Scotland - Regional Discussion - New Year

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

NO! I'm leaving it to the experts. And beyond the mid January - remember that there' still 45 days of winter left and a Spring.

And guess what? IT'S SNOWING!

That winter back on again then? :lol:

T dropping here, down to 5 C from 6 over the past hour.

[over_the_rainbow]

Dunno, but I hope it's soon as we don't want to lose any more windows or bits of roof, thanks!

It feels slightly less powerful just now in Embra Suburbia, but still bloody strong. Just went out to back to look at lost window, seems the wrench of it twisting the top-hinge has lifted slates all round the cast-iron frame, previously-smooth stretch of slates now has big hummock raised up and slates slithering, we have a sinking feeling about cost of replacement...

Sorry to hear you have some house damage! I bet your local handyman is going to be a busy chap this week!

On the positive no-one on here appears to have sustained a physical injury.

Currently overcast, but dry.

[A Winter's Tale]

I don't like to write winter off at this stage. However there is a pattern..Atlantic storms and mild uppers. This dominated the weather since the end of November till now. Looking ahead the pattern is similar. So at the moment it is more of the same not much snow or real cold prospects. Plus when it does snow higher up it is too windy to get on the ski slopes. This weather is really no use to anyone. It might just be one of those crappy winters that we have to grin and bear.

I think this emphasises the differences in opinions of the winter between the north, west, north east (that have seen snow) and the south east (that has seen very little).

It depends on what you mean "writing off winter"! Do you mean a few snowfalls, some decent lying snow or a big freeze!

Already, this winter is miles better than those in past 10 years (except two or three) and I'm quite satisifised. However, at the least I would like to gain at least 5 days of snow in January and February, with at least some lying snow in each of the months and perhaps some Spring snow. That would do me fine.

However I would love it if we could get either a more widespread, decent cold snap lasting for 5 days bringing some snow to all us Scots, or if we can't get that then another 5cm-10cm snowfall would do me fine.

I would really love it if we could get a big freeze with lots of snow and cold, or instead, one massive snowfall with large accumilations of snowfall (with some other minor snowfalls during the rest of the winter).

[snow1975]

What a storm! The GFS got this one right a week ago, it doesn't always overblow lows. What a damage around here. My garden shed is demolished. My stevenson screen on its stand was like the leaning tower of Pisa, one of the legs has gone. Many roof tiles off houses, loads of fences flattened and so many uprooted trees. Given the severity of the damage, a force 10 whole gale on the beaufort scale.

Mean sea-level pressure was 960.3mb at 08:50hr, it was near its minimum around this time. Leuchars was 959.1mb.

[windsock]

So easily the strongest winds of the procession of storms this winter ......

"Narrowly" rather than "easily" might be a better choice of words. Let's not forget Shetland had a 100mph(+?) "hurricane" last week :winky:

But definately worth investigating.

[BleakMidwinter]

Just been out - tree on top of a parked sporty little car, oops... big tree, too. Big, big tree.

Bits of chimney-pot everywhere, although no stacks down that I saw. and the tenements' big wheelie-bins are nearly all on their sides.

[Argyllcraig]

flat roofs gone in glasgow today..... can't believe the wheelie bins survived though!

Edited January 3, 2012 by Argyllcraig

[windsock]

Just had our strongest gust 64.8mph although the one I just heard sounds way worse. Pretty sure my windows are going to come in!!

iam going to collapse with fear iam shacking so much dammit i hate the wind

Just heard the noise of a handful of distant bins blowing over. I hope that gust isn't heading for me! Also, looking out onto the street I can see and hear all the wine bottles rolling down the street.

Just 3 of those great live quotes from this storm, bringing this ferocious weather to life for the rest of us.

Is this storm going to be named as 'bawbag' was?

May I suggest 'bawbuster', or does it merit something beginning with a 'c' ?

[BleakMidwinter]

Just 3 of those great live quotes from this storm, bringing this ferocious weather to life for the rest of us.

Is this storm going to be named as 'bawbag' was?

May I suggest 'bawbuster', or does it merit something beginning with a 'c' ?

I'll go for That Bloody Frightening Storm That Took Our Window Out but it's not the catchiest name, I admit. Not gonna fit on a t-shirt easily either...

[Cheggers]

A few images fir Greenock area sent from a mate...

Is this storm going to be named as 'bawbag' was?

hurricane bigbaws

http://www.bbc.co.uk...otland-16393280

Edited January 3, 2012 by Cheggers

[Polar Gael]

'Hurricane' Bawbreaker

aka 'The Stoatin' Storm'?

[November13]

I think this emphasises the differences in opinions of the winter between the north, west, north east (that have seen snow) and the south east (that has seen very little). It depends on what you mean "writing off winter"! Do you mean a few snowfalls, some decent lying snow or a big freeze! Already, this winter is miles better than those in past 10 years (except two or three) and I'm quite satisifised. However, at the least I would like to gain at least 5 days of snow in January and February, with at least some lying snow in each of the months and perhaps some Spring snow. That would do me fine. However I would love it if we could get either a more widespread, decent cold snap lasting for 5 days bringing some snow to all us Scots, or if we can't get that then another 5cm-10cm snowfall would do me fine. I would really love it if we could get a big freeze with lots of snow and cold, or instead, one massive snowfall with large accumilations of snowfall (with some other minor snowfalls during the rest of the winter).

I really just mean in terms of a proper sustained cold snap say a week or 10 days where it is either frosty or snowy and frosty. The snow that has fallen has been a small amount and rarely lasted more than 2 days. Like I said I am not giving up but you have to agree the pattern is wind and rain rather than frost and snow. If you like wind and rain it has been a great winter!

[Soaring Hawk]

It is now dark. A couple of minutes past 2 and it is dark.... Very heavy rain, hail, sleet and still gale force wind, although much, much lighter than earlier this morning. From my kitchen window I see a large tree trunk that snapped off about 40 feet high. Must have had a good root system as the bottom half is still standing. Evil black sky - unrelenting dreadful weather since 17th December here in the west of Scotland. We had about 5 minutes of sunshine yesterday morning before it started raining. Again.

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

A few images fir Greenock area sent from a mate...

hurricane bigbaws

http://www.bbc.co.uk...otland-16393280

Incredible pics. Worse than bawbag it seems for sure.

Winds slowly starting to calm here. Been outside for a check. No damage thankfully, athough plenty of kindling for the fire to be had.

[Snowlover2]

Just 3 of those great live quotes from this storm, bringing this ferocious weather to life for the rest of us.

Is this storm going to be named as 'bawbag' was?

May I suggest 'bawbuster', or does it merit something beginning with a 'c' ?

My windows survived, rabbit hutch not as good. Rabbit is fine though. Lost a few tiles off roof and have a hole on upstairs extension wall but apart from that not any major damage.

[LomondSnowstorm]

So easily the strongest winds of the procession of storms this winter - and only an amber warning at bed time last night. Nobody prepared for this this morning - was just supposed to be 70-80mph gusts...

Anyone know why? Did the low deepen suddenly, or its track differ? Going to do some online investigating.

It's an intriguing question. Here's are the last 4 NAE runs

http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/nae/2012/01/02/basis12/ukuk/pslv/12010309_0212.gif

http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/nae/2012/01/02/basis18/ukuk/pslv/12010309_0218.gif

http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/nae/2012/01/03/basis00/ukuk/pslv/12010309_0300.gif

http://expert-images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/proficharts/en/nae/2012/01/03/basis06/ukuk/pslv/12010309_0306.gif

The low was predicted to be centred around Inverness. In reality its centre was a few miles south of that, but still not hugely different. The centre of the low was always progged at around 955-960mb, so that didn't throw us. There are two key differences I can see between earlier runs and the final outcome:

1) the size of the centre of the low turned out to be far more pronounced than initially predicted. This created a tighter pressure gradient across central Scotland that was responsible for the winds.

2) the wind direction was initially progged to be northwesterly for central areas but the low became more elongated to the northeast, allowing the wind to be funnelled through the central belt.

I think ultimately we have to look at the 'sting jet' phenomenon as an explanation, certainly the much tighter than predicted pressure gradient suggests this was a probable explanation.

[skyeblue]

Spotted i think is another low forming out to the nw of Ireland

not sure thou

[A Winter's Tale]

I've taken some pics of the damage in bearsden. Slates in our roof has been blown off. Some fences, a large tree in the next street to mine and a large brick wall. in bearsden, there some very heavy slates that have been blown off roots and cut it's way deep into the ground. quite surreal really! and there was some sleet too!

it also seems that some metal and sign posts were badly bent too!

[BleakMidwinter]

I just can't believe that the top of the Cairngorms had 106 and we were only 4pmh less than that in quiet suburban Embra.

No camera batteries, but handyman confirms it's going to be a major job fixing the roof-hole; insurance should pay but could be a three-storey scaffolding and re-build job, bloody hell!

I only did a short walk this morning but I reckon there's at least one chimney-pot and one broken windowpane for every half-dozen stair-doors in the local tenements.

[A Winter's Tale]

LS, how bad was it out in Freuchie? My relatives on a hill, not far from you lost the roof of their stables in May. Their now in South Africa and surely they aren't going to come back to the same troubles of last year!

[LomondSnowstorm]

What a storm! The GFS got this one right a week ago, it doesn't always overblow lows. What a damage around here. My garden shed is demolished. My stevenson screen on its stand was like the leaning tower of Pisa, one of the legs has gone. Many roof tiles off houses, loads of fences flattened and so many uprooted trees. Given the severity of the damage, a force 10 whole gale on the beaufort scale.

Mean sea-level pressure was 960.3mb at 08:50hr, it was near its minimum around this time. Leuchars was 959.1mb.

http://176.31.229.228/modeles/gfs/archives/gfs-2011122500-0-240.png?0

Not bang on, because the centre of the low was further south and the low was more 'rounded' in the end but certainly a pretty good effort. However, it went off the idea a bit though http://176.31.229.228/modeles/gfs/archives/gfs-2011122812-0-138.png?12 - not exactly consistent. At the same time the ECM came up with this http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf/archives/2011122812/ECM1-144.GIF?12 . At various points the ECM and GFS came up with the right solution, but half the time they just showed a bog standard PV troughing scenario with straight northwesterlies rather than a distinct feature.

[Blizzardo]

Having been out and about around Glasgow for the last couple of hours I can say with certainty there's a bit of clearing up to be done. I initially started counting the number of fallen trees but gave up at about 14. There's quite a few fences down, I saw one collapsed wall and one unsafe building with police redirecting traffic away from it. Flooding may now also become an issue with a lot of backroads getting a bit tricky already.

The temperature has been mainly falling since this morning. At 6am I was at 10.2c and I'm now 3.4c with some sleet.

[LomondSnowstorm]

LS, how bad was it out in Freuchie? My relatives on a hill, not far from you lost the roof of their stables in May. Their now in South Africa and surely they aren't going to come back to the same troubles of last year!

I hope not but it has been horrendous here. Our neighbours have lost 10 tiles from the roof and some of our guttering came off, the shed that was destroyed last year was almost in the neighbour's garden and the fences got blown over. Fortunately there's still power in Freuchie but almost everywhere else in the Howe of Fife seems to have a power cut even now. The road's flooded here and there are reports of trees down all over the place. I have no objective measure for this but my grandad claims it was the worst storm he's seen since 1968. Certainly the winds were as strong as the May storm and stronger than bawbag.

[A Winter's Tale]

I hope not but it has been horrendous here. Our neighbours have lost 10 tiles from the roof and some of our guttering came off, the shed that was destroyed last year was almost in the neighbour's garden and the fences got blown over. Fortunately there's still power in Freuchie but almost everywhere else in the Howe of Fife seems to have a power cut even now. The road's flooded here and there are reports of trees down all over the place. I have no objective measure for this but my grandad claims it was the worst storm he's seen since 1968. Certainly the winds were as strong as the May storm and stronger than bawbag.

That sounds awful! Their stables had survived bawbag but I feel that the storm earlier today might have done some damaged to the roof. And also, I think their house is most likely to have lost a few slates at the least.

[BleakMidwinter]

That's Edinburgh Waverley and Haymarket stations re-opening at 3pm, for some train routes (including over to Fife yippee!)

It's funny - when I went out for that walk it was still gusting into the 70s, but it felt really kinda "oh, it's fairly calm just now, I'll nip out"!