Scotland/Alba weather discussion - Autumn 2020 onwards

[Mr Frost]

Morning all!

-3c currently! 

 

 

Great looking models/charts this morning - plenty of snow opportunities through today, rest of this week and into the weekend!

This caught my eye for early next week!

ECM for 04/01 00:00

 

UKV for 04/01 03:00 

Lovely to see cold/wintry weather currently and for the foreseeable future! 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Mr Frost

[Zerouali lives]

It seems the models have been showing a cooler pattern for several weeks now with the Atlantic well and truly 'switched off'. However, it also seems that there's no proper cold to the north and east of us to hence why we're still getting rain / icy conditions at sea level. These synoptics look ideal for a really cold winter if only there was some true Polar / Continental air to tap into. 

[Halfamilefromnowhere]

[Halfamilefromnowhere]

Hard frost here last night with heavy snow showers arriving this morning

[Sceptical]

Another cold start. Currently-3C, sunny and very calm. BBC weather going with snow to low levels tomorrow while the Met forecast is for rain and 4C. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Sceptical

[blitzen]

Morning all!

A beautiful one it is too!   Temp:  -1.6c   DP: -3.9c   Pressure 1000.mb.

Dry here for us yesterday with temp remaining around 2c.   Dropped to an overnight low of   -1.7c.

 

Let us see what today brings.

[edo]

1 hour ago, Zerouali lives said:

It seems the models have been showing a cooler pattern for several weeks now with the Atlantic well and truly 'switched off'. However, it also seems that there's no proper cold to the north and east of us to hence why we're still getting rain / icy conditions at sea level. These synoptics look ideal for a really cold winter if only there was some true Polar / Continental air to tap into. 

after the last few winters i would take this setup all day long, i get it can be frustrating but already seen some cracking surprise snowfalls and hopefully this theme continues, the charts @Mr Frosthas posted above are the type that could easily get far better at the time and deliver more and far wider than currently modelled. 

[howham]

-1C and sunny. 

[Benvironment]

Gawd it's a beautiful day up here! Another beautifully cold and crisp day in the Lomonds  The northerly is great cos it means the sunny side of the house is dead calm, and with the brightness off the snow it's actually t-shirt weather. It's very continental in feel.

We got down to -1.1C this morning, making it our sixth air frost of the winter so far. One more, and we'll have had the same number of air frosts in the past week as we had in the whole of last winter!

[shuggee]

Seventeenth air frost and the coldest for nearly three years at -6.5°C. Still at -5.7°C at 11am. Blazing sunshine. 

[JoeShmoe]

Meto weather warning updated for tonight ... looks like southern Scotland is in prime position 

Edited December 30, 2020 by JoeShmoe

[Puffy MacCloud]

The cold snap just keeps on giving and the BBC weather app says I'm getting snow this afternoon. Let's see.

Temperature -1.5deg.C up from a minimum of -5.6deg.C at 07:22, humidity 96%, no wind at all recorded so far today, pressure 1003.9hPa rising slowly, no rain, no clouds and dew point is -2deg.C.

Edit: Just noticed that Diablo he also say snow. So that's that goosed then.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Puffy MacCloud
further information

[Cheggers]

Hard frost overnight, garden now solid instead of muddy bog. Still - 2c

BBC for my area

 

[Richard Taylor]

2 hours ago, Zerouali lives said:

It seems the models have been showing a cooler pattern for several weeks now with the Atlantic well and truly 'switched off'. However, it also seems that there's no proper cold to the north and east of us to hence why we're still getting rain / icy conditions at sea level. These synoptics look ideal for a really cold winter if only there was some true Polar / Continental air to tap into. 

Zero the way things are going, we will shortly be the EX-snow capital of the UK!! The days of long-lived northerlies that were not modified  & came straight off the Arctic into NE Scotland are quite the rarity now! Nowadays they are short-lived if they ever get properly established at all, & are very much modified! Never mind, maybe next year..... (ps. nice day here today)

[AFC Snow]

11 minutes ago, Richard Taylor said:

Zero the way things are going, we will shortly be the EX-snow capital of the UK!! The days of long-lived northerlies that were not modified  & came straight off the Arctic into NE Scotland are quite the rarity now! Nowadays they are short-lived if they ever get properly established at all, & are very much modified! Never mind, maybe next year..... (ps. nice day here today)

Snow desert more like.

[Sceptical]

Occasional very light snow showers for the last half hour or so. Looking west up the valley the snow is heavier and the showers more frequent. Judging by the amount of chimneys and flues running, a cold day.

[Ravelin]

25 minutes ago, Richard Taylor said:

Never mind, maybe next year

Luckily 'next year' is only 2 days away. 

Currently 0.6C/-2.0C, calm and largly sunny, but with the odd flurry of light snow falling. Its also lying but I'd hesitate to even call it a dusting. 

An overnight low of -1.8C left the driveway needing gritted again this morning to break up the sheet of ice that it had become. For the dog walk this morning we decided to stick to the road rather than risk the forestry tracks up the hill that were likely to be icy (although maybe not as it was snowing just a little higher up yesterday). The minor road by our house was ok as that's on the gritter route, but the side road we were intending to walk along a bit further downhill was a skating rink so we decided against that. 

Still not sure about tomorrow for here as most forecasts have it as an all sleet/rain event.

[Serac]

Afternoon

i have decided I am not buying this snow turning to rain malarkey tomorrow ; two reasons :

1) Because that was the forecast a couple of days ago ... all snow for most

2) Because I don’t want it to

[howham]

It will start and finish as rain here.  I'd rather we just kept the sunny, dry weather.

[JoeShmoe]

I think we got really lucky with the marginality here the other night , not sure we can do it twice but fingers crossed. May head up the pentlands with the dog !

[Hawesy]

Just a beautiful day out there. Great walk around Kilconquhar and Elie with views over to @Benvironment Lomonds and the Ochils. Back in Pittenweem definitely the coldest day of this spell. Currently 1.1c after an overnight low of -0.2c.

As for tomorrow as I mentioned earlier I think places further south and west will do best but I’m definitely holding out hope for seeing my first snowflake of the winter! 

[metallikat34]

37 minutes ago, Mr Frost said:

Just quickly looking at tomorrow it’s pretty much anyone’s guess what type of precipitation will fall at what level. 

Could be lovely snowy scenes for a few in here or sleety/rainy crap - really tough call for what areas get the good stuff.

Few snapshots below which are of course subject to change. 

09:00

11:00

 

Latest Met Office precipitation video.

Not looking great for parts of the NE on the above charts - as stated above by @Ravelin

As we all know it will be all about radar watching/looking out the window - especially with this current setup.
We have already seen that surprise snowfall/accumulations can pop up out of nowhere in real-time!

Good luck to you all. 

Was just having a look at this myself. The flow is certainly favorable (from the northeast and off the North Sea). But the timing isn't great, as it looks like the steadiest precipitation arrives midday, which does not bode well for temperatures. 

I suspect that it's going to be hard for anything to stick below 500 m. This precipitation won't be "convective" like early Monday morning was, and as such, we likely won't get the benefit of dynamic cooling. 

So, I am less enthused about tomorrows snow chances than I was 24 hours ago. That said, plenty of opportunities in the long range pattern for wintery weather! The major SSW has begun!

 

[blitzen]

Starting to cloud over here now.  I wonder?

0.4c /  -1.7c

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Blitzen

[Northernlights]

Some photos from this morning.

 

Treating calves this morning so nice and clean with no mud

[Eastern Scotland WX]

Lots of light precipitation  on radar but it doesn’t seem to be coming down to the surface?