Scotland/Alba weather discussion - Jan 2021 onwards

[jellybaby1969]

Nice mild 4c this morning.  BBC was for an overnight low of  -1c. .. didnt even come close to freezing. Drier and brighter you wouldnt think that a cold spell was inbound here ..not one bit !

[JoeShmoe]

Still raining this morning , what time does the colder air come in, is that tonight ?

[howham]

Snow showers on and off here under leaden grey skies.  0.1C.

[Ravelin]

I don't suppose I have anything to complain about this winter... 

    .      

[LomondSnowstorm]

2 minutes ago, JoeShmoe said:

Still raining this morning , what time does the colder air come in, is that tonight ?

It'll come in fairly gradually through the day but by 9pm tonight our marginality issues should be over:

Rain should start turning to snow inland south of the Tay from about 3pm onwards too:

[Big Innes Madori]

For about the past hour here all of the heaviest precipitation is definitely Snaw, then as it eases off again it is mostly spits and spots o' pish

Big Innes 

[Hawesy]

@LomondSnowstorm I notice you tend to go with the 300m wet bulb freezing level. I always thought 200m was the rough indicator for snow at sea level? Happy to stand corrected on that!

[LomondSnowstorm]

2 minutes ago, Hawesy said:

@LomondSnowstorm I notice you tend to go with the 300m wet bulb freezing level. I always thought 200m was the rough indicator for snow at sea level? Happy to stand corrected on that!

I'd probably go with 200m for sea level too actually, I've seen 200-300m quoted too depending on the situation but it probably comes from living in places around 50-100m altitude where 300m is generally fine for snow.

[drm]

22 minutes ago, Ravelin said:

I don't suppose I have anything to complain about this winter... 

    .      

Not jealous at all,said no one in Aberdeen where all it's done is  rain sleet and wet snow for the past few days roll on later today when even we in the east coast may at least see a dry flake fall from the sky t1.4c 1.1c dp

Edited February 6, 2021 by drm

[Sceptical]

Heavy snow around Westhill at the moment, another 15 mph increase in wind speeds and your looking at blizzard conditions.

[AFC Snow]

1 minute ago, Sceptical said:

Heavy snow around Westhill at the moment, another 15 mph increase in wind speeds and your looking at blizzard conditions.

Yes and everything seems to be turning a bit less marginal. It is amazing to think only a few miles away there is nothing.

[mistyqueen]

Morning all! My isn't this a busy wee page these days! Lovely piccies too! here we have 3c, dry, cloudy but with patches of blue sky there too, so really, quite a good day all told! Enjoy your snaw whoever gets it, it certainly won't be me! 

[BurntFishTrousers]

Cold air leaving Denmark, SW Norway now (top right). Image LIVE at 0955. 

[howham]

We are right on the edge of the snow here.  Delivery driver says it is raining in Ellon c. 6 miles away.

[Stormeh]

11 minutes ago, BurntFishTrousers said:

Cold air leaving Denmark, SW Norway now (top right). Image LIVE at 0955.

The North Sea snow machine looks like it’s firing up? I just hope some of the showers/streamers make it through to give some of us western members some snow. All to play for over the next few days, good luck to everyone

[Quinach]

2 hours ago, Richard Taylor said:

Right through this spell we've been on the wrong side of marginal be it precip, height or anything else. What we've got this morning as a perfect example of this  - cold, wet, damp rain. Forecast still claiming snow later but I've long given up on this. Unless its an old-style sustained northerly then winters of old are finished.

For me, the thing I will probably remember this winter for is the marginality of the snowfall on lower ground.

It's never been above 5c here since Christmas, which is another remarkable feature of this winter, so ground conditions can not be said to be warm.  But its amazing to me how the snow just does not stick.  Perusing the security camera recording from overnight, the snow has been falling constantly since 4pm yesterday.  End result, 0.5cm of slush on the hard surfaces and about 2cm on the grass.  I've seen winters since the 1970's and I do not recall this level of marginality in the past, when it snowed it stuck and none of this marginal nonsense!  Need to convince the other half we need to retire near Braemar as there the old style winters still exist.

Currently 0.7c and snowing combined with a slow thaw going by the drip, drip, drip visible on the shed roofs.

Still above freezing in most areas going by the Met Office WOW site.

[LomondSnowstorm]

The Scandi high on Thursday/Friday seems to be increasing in strength run by run, the GFS 6Z makes one of the closer attempts I've seen at extending and, with a few tweaks, potentially even intensifying the easterly.

This is what I'd say is the key point to keeping the easterly going:

There's a lot going right here, with a negatively tilted trough and some signs that the monster low in the Atlantic is trying to disrupt, with that little secondary low forming to its east. With a slightly stronger Genoa low that sits in place a bit longer, and the disruption a little bit earlier/further southeast, we would see a linkup, with the secondary low sliding under, the main low staying out in the Atlantic (as seems likely now anyway) and this flow continuing (there's some pretty nice looking convective snow potential through Wednesday and into Thursday btw, just as good as anything early in the week):

What we get following it isn't Atlantic driven by any means, and the cold air actually comes back in from the southeast after this too, but it really really wouldn't take much for it to turn into something epic:

 

[aggy]

I’m getting a little nervous that we won’t see much in the central belt any chart I’ve seen dosent deliver much shower or streamer to the area I know there are a nightmare to forecast 

 

has any one got any info what the potential is ? Particularly tomorrow to Wednesday 

[Polar Side]

6 minutes ago, LomondSnowstorm said:

The Scandi high on Thursday/Friday seems to be increasing in strength run by run, the GFS 6Z makes one of the closer attempts I've seen at extending and, with a few tweaks, potentially even intensifying the easterly.

This is what I'd say is the key point to keeping the easterly going:

There's a lot going right here, with a negatively tilted trough and some signs that the monster low in the Atlantic is trying to disrupt, with that little secondary low forming to its east. With a slightly stronger Genoa low that sits in place a bit longer, and the disruption a little bit earlier/further southeast, we would see a linkup, with the secondary low sliding under, the main low staying out in the Atlantic (as seems likely now anyway) and this flow continuing (there's some pretty nice looking convective snow potential through Wednesday and into Thursday btw, just as good as anything early in the week):

What we get following it isn't Atlantic driven by any means, and the cold air actually comes back in from the southeast after this too, but it really really wouldn't take much for it to turn into something epic:

 

Brilliant commentary LS

It has been an absolutely fascinating model watching winter so far. Bluearmy posted earlier that the extended eps want to build a Griceland ridge!

[Penicuikblizzard]

14 minutes ago, LomondSnowstorm said:

The Scandi high on Thursday/Friday seems to be increasing in strength run by run, the GFS 6Z makes one of the closer attempts I've seen at extending and, with a few tweaks, potentially even intensifying the easterly.

This is what I'd say is the key point to keeping the easterly going:

There's a lot going right here, with a negatively tilted trough and some signs that the monster low in the Atlantic is trying to disrupt, with that little secondary low forming to its east. With a slightly stronger Genoa low that sits in place a bit longer, and the disruption a little bit earlier/further southeast, we would see a linkup, with the secondary low sliding under, the main low staying out in the Atlantic (as seems likely now anyway) and this flow continuing (there's some pretty nice looking convective snow potential through Wednesday and into Thursday btw, just as good as anything early in the week):

What we get following it isn't Atlantic driven by any means, and the cold air actually comes back in from the southeast after this too, but it really really wouldn't take much for it to turn into something epic:

 

What are your thoughts about the next 72hrs? Well potential

[Penicuikblizzard]

A very similar set up to what we have now from Feb 1991,,,I remember this being a snowy easterly up here The SE of England was also buried,,,,,anyone remember Francis Wilson ramping up this event

[LomondSnowstorm]

17 minutes ago, aggy said:

I’m getting a little nervous that we won’t see much in the central belt any chart I’ve seen dosent deliver much shower or streamer to the area I know there are a nightmare to forecast 

 

has any one got any info what the potential is ? Particularly tomorrow to Wednesday 

I've been holding off since it's pretty difficult to pin down details with convection, but I'll do a summary this evening. I think in short I'd say - don't get your hopes up too much the further west you are tomorrow, specifically, because it's possible we end up with this 'discontinuity' in the flow where it goes quite abruptly from easterly to southeasterly over the middle of Scotland:

The UKV for what it's worth does continue to build showers through the day and eastern areas will certainly get frequent snow showers but further west it'll likely be a bit more sporadic because of this. However, by Monday morning this should be resolved, and we will get a bit more of a northerly tilt to the flow and a flow that goes from west to east, meaning more snow and streamer possibilities for central Scotland:

Beyond that I'd say things are likely to continue similarly to Monday, some potential for streamers or slightly more organised stuff especially following the next low undercutting on Tuesday but I'd think somewhere like Cumbernauld should do reasonably well since the flow will be pretty close to a straight easterly, or a slightly northerly tilt, so any streamers that do form in the Forth are quite likely to be heading in your direction.

 

It's worth noting though that the isobars are going to be more 'southerly' than the flow itself - you can see today for example that the showers are moving through pretty much perfectly east-west despite a southeasterly tilt to the isobars:

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by LomondSnowstorm

[blitzen]

1 hour ago, Big Innes Madori said:

For about the past hour here all of the heaviest precipitation is definitely Snaw, then as it eases off again it is mostly spits and spots o' pish

Big Innes 

Yep.   What Big Innes said. (Finally)  

Please Miss, he also said the same bad word as I did the other day  (and got away with it)  The swear filter accused me of ' swearing again'  I guess it must be in a better mood today!!

Surprisingly though, all the stats here are exactly the same as yesterday 1.8c/1.4c/ENE.   Even the web cam pic is exactly the same!   Obviously a change on now though, "I can feel it in my WATER!" which is all gone now by the way!

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Blitzen

[Sceptical]

Road leading up to North Keig where the road used to block fairly regularly during past winters. 2010 there was four  foot of snow up there.

 

Snows a bit deeper thanks to the walled area where firewood sheds are located. In places its around 20cm due to drifting.

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Sceptical

[Bullseye]

16 minutes ago, LomondSnowstorm said:

I've been holding off since it's pretty difficult to pin down details with convection, but I'll do a summary this evening. I think in short I'd say - don't get your hopes up too much the further west you are tomorrow, specifically, because it's possible we end up with this 'discontinuity' in the flow where it goes quite abruptly from easterly to southeasterly over the middle of Scotland:

The UKV for what it's worth does continue to build showers through the day and eastern areas will certainly get frequent snow showers but further west it'll likely be a bit more sporadic because of this. However, by Monday morning this should be resolved, and we will get a bit more of a northerly tilt to the flow and a flow that goes from west to east, meaning more snow and streamer possibilities for central Scotland:

Beyond that I'd say things are likely to continue similarly to Monday, some potential for streamers or slightly more organised stuff especially following the next low undercutting on Tuesday but I'd think somewhere like Cumbernauld should do reasonably well since the flow will be pretty close to a straight easterly, or a slightly northerly tilt, so any streamers that do form in the Forth are quite likely to be heading in your direction.

 

It's worth noting though that the isobars are going to be more 'southerly' than the flow itself - you can see today for example that the showers are moving through pretty much perfectly east-west despite a southeasterly tilt to the isobars:

 

Thanks for this, always good to hear your thoughts. On this, I think Matt Hugo is following same lines as yourself and sees Monday/Tuesday as better opportunity for something more intense with regard to snowfall.