Scotland/Alba weather discussion - Jan 2021 onwards

[101_North]

Light snow back on here, getting heavier and settling on the grass! 

The hills behind the house at 278m are turning white pretty quickly!

Edited February 2, 2021 by 101_North

[edo]

Even the GFS which is causing much knicker wetting in the MT delivers for the North and Scotland, @DundeeguyDundee still looks a good place to be come Fri onwards and at elevation in Dundee maybe sooner. Been a dusting here overnight...

 

Off to fire up the work laptop and the personal laptop will be on the GFS updates all day in curiosity to see if it comes back online for our southern friend's. 

[Cheggers]

Wet, windy and 3c here

Met have removed the warnings for here from tomorrow onwards. 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Cheggers

[Sanserit]

@Blitzen it must be embarrassing for them as meteorologists having to spout the scripts that they're given but as with most things Beeb, they'll have to toe the corporation's line I suspect.   Gone are the days when I take what is produced by the Beeb in general as being gospel.

Back to the weather, I was just out with my recycling and it feels a good bit warmer than the -4.5c that my station is reporting but the snow that fell on Sunday night is definitely the good kind and feels great underfoot.

[JamesM]

Light rain and sleet here.

[Stormeh]

Damp start here, nothing falling from the sky yet.

10 minutes up the road though snow is falling on higher parts of the M77

[Penicuikblizzard]

1 hour ago, 101_North said:

Looks like light rain here at the minute and with Edinburgh Airport reading 3c I suspect a fairly miserable day ahead. 

Rain in the City Centre ️ 

[mistyqueen]

Morning all! Currently 1.4c here, light cloud and a helluva nippy breeze! Snaw shovel shoved to the back of the shed as I reckon it wont be needed here any time soon. Keep the snaw piccies coming folks! Bet this thread will be snawed under with photies o' whiteness from everywhere but Skye! 

[blitzen]

3 minutes ago, Sanserit said:

@Blitzen it must be embarrassing for them as meteorologists having to spout the scripts that they're given but as with most things Beeb, they'll have to toe the corporation's line I suspect.   Gone are the days when I take what is produced by the Beeb in general as being gospel.

Back to the weather, I was just out with my recycling and it feels a good bit warmer than the -4.5c that my station is reporting but the snow that fell on Sunday night is definitely the good kind and feels great underfoot.

Not embarrassing enough, obviously!   It's almost as if they are no longer required.   Weather Presenter's job with the BBC anyone?

[JoeShmoe]

29 minutes ago, edo said:

Even the GFS which is causing much knicker wetting in the MT delivers for the North and Scotland, @DundeeguyDundee still looks a good place to be come Fri onwards and at elevation in Dundee maybe sooner. Been a dusting here overnight...

 

Off to fire up the work laptop and the personal laptop will be on the GFS updates all day in curiosity to see if it comes back online for our southern friend's. 

Its unreadable there now, just an extension of the SE regional thread ...

[scottishandy]

Fairly continuous showers here, of snow. 3cm so far at a guess. Looks a bit damp but a good start.

[Kayemill]

I've been doing this long enough I should know better, but once again I need to remind myself that the Precipitation Type charts on all models are pure mince.

[101_North]

Snow getting heavier now and starting to settle a bit better. 0.2c

Edited February 2, 2021 by 101_North

[jellybaby1969]

2 minutes ago, Kayemill said:

I've been doing this long enough I should know better, but once again I need to remind myself that the Precipitation Type charts on all models are pure mince.

100 % I thought ayrshire was in the firing line after viewing yesterdays precipitation charts.....

[Penicuikblizzard]

4 minutes ago, 101_North said:

Snow getting heavier now and starting to settle a bit better. 0.2c

Sleet now in town

[Benvironment]

1.8C and it's been very lightly snowing on and off all night. Maybe a fresh 1cm from all that. Unsurprisingly, yet again the BBC forecast has 'sleet' here uninterrupted for the next 60 hours or so. That's pretty much all it is said since Christmas. Almost like it's the default 'oh we've no idea, just put sleet and that should cover all eventualities'  

Quite odd to see the snow falling horizontally this time. Haven't seen that for a while!

[Big Innes Madori]

Stated Snawing here noo after earlier sporadic bits of rain!

Let's see if it brings anything worth talking aboot

Big Innes 

[101_North]

Starting to stick on all surfaces now. 

[LomondSnowstorm]

43 minutes ago, Blitzen said:

2.3c/1.3c/995.4c/E/11mph/drizzle.

To say that this weather type was not what I was expecting to wake up to this morning is an understatement.  

At tea last night, I was sitting listening to Helen Worth giving the forecast, and overnight looked pretty snowy for a good part of eastern Scotland from the borders upwards.   I have lost a lot of faith in the BBC forecasts lately, especially as Helen Worth, admittedly a few years ago now, used to be the top forecaster when it was linked to the Met Office.   Didn't they used to put their own interpretation on the incoming data back then?   I mean as Meteorologists, what the heck are they there for? Obviously there was a good explanation for our area missing out overnight, I think LS touched on the uncertainty.   I know that some of them are just presenters, but she (and others) certainly aren't.  Sometimes I feel they would be just as effective standing there in front of a sheet of wallpaper! Totally overshadowed by our own forecasters here on Netweather and that includes our amateurs)    I think the gritters must be linked to the BBC (or the Daily Express) as well, as they haven't stopped here  all night and are still going!  

Anyhoo, rant over!...Morning folks!

 

I think we all forgot how much easterlies can modify temperatures, and that really looks like what's happened overnight - further west it's not too far off what you're looking for (most DPs are around or below 0C but with temperatures maybe 2C going by wundermaps) but without strong precipitation and with cloud cover it's not really ideal conditions for most of us. However, with the heavy stuff starting to move north I do think things will improve - look at how temperatures on the Solway Firth have dipped since the front arrived there:

So for now anyway it's the modification, which can be overcome with heavy precip for most of us, rather than any frontal change that's causing the issues.

Quite how far north the occlusion gets I'm not sure, the UKV doesn't really have much heavy stuff for central areas until afternoon:

But the latest ICON does have some moderate stuff arriving by lunchtime which looks more in line with the radar:

It'll be pretty patchy and altitude/intensity dependent until tomorrow night, but there's a window there where the colder uppers come back in and we're likely to see more widespread settling snow for all of us for a time:

We'll see how the low develops on Thursday but it may turn a bit dicey for a day or two until the easterly proper can arrive.

Anyway the longer term is still basically fine, the GFS threw a bit of a wobbly but doesn't seem to have been followed by the others and up to Sunday night it's a pretty decent run in any case. I think I'd give it a day or so, until the secondary low is properly dealt with, before having too much certainty in the easterly. I would say that things being a tiny bit further north than yesterday, as they are on the UKMO could work out even better for us as far as increasing snow totals go:

 

 

[Ravelin]

Well from below -7C in the early hours we're back up to 0C currently, although the dewpoint is still -2.9C. Currently it's cloudy with just the hint that there's some blue skies behind it, and dead calm yet again. Precipitation forecasts are changing yet again, with the light snow the MetO were forecasting for today now pushed back until tomorrow, with the heaviest of any snow/precipitation now late Thu into Friday. Yr.No (ECM based) has also moved the heavier stuff to Friday, but also notched the temperature up enough for it to be showing sleet for a lot of the time. XC weather still buries me from late Thu right through to Mon.

It'll be interesting to see how/if the weather warnings change later this morning, especially the snow ones for Wed that were issued on Sat and haven't been updated since. I'm in Inverurie this afternoon so irrespective of forecasts, warnings etc I'll be paying a little more attention to what we need from Tesco than usual.

[blitzen]

Had a couple of dandruff size blizzardy type showers now, (not lying)  so perhaps things are starting to change.

2.0c/1.1c/E/gusty/19mph.

[Kayemill]

Temp is dropping at home. Down to 1.1/0.1.

[JoeShmoe]

Everything is just decaying before it gets here (oragaphic effect over southern uplands or no grunt in the front!) .. to the point where we've had really light drizzle all morning and light grey skies

[Hawesy]

24 minutes ago, LomondSnowstorm said:

I think we all forgot how much easterlies can modify temperatures,

Not guilty, sir. I never forget.  Year round, easterlies are unwelcome, the very occasional import of -10c 850s excepted.

Thanks as always for the informative post @LomondSnowstorm

4.1c here, wet and windy.

[JamesM]

Temp must be dropping. Light snow now and the flakes are blowing around in the wind. Hopefully the heavier band to the south moves up this way.