Scotland - Weather Chat

[Sunshineandshowers84]

Well even by today and drive by our parks tree's still got plenty of autumn leaf on them.. Drive by Queens Park and the big horse chestnut trees still yellow and also making the pavements look good.. Passed an Oak Tree just outside Glasgow and it was still green.. Dare say it will loose it leaves very quickly once the windy weather comes back.

[Ravelin]

A grey, calm and misty 10.4C in Dyce again this morning. Didn't check the overnight low at home but weather data for Dyce suggests the temperature didn't really drop much, which tallies with the 9C or thereabouts it was when I chucked the dog out for a pee at around 11pm.

 

Models leading us a merry dance for mid-Nov, at this stage it could be anything from a northerly blast to continued mild.

[peborant]

Sun trying to break the cloud amidst a misty atmosphere. Beautiful leaves, most of them still hanging on to the trees although some have fallen off already. 

 

Fairly mild at 11 degrees with a min of around 10, colder weather cannot come soon enough, can't wait for some proper frost. 

 

Have a nice day everyone! 

[Guest]

It's a stinky, misty, murky, rainy night. At least some breezy, windy weather will be a change but it would be nice to have some frosty weather 

[over_the_rainbow]

Heavy mist and drizzle plus smoke made for a poor firework display here tonight. A shame when you think how much money these things cost. 

 

Totally bored of the foggy drizzle. Im with Catch - bring on something a little cooler and clearer sky! 

[NorthernRab]

Well one thing that's interesting sbout the potential for a NWrly cold blast around mid month is we'll be able to monitor how the colder Atlantic will influence marginality here in Scotland - hoping it'll aid any strong transitional events that so often show up in November and December here.

[A Winter's Tale]

It's been a pretty dreary start to November. Last night was first fireworks night without a frost since 2010 . Looking ahead, it seems increasingly more likely a pattern change of sorts will occur around mid month with heights lowering to the south and a more mobile outlook setting in from the Atlantic bringing more traditional changeable, fresh conditions. The models, particularly the GFS, have recently shown a consistent trend of increased heights to the W/NW with high pressure transferring out of Newfoundland towards the south of Greenland, opening the door to possibly much colder conditions with first 'wintry' spell of the season. Still a long way out and plenty of room for error but nevertheless it's encouraging that things will at least turn more seasonal, and hopefully a chance of snow although that would be a huge bonus - normally the first snowfalls occur here in the first couple of weeks of December - especially given how untypical an autumn it has been of late.

[LomondSnowstorm]

Hi again folks, once again a longer absence between posts than I'd anticipated but that's 4th year for you.

My winter forecast will be out in a few days (I meant to get it out last weekend but deadlines, flu and my aunt coming up from Birmingham scuppered that) ,but until then I've put together a few thoughts on last winter, why my forecast went a bit awry, and what I'm going to look at differently this time round. It was initially intended as a precursor to the forecast proper but I figured I may as well make a separate post out of it, so enjoy! I'll be on again more regularly once the charts gets more interesting, but moreso after my exams finish on the 21st December.

 

https://forum.netweather.tv/blog/237/entry-4905-recap-of-201415-forecast-201516-forecast-to-follow/

 

And yeah, some pretty interesting charts in FI. They've been relatively consistent on some sort of northerly flow affecting us towards the 15th-20th, although I'm a bit sceptical of it being much more than a toppler at the moment, but it would still be nice to get a bit of falling snow, or at least a widespread air frost, before the start of winter proper:

Edited November 6, 2015 by LomondSnowstorm

[Hairy Celt]

Well one thing that's interesting sbout the potential for a NWrly cold blast around mid month is we'll be able to monitor how the colder Atlantic will influence marginality here in Scotland - hoping it'll aid any strong transitional events that so often show up in November and December here.

 

Is it staying below average then, after all this recent mildness?  Spose I shouldn't be so lazy, and find the amswer myself...

 

I can't believe how warm it's been recently - the early evening question between me and Ms HC is, do we put the stove on tonight?

[mistyqueen]

Been a wee bit blawy up here and more expected over the weekend. Damp, dreich and very calm at the moment, had a few big crashes of thunder during the night too. Temp currently 8.4. Central heating being fixed today, so surely that means that it'll now start getting a wee bit colder! I live in hope!

[Guest]

I dunno, you turn your back on the charts for 48 hours for various reasons, come back to them and there's suddenly loads going on. We've got some definitely wet and potentially stormy weather coming up in the next week from today onwards. Loads of rain about, an increasingly high risk of strong winds and then the charts at 8 to 10 days are spectacular for the time and year and loaded with potential for cold.

 

Random selection of charts:

 

Precipitation accumulation from the Euro4 for the next 48hrs is pretty impressive, there could be flooding in the SW from what looks like 88m of rain in a relatively short time period:

 

 

Potential for some gusty winds over the weekend too:

 

 

And even allowing for the usual GFS overcook it does on low pressure at a longer time range, this could be very nasty for next Saturday and definitely needs watching:

 

 

Then further ahead, the ECM GFS 8 to 10 Day 500mb Mean charts are very, very encouraging for a proper GH to form bringing a proper Arctic blast our way:

 

 

Giving rise to +240hrs charts from the ECM looking like this:

 

 

It's a long way out, but I don't remember seeing 10 day 500mb Mean charts like those at all last winter. Not once. Maybe I missed them though?

 

Loads to be keeping an eye on after what seems like forever of benign weather.

 

Edit: I'm sorry to be the bubble burster but unless I'm reading this chart wrong I can't see any cold SST anomaly directly to our north or north-west, the cold patch is out west, the rest is above average. The effect could be either positive or negative. Too much temp modification and it's sleet or rain instead of snow, or if it's cold enough to still snow then you'll get more snow due to the increased moisture coming off the slightly warmer sea:

 

Edited November 7, 2015 by CatchMyDrift

[Hairy Celt]

Why the hell can't the Co-op manage to sell Coxes? It's not as if they're rare, or nobody likes them... Jesus.

[LomondSnowstorm]

I dunno, you turn your back on the charts for 48 hours for various reasons, come back to them and there's suddenly loads going on. We've got some definitely wet and potentially stormy weather coming up in the next week from today onwards. Loads of rain about, an increasingly high risk of strong winds and then the charts at 8 to 10 days are spectacular for the time and year and loaded with potential for cold.

 

Random selection of charts:

 

Precipitation accumulation from the Euro4 for the next 48hrs is pretty impressive, there could be flooding in the SW from what looks like 88m of rain in a relatively short time period:

 

7th Nov Euro4 00z +48 Precip Accum.gif

 

Potential for some gusty winds over the weekend too:

 

7th Nov GFS 00z +57hrs Wind.png

 

And even allowing for the usual GFS overcook it does on low pressure at a longer time range, this could be very nasty for next Saturday and definitely needs watching:

 

7th Nov GFS 00z +189hrs.png

 

Then further ahead, the ECM GFS 8 to 10 Day 500mb Mean charts are very, very encouraging for a proper GH to form bringing a proper Arctic blast our way:

 

7th Nov ECM GFS 8 to 10 Day 12z.gif

 

Giving rise to +240hrs charts from the ECM looking like this:

 

7th Nov ECM 00z +240hrs.gif7th Nov ECM 00z +240hrs 850.gif

 

It's a long way out, but I don't remember seeing 10 day 500mb Mean charts like those at all last winter. Not once. Maybe I missed them though?

 

Loads to be keeping an eye on after what seems like forever of benign weather.

 

Edit: I'm sorry to be the bubble burster but unless I'm reading this chart wrong I can't see any cold SST anomaly directly to our north or north-west, the cold patch is out west, the rest is above average. The effect could be either positive or negative. Too much temp modification and it's sleet or rain instead of snow, or if it's cold enough to still snow then you'll get more snow due to the increased moisture coming off the slightly warmer sea:

 

5th Nov Global SST Anom.gif

 

I think we had one or two teasers last winter but nothing quite as substantial as far as blocking over Greenland goes, it's a shame the strat vortex looks quite so strong as it's likely to get flattened before the end of the month but with El Nino in place that's the sort of area you'd be most likely to see blocking this winter. 

As for SSTs, I'd agree that, at the moment, the cold anomalies in place are more useful for the types of westerly set ups we saw last winter than any proper northerly or even northwesterly. Also, given we've generally been looking at above average Atlantic SSTs for most of the last 15 years, even just having near average makes a difference, and October tends to see Atlantic cold pools wane only to re-emerge in December. 

Worth noting though that this doesn't necessarily mean proper cold unless we get a proper 'dipole' set up ('warm' Arctic, cold mid Atlantic, warm tropics) - these are the coldest Atlantic SST winters: 

Lots of low heights about and the average temperature for Scotland was just around the 1961-90 average.

[Northern Strath]

Why the hell can't the Co-op manage to sell Coxes? It's not as if they're rare, or nobody likes them... Jesus.

Someone might have pipped you to them, clearly made you very unhappley though, not very cooperative of them, maybe phone them and see if you can get to the core of the problem

[Hairy Celt]

Someone might have pipped you to them, clearly made you very unhappley though, not very cooperative of them, maybe phone them and see if you can get to the core of the problem

 

You're feeling a bit fruity this morning too?

[NUT]

I don't have any fruit jokes so staying out of this one

 

Still raining but nothing particulairy heavy. No wind so it's not really moving very quickly either

[Northernlights]

 A bit of drizzle this morning but currently dry , 10c, mostly cloudy with a bit of clear blue sky to the NW. Leaves all falling off the trees so  its begining to look a bit more wintry.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Northernlights

[Northernlights]

Why the hell can't the Co-op manage to sell Coxes? It's not as if they're rare, or nobody likes them... Jesus.

Please don"t stew on it or let your temper ferment!

[Ravelin]

Ah, Autumn has arrived I see. Current temperature of 8.8C and 4.0mm of rain since midnight. The only thing we appear to be missing is some wind, but I understand it's arriving with us tomorrow so the trees will have a helping hand in shedding their summer plumage.

[Hairy Celt]

The weather's just grey nothingness now, sort of clam before the storm. Or Royal Gala before the Cox's Orange Pippin.

[Guest]

I think we had one or two teasers last winter but nothing quite as substantial as far as blocking over Greenland goes, it's a shame the strat vortex looks quite so strong as it's likely to get flattened before the end of the month but with El Nino in place that's the sort of area you'd be most likely to see blocking this winter. 

As for SSTs, I'd agree that, at the moment, the cold anomalies in place are more useful for the types of westerly set ups we saw last winter than any proper northerly or even northwesterly. Also, given we've generally been looking at above average Atlantic SSTs for most of the last 15 years, even just having near average makes a difference, and October tends to see Atlantic cold pools wane only to re-emerge in December. 

Worth noting though that this doesn't necessarily mean proper cold unless we get a proper 'dipole' set up ('warm' Arctic, cold mid Atlantic, warm tropics) - these are the coldest Atlantic SST winters: cold ssts.png

Lots of low heights about and the average temperature for Scotland was just around the 1961-90 average.

 

Have you got a link to any annual average SST anomaly charts? It'd be interesting to see if they have been above average for all areas of the Atlantic over the past 15 years, it's quite hard to judge by looking at individual charts by date.

[A Winter's Tale]

The models in the past 24hrs have moved towards reintroducing heights back into Europe after a temporary blip which somewhat reduces the promise of a northerly but I'm hopeful for further opportunities for cold and snow this coming season.

One thing for sure is a unique set of factors going into this winter such as the strong El Niño in the Pacific, colder SST anomalies in the North Atlantic and what appears to be a very strong stratospheric vortex. How these and among other factors interact will be of interest during the coming weeks and months. It's a really tough winter to call at this stage and I don't think we'll have much idea of how it might pan out overall until after Christmas at least. Until then, it'd be nice to see the back of the benign conditions of the Euro High which has persisted throughout the autumn (although it has been nice to enjoy a dry, settled and at times sunny and warm variety of autumn for a change instead of enduring standard autumn conditions following a pretty dismal summer) and at least experience some more traditional changeable conditions you'd expect for the time of year. Last year in some ways was quite similar with an absence of fresh, chilly conditions until the start of December when there was a sudden arrival of polar maritime air mass, heralding an unremarkable but quite normal month.

My thoughts for the start of winter is for heights to remain largely to the south or east, predominately tropical maritime airmass, however I expect the jet stream to step up a gear or two bringing the potential for damaging winds and flooding. The chances for cold and snow I'm less optimistic about but hoping we could at least see Synoptics be favourable for polar westerlies as we enter December and as is always the case, the best chances for cold and snow normally gets underway after the solstice.

It will be worth keeping an eye on how the models develop during the coming weeks as currently the the Euro High remains king but the usual caveat applies that conditions and patterns can defy the odds and emerge suddenly and dramatically.m

[NUT]

Rain's set in again. This band looks heavier than yesterday's but more wind with this one

[Hairy Celt]

Grey and spitty snoozefest so far. Bit of a breeze picking up <yawns>  Sunday afternoon ennui sets in before the game at 4.

 

Should be a bit more fun when I head north later though, more roof-rattling and culvert-testing.

[Guest]

Rain's set in again. This band looks heavier than yesterday's but more wind with this one

 

I was surprised to see so much rain on the radar when I got home from dropping my boys off at Kilmacolm. I've driven across central/southern Scotland and back and only encountered a bit of drizzle, but you can see the big gap on radar where it's dry.

 

The wind should come and go this afternoon and evening before building again tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning will be the worst so far, but it will be worse during the week. At the moment Friday morning looks the worst out of five (or more?) batches of stronger winds.