anything like it since! (In Scotland)

Three hours of the most insane fork lightning, thunder, torrential rain and hail!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/4974858.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4974998.stm

Proper long lasting thunderstorms seem to be a thing of the past - nowadays a 5 minutes few rumbles of thunder and a few flashes of lightning seem to be the norm! (And that’s about twice a year! )

I dont remember that one (looks like it was a west Scotland event) as I mentioned in my post here the best recent storms here were all in July and were all night time storms 

the 2015 storm was very quick to develop, I remember looking at the radar shortly before midnight and there was nothing and within 10/15 minutes the big storm had developed, ESTOFEX forecast from that day

 "A level 2 was issued for N England, S Scotland mainly for large to very large hail, severe wind gusts, tornadoes and heavy rain. potentially severe situation will develop from S France towards N UK. Major uncertainty will be the convective initiation.
 DISCUSSION

... England, Scotland ...

Potentially very severe situation with number of question marks will develop over parts of UK. As the plume of steep lapse rates overspreads the low level airmass characterised by dewpoints of 16 - 18 deg C, moderate degree of latent instability will develop over the region. CAPE values will stay mostly between 500 - 1500 J/kg, but some models allow up to 2000 J/kg of CAPE, especially over N England / S Scotland. Strong flow at low to mid-troposphere will result in 15 - 25 m/s of 0-3 and 0-6 km bulk wind shear, values well conducive for organised convection. Furthermore, veering of wind with height will favour curved hodographs and more than 200 m2/s2 of SREH in the 0-3 km layer. Such conditions would be very conducive for supercells, probably in the HP mode, or bow echoes, as much of the wind shear is confined to the surface to 700 hPa layer. Large (or even very large hail), damaging winds and even tornadoes (especially in the northern part of Lvl 2 with low LCLs) could accompany such well organised storms. 

There are two factor that may limit the overall severity of the situation:
A/ Degree of initiation. With no strong synoptic-scale upward motion and in the capped airmass, it may be difficult to initiate storms. Initiation will be more likely in the evening hours as 850 and 700 hPa temperatures begin to drop from the west and cold front affects the area. 
B/ Stable boundary layer. Due to the very hot airmass around 850 hPa, it will require a lot of heating to destabilise the boundary layer and allow storms to root in it. Thus, especially in the early period, most storms will stay elevated (with primarily hail threat), as they move from France towards England. Surface based development will be most likely in the late afternoon and early evening hours.

Level 2 is introduced for the area, where best CAPE/shear overlap is simulated, as well as with the best chances for the surface based storm initiation."

given how severe the storm was I would not be surprised if it was a supercell as the forecast mentions

and here is a radar archive of the 2018 storms

 

[Ravelin]

Talking of bats, our regular visitor, "flappy", has started turning up again, flying back and forward over the bushes in front of our lounge window most nights recently. Even brought a friend with him/her the other night, definitely two of them one night. 

Oh and bees have been busy swarming, we had one high up in a tree on Friday and this one this evening... 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2315758858681228&id=1777132059210580&ref=bookmarks

Weather has been unremarkable, so a bit surprised the bees have swarmed, but not just ours as other local beekeepers have been having to deal with their own swarms. 

Edited May 29, 2019 by Ravelin

[BlueHedgehog074]

On 28/05/2019 at 17:34, CatchMyDrift said:

It's lovely in the sun despite the temp being 10C apparently:

It wasn't quite as lovely this morning though, a real cold feel with the rain and breeze:

It's so quiet here that we have random greenery growing in the road:

 

We have some wee birds flying round the house but I am never too sure if they are swifts or swallows or something else. I tried taking a pic the other night. There are at least 4 pairs screeching and screaming round the houses. Somewhere in the picture...maybe left of middle at the top? 

Wow! Some really great photos their! 

[Kirkcaldy Weather]

@CatchMyDrift brilliant pics, I have liked your facebook page too  almost looks like a wall cloud (bottom left of first pic and bottom of second pic). Just seen this from the 00z GEFS +  850s reaching here!  obviously very unlikely, I cant ever recall a time when 850s that high were shown here on a chart, we usually struggle to get the +15 850 temps even in the warmest spells so that would be rare. One of the times where us in Scotland got unlucky was the 28th June 2012 when Sleaford, Lincolnshire got a supercell and tornado https://www.sleafordstandard.co.uk/news/breaking-news-tornado-hits-sleaford-area-video-1-4001325 

I remember watching the radar in the early evening and seeing that storm headed toward Newcastle (so near yet so far) 

a few from the 06z GEFS again showing the chance of something warmer / thundery from the S/SE   and some more high CAPE values in the mix too     

[Northernlights]

Another dreich damp miserable day.

Made use of the dry day yesterday by getting fertliser on neep ground and cultivating some of it.     I  also cut all domestic grasses  in the eveningt that haven"t been cut for two weeks now all wrapped  up in winter gear as it was  really cool. Finished at 10.00pm as first spits of rain arrived.

  Currently 9c

[Hairy Celt]

Dreich for today doesn't do it justice. Utter minging crapness. Cold, wet and a sneaky, miserable wind that comes and goes.

[NUT]

Wet but it's coming in pulses doesn't feel too cold tho

[Mr Frost]

Absolute vile weather day! Hummin, honking, low cloud, misty, grey, rank rotten and miserable. (Same again tomorrow which will be the third day of non stop rain here!)

At least the folk on this passing cruise ship will be heading off somewhere hot and sunny I’m sure! 

Hopefully we start to see an improving outlook in about ten days time - dismal end to meteorological Spring and a crap start to meteorological Summer.

 

[Hairy Celt]

Just been out for my constitutional. The weather's so poor I tried out my new winter coat