Easterly Blast Part III(potential snow for east)

EdgarAllenPoo

Sorry. Apparently the snow has yet to melt in Stamullen. My mam spent the day watching her staff and patients make a 15 foot hermaphrodite snowman/woman/thing.

One of the Indian nurses she works with had never seen snow before and was making snow angels all over the place.

Danno

*** 4th Jan 2008 *** What a day.

Midnight - Light snow flurry
3am - Hard Frost -2.3c
6am - Fog/Mist
9am - Blizzard like conditions
11am - Sleet
12pm - Rain
1pm - Thunder, Lightning forks, Hail Storm
2pm - Clear Blue Sky
3pm - Max of 8.4c
4pm - Rain Showers
9pm - Sleet shower.

And we aren't finished yet!!!

Snowbie

Mothman wrote: »

Yesterday, maxes ranged 3-8C, though generally 4-6C
Today, maxes ranged 4-10C, generally 5-9C

My max was 4.1c

Yes, the snow was underplayed (understatement!), but IMO they wern't as far out as some may think.

I can see both points,yours and WC.

Met Eireann get a pasting when forecasts are wrong, but through the years here on boards, often Met Eireann have been pasted for bad forecast before an event, and in the end they, Met Eireann were fairly spot on, but do we give them credit then?

We all know how fine a line it is between snow and not. It was a wrong call for some places

I agree totally.

In defense of our met office,24hrs ahead in a forecast is usually only 73% accurate for a start.Just note the word forecast and thats just what it is.

Situations like this are a nowcast event as there is far more science involved in such events than what people think.
Why did people like myself Mothman,trogdor Black Briar or the mountain boys not get any snow? We live on the east coast or close to it.We also had a NE to east wind too.

The answer is nowhere simple im afraid.As i have said before about the cold air moving over warm sst's,convection occurs and clouds form.
Not all cumli delivers precip,there is more needed.
You can have the low level cold but a much milder mid level and followed by a colder upper level etc etc.The troposphere is divided into as many sections in different air masses.

The certain ingredients are needed and the NE quadrant of the Irish sea had far more instability or ingredients.
One factor i know to be true is a convergence zone formed over the North sea and the atmosphere was unstable from there moving in towards us on a W'ly SW'ly feed. The Pennines didnt absorb all of the moisture from the showers and some did penertrate right into the Irish sea provided by orographic lift from the Isle of Man and lapse rates steepening over the N Irish sea aided in incessant nature of the showers streaming in to the Louth/Meath areas.

The convergence was not evident over the central or southern parts of the Irish sea so we had to make do with the cold mixing with warm sst's to produce light flurries or just low level inversion zone(some stratus and cumuli)

Sorry for the essay and i hope it was layman as possible to follow but if anyone (including forecasters,Met men) can predict a conversion zone happening within 24hrs of the first snow flake,then i would love a slice of that technology so i can be put out of my misery earlier or be exuberant.
Temps are the same,1c here or there makes the difference between snow and rain too.Thats why temps are forecast between value's 4-7c or 1-3c etc as its impossible to forecast an accurate temp to the degree 24hrs away.
Totally nowcast im afraid.

Gonzo

snow almost gone here now, however the main street in Dunshaughlin on to the Trim road by the Council buildings and Irish School - the footpath is lethal, I was walkin on it earlier and almost fell, theres grounded in half frozen slush and its extremely slippery. The roads themselves are grand tho. Only some sections of snow left in the garden now about 1/4 of an inch deep. I expect it to be fully melted by midnight/1am unless it freezes which I dont think will happen.

EdgarAllenPoo

I thought it was supposed to be -2 or -3 again tonight in which case it won't melt. The path down by the council office is dodgy even when it's just wet.

I don't know aht the council were thinking last night but when everything came to a standstill and there were layers of snow and ice on the roads the council sent to trucks out to grit the roads. There wasn't a hope in hell of that having any effect and from what I'm told it made driving conditions worse.

rc28

Yep Gonzo, it's a pity there's no frost tonight. Same as here, just 1/2 inch patches of snow on the lawn and cars now.
In northern Ireland parts of Down got 16cm which translated to 100mm worth of rain when it melted and so there was flooding;http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7171060.stm

Danno

That was quite a remarkable event IMHO. Dissapointing that the snow lasted for only 2 hours, but I guess to get more than half of the front as snow was good. I guess it shows how fast the front was being driven across the country. What interested me most was the squall line at the back of the front with the lightning storms, it was the last stand for the cold I guess.
Imagine if that front had to hit 3 hours earlier? I'd say that we'd all got up to 8 inches of snow from it!

Danno

@rc28: 16cm = 160mm snow = 16mm rain, typical wet day.

Mothman

rc28 wrote: »

In northern Ireland parts of Down got 16cm which translated to 100mm worth of rain when it melted and so there was

Divide snow depth by 10 to get a very ball park equivalent rain depth, so 16cm, = 160mm divided by ten = 16mm.

The 100mm in article is refering to snow.

He said initial warnings from the Met Office forecast light snow flurries, but that more than 100mm of snow fell in many places.

rc28

Danno wrote: »

@rc28: 16cm = 160mm snow = 16mm rain, typical wet day.

Oops, sorry- what was I thinking! 100mm of rain!

Gonzo

oddly enough we did really poorly from todays front despite the 5 inchs of snow from last night, once the front came here about about 9.40am we had about 45 minutes of mostly light snow flurries, it was moderate for about 2 minutes at one stage and stopped every now and then. Then after an hour it rained for the rest of it with the odd spot of sleet. Even the rain that fell didnt amount of a huge amount. If we had no snow last night nothing would have stuck from todays front.

Snowbie

This thread going to be archived.Memorable event for some.

Light snow flurries in the morning drifting off the Irish sea in an east breeze



Convergence zone reached the North Irish sea and convection took off



The shower band narrowed but Drogheda in the firing line from a train of merged snow showers.



Convergence zone proper.Convection ignited into full swing.Very rare doppler sig here for an easterly but defo this event on a par with 1991.



Heavy Snow never reached the Greater Dublin Area or Wicklow.Just a few snow flurries with no measurable depths.

Links to pics [thread=2055210247]Louth[/thread]

[thread=2055210579]Meath[/thread]

[thread=2055210267]More in Meath[/thread]

[thread=2055210468]North Co.Dublin[/thread]

Danno

Agreed, archive this, also, get the Christmas 2004 thread and acrhive that too!

Gonzo

defo a memorable event for several reasons, A - because we didnt get decent snow in my area in over 10 years, B - This event probably had a higher snow rate than any other event Ive seen, 5 inchs of snow fell in 2.5 hours, other places got 6 inchs + in same amount of time. If that easterly had kept going on all night we would have easily made it to 8 inchs maybe even 10 by the next morning. Amazing event.