Scotland/Alba weather discussion - Jan 2021 onwards

[Halfamilefromnowhere]

Well had high hopes of awaking to huge drifts this morning but the heavy dry snow of yesterday changed to sleety snow yesterday evening but at 230am on a peer outside it was proper drifting snow.... early walk with the mad hound at 7am driving wet snow.  Wet snow depths over the wellies in places and some deeper drifts but pretty disappointing soggy mess in places.  That said optimistic that the driving wet snow will gradually get its act together today...  temperatures hovering 0.4C .  Just a bit higher up the hills I would think there will be severe drifting but far too extreme conditions to venture higher.

[Cheggers]

Groundhog day!!!! 

[mistyqueen]

Morning all! Well, it rained all night and it has finally just stopped! I can see that even out on the mainland the snow on the mountains looks like it's had a good washing out as there's now bits of grey where yesterday it was white! Sky now clearing away to the north east, so I might manage out for a wee walk later on. I know we won't get any snow as far over this way but at least the weekend looks dry, clear and cold which is a massive improvement on yesterday! Current temp 4.8c, and the lowest overnight was 1.6c. 

[milkmaid]

just rain on the ice ,it started out as flurries last night i was expecting snow this morning but just ice and rain ,near dingwall 

 

[MildCarlilse]

Icy remnants in driving rain here at Port of Ness.High tide at 12:45pm so expecting a busy sea state from the ENE wind.+3c.The Clisham pass is just around the snow line at 200m.Council webcams captured this well.

[Polar Side]

I thought this was very interesting from Mulzy in the model thread:-

“Big shift in the medium and longer range EPS - significant northern heights back in the menu!”

Edited February 5, 2021 by Polar Side

[Quinach]

The heavy snow in the evening changed to torrential rain by midnight.

End result is that, what was 6cm of snow cover this time yesterday, now looks like this...

Temperature rose during the night to a max of 3.1c; now 1.9c.  Wind still strong from the SE bringing in further pulses of light rain/drizzle.

[aggy]

1 hour ago, MAXcrazystorm said:

Really serious flood event unfolding here. 50mm+ last 48hrs. 70mm+ this month. But ground is extremely saturated already. Worse flooding in years from things i have saw

Not stopped poring with rain for days is what it feels like . Still can’t believe there has been no warnings out 

[jellybaby1969]

yes the rain has been as much of a story as the snow. Been belting down here since tuesday...  I am sure it will stop as soon as its cold enough for snow !!

[Northernlights]

Just as miserable here after late last night snow starting to settle but repalaced by moderate sleet this morning.Water and ice everywhere.

Trying to imagine its all that latent heat given off by the approaching snowstorms.Think it will just be dry and frosty for a week here now. Wrong wnd direction  coming up for us.Currently 2c, dull and sleeting.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Northernlights

[aggy]

3 minutes ago, jellybaby1969 said:

yes the rain has been as much of a story as the snow. Been belting down here since tuesday...  I am sure it will stop as soon as its cold enough for snow !!

Always the same isn’t it 

[aggy]

I suppose the good thing about these total depth maps is that shower/ streamers are notoriously difficult to pin point and ppn can be impossibly difficult to estimate so south of the forth don’t worry to much 

[JamesM]

It’s raining - again. 

[LomondSnowstorm]

1 hour ago, 101_North said:

Latest ECM is encouraging enough for the Lothians no? Admittedly takes until Monday to really get going on these charts but plenty of ppn packing in. These things are never modelled well. I'll be trying (and probably failing) to stay away from charts and just see what happens

https://www.wxcharts.com/?panel=default&model=ecmwf,ecmwf,ecmwf,ecmwf&region=sco&chart=overview,850temp,wind10mkph,snowdepth&run=00&step=093&plottype=10&lat=51.500&lon=-0.250&skewtstep=0

I *think* the key to this is how far north the Channel/Pas de Calais low gets. The runs that have it a bit further north have a bit more of a northerly tilt to the flow and slightly more pepped up precipitation e.g. the ECM:

the UKMO doesn't do it so much, so the flow is a little to the south of east generally:

The GFS is better on this as well, and the 6Z places this low a bit further north than yesterday's 6Z too:

And the ICON has started to develop it a bit more in recent runs as well:

Basically there's good reason to believe the UKMO/UKV will be towards the lower end of what you can expect snow wise especially south of the Forth even if you assume it isn't underestimating convective precipitation.

Just for illustrative purposes, here's how the ICON 6Z ends up (this is just accumulations since 6Z so we don't end up with inflated totals because of what the models think has fallen already, and there's almost nothing at low levels until late Saturday so it isn't distorted by the current frontal 'no):

 

 

Edited February 5, 2021 by LomondSnowstorm

[jellybaby1969]

I am not convinced that daytime temps will be remain below freezing in this period of supposed severe weather.  On the west coast !

[Zerouali lives]

Temperatures and due points seemed to have 'maxed out' for Aberdeen this morning - it's now a falling trend for both from now on...

Edited February 5, 2021 by Zerouali lives

[Ravelin]

Temp here currently 0.7C but at least the dewpoint has begun to diverge again and is down to 0.3C. We cleared around 8cm of snow off of the driveway this morning, light and fluffy is NOT how I'd describe it. That's the accumulation since yesterday morning as we only cleared it once yesterday, but it was almost certainly deeper than 8cm mid afternoon to early evening, before it got soggy and compacted.

Snowing on and off, and it is definitely snow again, but not leaving a covering on the cleared driveway yet.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Ravelin

[Penicuikblizzard]

2 hours ago, 101_North said:

You'd get just as accurate an estimate strapping crayons to a cat! 

The GFS 6z has better quality crayons

[Gogoslo]

Am I correct in thinking that even the forecasters are struggling with the snow amounts and locations over the next 5-7 days other than the higher ground and south east of England ?  The beeb forecast this morning had barely any snow on the graphics but mentioned that snow could fall pretty much anywhere on the east coast.  
Not expecting much over this cold period but radar/lampost watching will be mainly the kids education next week . An early intro to meteorology !! 

[Puffy MacCloud]

It's still raining here and the pond that forms towards the foot of the garden now that the trees are away has become sizeable. I'm going to put a deck chair and my fishing umbrella around the far side of it and hope for some lake effect snow later on.

Temperature 3.5deg.C, which is the minimum for today so far, down from a max of 4.9deg.C at 02:51, humidity is 91%, wind is 2 to 5mph gusting to 12mph and Diablo says it's a north to northwesterly flow but i think it's bouncing off the trees at the foot of the garden, pressure is 1009.9hPa rising slowly, there's been 5.2mm of rain since midnight and 17.6mm in the last 24 hours, cloud cover is 8/8 and the dew point is at 2deg.C.

I've got to go to the hospital now to get my sharps box emptied and pick up this month's meds. Don't let anything happen while I'm away.

[mardatha]

Dry and calm here but husband been up the A7 and north of Gala the road is murder. Water pouring down from the higher ground and over the road.

[jellybaby1969]

36 minutes ago, Penicuikblizzard said:

The GFS 6z has better quality crayons

Definitley crayola !

[Polar Gael]

Still minging. 62.2mm of 'naw' so far this month, circa 50mm of which has hosed it down in the past 36 hours. 2.7C/3C. 

Snawcrete now reduced to snawcrete patches. 

[Quinach]

What a dog's breakfast these warnings are in terms of clarity.

For here it appears that we are under a Yellow Rain Warning, Yellow Snow Warning and a Amber Snow Warning all at the same time!

And they wonder why people ignore these warnings.

Looking at the runoff in the fields and on the road, so far this spell of weather will be remembered for the flooding.

Still 1.8c with bursts of rain.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Quinach

[grifter]

Glad that rain is now off!