Scotland/Alba weather discussion - Jan 2021 onwards

[LomondSnowstorm]

48 minutes ago, 101_North said:

No warnings North of the border after Sunday? I'm hoping that's due to uncertainty at the minute! 

I'd think so - this far out you'd need to be pretty certain to put a warning out. The reason they've done it south of the border is closer to the trough you've got more organised snowfall on Monday, which will be showing up much more clearly in the models than our convective snow (oddly enough there was a question on how well models represent convection/why they sometimes do a poor job on my exam!). I think that's pretty standard from what I recall from previous events - a couple of easterlies we've had have barely had warning until well after the snow started falling

[Hawesy]

Interesting - snowflakes in the heavier precipitation now here in Pittenweem. Temperature still sitting at +3c. First snowflakes I’ve seen here since January 7th!

[Penicuikblizzard]

Looking good for you guys in the North in the amber area,,,,wow 30cm at the 150m level that’s going to cause plenty disruption

Edited February 3, 2021 by Penicuikblizzard

[edo]

@Jambo Fowler it's all down to luck the totals we can possibly get in Perth. We were very unlucky during the beast.... The current ENE and ESE variations should certainly see us hit with plenty of convective showers and I see us having showers Sunday to Tuesday with significant disturbance in the flow I would be disappointed if we don't see at least 6 inches and yes a foot entirely possible the way the charts currently look.

@Mr Frostim loving the mild line over 101s House 

[Puffy MacCloud]

We had lots of light to moderate, really wet snow yesterday but only rain today. Been watching the radar showing serious snow skirting the village for the last 24 hours while others in the Kiltie No Pants thread are being buried in the stuff. I'm almost at the point of posting in the Southern Softie thread. Still, all this rain has the place looking very, very green, which is nice enough in its own way.

Temperature 2.2deg.C up from 1.4deg.C minimum at 05:17, humidity is 91%, wind is 4 to 8mph northerly generally with a 20mph gust at 07:54, pressure is 997.0hPa rising slowly, there's been 6.6mm of rain today and 11.2mm in the last 24 hours, cloud cover is 8/8 and the dew point is at 1deg.C.

[LomondSnowstorm]

As far as today goes - it is a gradually improving picture as far as snow prospects go. This is the picture at the moment:

To this evening:

And wind speeds easing too:

As a result we'll start to see temperatures dropping and becoming more conducive to something a bit wintrier:

The 250m wet bulb freezing line is also going to head south, so I think even in the next few hours we'll start to see rain and sleet turning to snow and wet snow turning to snow that might actually stick:

You can already see the impact of this on dewpoints, with almost everywhere north of Dundee seeing DPs dropping to )C or below.

While precipitation will generally start to ease, I'd think there'll still be enough coming through to give a risk of a covering as the back edge of the front move back south, and we'll see some more showers coming in through the evening too:

I wouldn't necessarily expect too much but equally I wouldn't be surprised if it delivers an inch or two, probably moreso to areas that do well from an ESErly with the showers:

 

Tomorrow morning will be trickier, in that I expect some initial snowfall that's quite likely to turn to rain, but less so the further north and west you are. We'll see on the 12Zs quite how far north the models take it as there seems to have been some convergence between the UKV and GFS setups in northern extent to a compromise position that still sees the Highlands taking a pasting, but that could change.

[A Winter's Tale]

A pretty miserable morning with damp, windy and cold conditions. This weekend and early next week is looking increasingly interesting with the GFS joining the other models in what could be the stand out event of a cold winter.

We could be looking st the most significant cold spell in the mid Jan-mid Feb period since 1991. Other than 2001, 2009 and 2018 there have not been too many noteworthy cold spells in February but I think it’s safe to say 2021 will join that list. I think we are looking at a more prolonged easterly than 2018 and a more potent cold spell than 2009. It’s far too early to predict how much snow will fall and where but I think parts of the Borders, Fife, Perthshire, Angus and Aberdeenshire exposes to the wind should do very well. 

No two easterlies are exactly the same so we just need to wait and see if the North Sea snow machine is in good condition and whether the snow showers are heavy, widespread and make it far inland or perhaps some more organised snowfall. There’s always the chance of hit and miss snow showers with uneven snow depths over short distances. I probably would have preferred the easterly to have occurred in January but given this is happening a few weeks earlier than 2018 I presume slightly warmer SSTs and weaker sun should help despite the uppers not as cold as 2018. Having said that it would appear Scotland may be under -10C uppers for longer than 2018, 1991 and 1987 and with lower air pressure and atmospheric pressure aswell. Areas to the north and east of Glasgow should widely see depths in excess of 20cm with more than 40cn in worst hit areas with altitude. I think 5-25cm is more realistic for parts of the Lothians, Lanarkshire and Glasgow area with areas close to the west coast struggling although snow showers could funnel through to the Clyde estuary if a streamer sets up. Hopefully the cold spell will be prolonged and we could be looking at perhaps the coldest February since 1986 (which is long overdue). 

 

 

[101_North]

9 minutes ago, edo said:

 

@Mr Frostim loving the mild line over 101s House 

Cruel  

[Hawesy]

31 minutes ago, LomondSnowstorm said:

I'd think so - this far out you'd need to be pretty certain to put a warning out. The reason they've done it south of the border is closer to the trough you've got more organised snowfall on Monday, which will be showing up much more clearly in the models than our convective snow (oddly enough there was a question on how well models represent convection/why they sometimes do a poor job on my exam!). I think that's pretty standard from what I recall from previous events - a couple of easterlies we've had have barely had warning until well after the snow started falling

Its been that way for many years. Showing my age but ahead of the epic January 1987 easterly snow event in Glasgow the forecast was for an ‘isolated snow shower’ (on the Sunday evening). 36 hours later there was 15” (38cm) of snow in my garden just 3 miles south of the city centre and at no altitude. Eaglesham and East Kilbride had 20” (50cm) of snow. That Monday saw daytime temperature of -5c in Glasgow with near constant snow for 36 hours. With that event snow totals to the north of the city were significantly lower, the way the streamer aligned.

Still the greatest low level snow event I’ve experienced in Scotland. I wonder if there were a few cms in the East Neuk back in 87? 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Hawesy

[LomondSnowstorm]

2 minutes ago, Hawesy said:

Its been that way for many years. Showing my age but ahead of the epic January 1987 easterly snow event in Glasgow the forecast was for an ‘isolated snow shower’ (on the Sunday evening). 36 hours later there was 15” of snow in my garden just 3 miles south of the city centre and at no altitude. Eaglesham and East Kilbride had 20” of snow. That Monday saw daytime temperature of -5c in Glasgow with near constant snow for 36 hours. With that event snow totals to the north of the city were significantly lower, the way the streamer aligned.

Still the greatest low level snow event I’ve experienced in Scotland.

It's a bit surprising to me since they do sometimes get it right (November 2010 and I think February/March 2018 they were pretty well bang on with it), and you'd think with the UKV, which actually can resolve convection, they should have a better idea, but you still see the same misses quite frequently.

[TinyTim]

19 minutes ago, edo said:

@Jambo Fowler it's all down to luck the totals we can possibly get in Perth. We were very unlucky during the beast.... The current ENE and ESE variations should certainly see us hit with plenty of convective showers and I see us having showers Sunday to Tuesday with significant disturbance in the flow I would be disappointed if we don't see at least 6 inches and yes a foot entirely possible the way the charts currently look.

@Mr Frostim loving the mild line over 101s House 

Please don't jynx it Edo   Though having said that, maybe my memory is faulty, but the beast did provide some fairly heavy stuff here in town... I remember the College being closed and I walked up the hill to my folks to walk my mum to her work at PRI

Edited February 3, 2021 by TinyTim

[Quinach]

39 minutes ago, Scottish-Irish Skier said:

BBC oan the meto amber warning for the highlands.

Recent photaes from the Cawder estate.

Going forward, with snow depths like that there are going to be real welfare issues for the likes of red deer/grouse etc on these estates as how can they possibly reach any food.  Bit like how you read about Reindeer starving in Finland as the snow is now too deep and heavy for them to dig down to reach the moss compared to old style winters which were colder but with less snow.

Now getting some bright spells here in between the sleet/graupel showers which is allowing the temperature to drop further - currently 1.3c.  Ground still too wet/warm to allow any appreciable lying.

 

[Frosty the Snowman]

2 minutes ago, Quinach said:

Going forward, with snow depths like that there are going to be real welfare issues for the likes of red deer/grouse etc on these estates as how can they possibly reach any food.  Bit like how you read about Reindeer starving in Finland as the snow is now too deep and heavy for them to dig down to reach the moss compared to old style winters which were colder but with less snow.

Now getting some bright spells here in between the sleet/graupel showers which is allowing the temperature to drop further - currently 1.3c.  Ground still too wet/warm to allow any appreciable lying.

 

Helicopter dropping could be an option if you get those sort of depths at remotely low levels, but they'd need to learn from the US's 1940s responses on that as apparently the wildlife couldn't get to a lot of it. Do you bring your sheep down and cattle inside for winter up in the highlands or is livestock at risk here, I'd imagine sadly livestock would be prioritised over wildlife in these situations? And of course the resources that might be used to these ends could well be prioritised for Covid use anyway - almost makes you wish for a early Spring.  

 

Their twitter feed replies on this image said they only had a covering down at village level, so over the next few days I'd imagine those of you in semi-rural areas will see wildlife coming down to the lower areas with less snow covering, the issue will be if you start getting a foot of snow at sea level with lakes freezing over. 

[Mark H]

WRF-NMM looks to get the milder air out quite quick Friday into Saturday, looking at my locale,

Friday 0700, 850hpa temp around -2,freezing level 821m and wet bulb feezing level around 925hpa

 

Friday 7pm, 850's -4,freezing level 401m ,wet bulb freezing level about 960hpa

Saturday 1 am, 850 temp -6, freezing level down to 342m and wet bulb freezing level down to about  975hpa.

The change in the air mass temp moving south shows up quite nicely on the Theta e charts.

  

[GoldenJackel]

10 minutes ago, Mr Frost said:

I like to think my Geography is pretty good but what areas are Upper Deeside? Braemar? Ballater? 
Anyone in here live in the above area?

I would say Aboyne west through to Braemar looks like the sweet spot.

[Gogoslo]

11 minutes ago, Mr Frost said:

I like to think my Geography is pretty good but what areas are Upper Deeside? Braemar? Ballater? 
Anyone in here live in the above area?

Spot on.  I would probably include Aboyne in there as well.  

[pdiddy]

@Kirkcaldy Weather

found this on the interweb:

https://www.northavimet.com/NamConWS/rest/document/sigwx_help

regarding "troughs with arms"

 

[Mr T]

7 minutes ago, Gogoslo said:

Spot on.  I would probably include Aboyne in there as well.  

I live in Aboyne and I've been viewing some ridiculous weekly accumulated snowfall forecasts on the various models over the last 24hr. Ventusky app currently showing 70+cm over the next week for Aboyne. Last night it was showing 90+cm (these totals based on the GFS run). The ICON run showing less but still significant. It's snowing at the moment but not coming to much. We have about 2in of snow at the moment lying on top of ice that's been here since Xmas. I travelled for groceries yesterday to Westhill and Inverurie and was very surprised there was little to no snow in those locations. I'm not sure what to expect here in Aboyne over the next week or so but we're prepared with plenty sledges and snow boogieboards... and emergency supplies in case of power outages.... It was -10°C here in the early hours of yesterday morning.

[Mr T]

13 minutes ago, Mr T said:

I live in Aboyne and I've been viewing some ridiculous weekly accumulated snowfall forecasts on the various models over the last 24hr. Ventusky app currently showing 70+cm over the next week for Aboyne. Last night it was showing 90+cm (these totals based on the GFS run). The ICON run showing less but still significant. It's snowing at the moment but not coming to much. We have about 2in of snow at the moment lying on top of ice that's been here since Xmas. I travelled for groceries yesterday to Westhill and Inverurie and was very surprised there was little to no snow in those locations. I'm not sure what to expect here in Aboyne over the next week or so but we're prepared with plenty sledges and snow boogieboards... and emergency supplies in case of power outages.... It was -10°C here in the early hours of yesterday morning.

 

[Benvironment]

Holding at 1.1C so far today, rather than the 1.6C of yesterday and it does seem to have made a subtle difference. Still on the wet side out there but not as wet as it was, and so cover is starting to thicken up now and there's some drifting starting. Couldn't tell you the depth as it's so varied.

[Stormeh]

Just took a wee drive up to the wind farm and snow is pretty deep

[Glaswegianblizzard]

Cycled along that road on Saturday @Stormeh, was freezing up there although the views were phenomenal in the sun.

[Norrance]

2 hours ago, Hawesy said:

Its been that way for many years. Showing my age but ahead of the epic January 1987 easterly snow event in Glasgow the forecast was for an ‘isolated snow shower’ (on the Sunday evening). 36 hours later there was 15” (38cm) of snow in my garden just 3 miles south of the city centre and at no altitude. Eaglesham and East Kilbride had 20” (50cm) of snow. That Monday saw daytime temperature of -5c in Glasgow with near constant snow for 36 hours. With that event snow totals to the north of the city were significantly lower, the way the streamer aligned.

Still the greatest low level snow event I’ve experienced in Scotland. I wonder if there were a few cms in the East Neuk back in 87? 

I would guess that there was snow in the East Neuk in Jan 87. Max temps in Dundee were -6C for 48 hours so I cant imagine that it was above zero even right out on the Fife riviera. Level snow in Kinross was 45 cms. Here is a pic from Birkhill from that week. Note the icicles! I think the second is at Magdalene Green in Dundee down near the river.

Meanwhile today more wintriness in the mix compared with yesterday with snow in heavier showers. Lying briefly on my jacket and trousers at least. Does that count? 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Norrance

[Northernlights]

Stormy on the hills with the Cawdor hills coming in and out of vision with drifting snow.

A link showing one of the hill roads up there with metres of snow available for drifting. The reason for the tracks being snowploughed weekly is for servicing the windfarm.

Met Office "amber" snow warning for parts of Scotland

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

---

An amber alert is issued by the Met Office for "widespread, persistent and heavy" snow on Friday and Saturday.

 

[JoeShmoe]

Just took the dog for a walk down Portobello beach, bracing would be putting it mildly ( he loved it though!)