COLD SPELL Jan 28th Onwards: Wintry Showers/Frosty, Some Snow Accumulations

mountainy man

Has been mostly hail/graupel until the past hour, now nice fluffy snow, just less than a couple of inches lying now.

Oneiric 3

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The reason the showers are sleety at low levels in the south is because the temperature is higher at various layers than was anticipated. This won't change until early tomorrow morning.

This is the ECM 500 hPa/dam analysis for 12 noon today. Shows that the coldest uppers only really skirted the northern half of the country during the day. Sunday sees colder air moving down again, so hopefully some (esp in the north) will have a better chance of seeing some flurries later this weekend.




Image from Vedur.

Xenji

2.5 degrees with a DP of 0.5 in Castlebar, pretty boring lamppost watching tonight, its been all rain.

Niall558

Beginning to snow in Leixlip, Kildare.

icesnowfrost

Nothing in drogheda yet

acassells80

Nothing here in Blackrock either. Don't see enough showers to reach Dublin

TireeTerror

OK as I mentioned earlier, I went out with my friend to play in the snow. It was awesome, utterly magical beyond belief.

This is in Carlingford in County louth tonight. Just back in the door.

This was the actual road, you could hardly see where to drive.

JanuarySnowstor

Noticeable upgrades this morning for Monday and Tuesday with the cold properly entrenched.
The ukmo is a beauty

Showers turning to snow today for the south after midday. 6 hour windows for cork then

Kermit.de.frog

TireeTerror wrote: »

OK as I mentioned earlier, I went out with my friend to play in the snow. It was awesome, utterly magical beyond belief.

This is in Carlingford in County louth tonight. Just back in the door.

Great pics. Consequences of a 24 hour shower train.

Graces7

peasant wrote: »

Here, in and around Sligo town this day so far has just been one thing only ...downright nasty !

We've had no shortage of violent squalls (about one every half hour) with every sort of wintery precip that takes your fancy, really heavy too. Nothing ever stuck. Even on the mountains (400 - 600 m) the white tops began to thaw again immediately and were brown again before the next squall came.

On the whole a really messy,very windy, very uncomfortable day ...the kind of "winter" weather I could easily do without.

An excellent summing up! Which continued all night and is still at it..

irelandspurs

Raining in Portarlington

Graces7

Morning all out there...South Kerry asl 400 ft... dreadful weather! It had started icy rain as I shut down last night ...Was up at around 9 to see to my old dog and briefly dry, then called home around 4 when I had to see to the dog again... brutal out there now. Waiting for daylight to see what the mountain are up to. The next week will be an endurance test indeed for all of us. Certainly up here; family in Newfoundland are of course literally snowed in but they are every winter so are used to it. My cats are restless and I am told there is a full moon.. Wild wind screaming out there now still with the same sudden sideways deluges as yesterday and all night.... Oh I sorted what went wrong with the camera; the date setting is the US one not my English usage ..when I was at Mizen Head I was gazing out at Fastnet, and can you imagine being out there in this weather.. So today we walk on, all energy in keeping all here warm and fed and safe. The photo is last week; coming in from Cork on the Caha Pass with that tantalising glimpse of the Kerry mountains... Back later; stay safe after a busy night!

lolie

Can anyone tell what the roads into monaghan town from cavan are like?
Particularly the Coothill to monaghan road?
Have to travel there later this morning and lookin at the radar it looks like a continuous stream of showers all night.

Graces7

lolie wrote: »

Can anyone tell what the roads into monaghan town from cavan are like?
Particularly the Coothill to monaghan road?
Have to travel there later this morning and lookin at the radar it looks like a continuous stream of showers all night.

Try AA roadwatch county traffic or National Roads says snowy roads in Cavan Town and this for Monaghan

There's also snow on the N2 Monaghan/ Dublin Rd around Castleblayney


There's snow along the Threemilehouse/ Newbliss Rd


Snow on roads around Co. Monaghan


The Monaghan/ Cootehill Rd (R188) is impassable

Snow angel

AA roadwatch said on twitter that the Monaghan/coothill road is impassable and to use another route.

highdef

lolie wrote: »

Can anyone tell what the roads into monaghan town from cavan are like?
Particularly the Coothill to monaghan road?
Have to travel there later this morning and lookin at the radar it looks like a continuous stream of showers all night.

I'd say they are pretty nasty. Temps in those areas are hovering between 0c and 1c so I would imagine snow is well settled and as you say, there has been quite a lot of it during the night.

FWVT

Ulster really got the bulk of the action, with 26 cm of lying snow at Lough Fea (225 m) and 17 cm at Glennane (161 m) this morning. Their automatic stations continually reported snow in their hourly synops. The instruments are pretty accurate, so the Ballyhaise report was probably correct at the time of observation. If there was snow between observation hours then that will have been missed. We don't know at what time that person was at Ballyhaise so we can't check.

http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=03979&lang=en&decoded=yes&ndays=2&ano=2015&mes=01&day=29&hora=06

It is wet-bulb temperature, not dewpoint, that is most important for snow. If wbt is much above zero then snow will probably melt. WBT is around 1/3 of the way between temperature and dewpoint, so even with a dewpoint of -2 it probably won't snow if the temperature is +2 °C as the wbt will be about +0.7 °C. So to be absolutely sure of snow I would rewrite that table yesterday as

Temp.........Dewpoint
+3...............-6
+2...............-4
+1...............-2
+0...............-1
-0................anything

M.T. Cranium

Normally in a polar maritime flow, the rain-snow line rises during the daytime and comes down at night, as temperatures warm slightly. But today it may work differently because a ribbon of colder air aloft is slowly moving south across the country and this may at least hold the rain-snow elevation line in place if it doesn't actually reverse and come down towards sea level for part of the mid-day period.

Then this temperature profile will warm tonight with stronger winds associated, and despite a windshift from west to northwest, rain will be more likely than snow.

Things don't change dramatically on Friday except for less windy conditions and somewhat drier air will develop, restricting the mixed wintry showers more to the north and west.

Saturday starts to get much colder aloft and once again, the balance may shift more to snow as the day progresses. Sunday would be cold enough for snow in many areas but could have some longer dry intervals.

Monday (into Tuesday morning) looks quite promising for a more organized, widespread snowfall event. Guidance is rather scattered and we can't be sure yet, some solutions would promote 10-20 cm snowfalls, others more like 2-5 cm or a sleety mix. Low pressure is likely to form to the northwest and move either south or southeast, the further west of Shannon it goes, the more likely snow will be across the midlands and inland south. A little further east and it could be Leinster with some sea effect enhancement getting the heavier snow.

Then this cold spell either ends with higher pressure and slow return to milder, or according to some guidance, changes more to a cold easterly that may give Irish Sea streamers.

There are many opportunities ahead for snow, and I don't think all of them will fail (or succeed either) so expect at least some snow over the next week is the name of this rather uncertain game. And there is certainly a chance of disruptive snowfalls but at the moment would say perhaps a one in three chance to be cautious.

irelandspurs

Are we likely to see any snow today in the midlands?

boatbuilder

Near Shercock co.cavan here. I'd guess some local schools will be closed here. Most snow I've seen in years! Question is do we try to open or make up the missed day out of holidays? !

highdef

boatbuilder wrote: »

Near Shercock co.cavan here. I'd guess some local schools will be closed here. Most snow I've seen in years! Question is do we try to open or make up the missed day out of holidays? !

Indeed, AA reports from north Leinster and Ulster show that roads are not in a good state this morning -

MONAGHAN: The Monaghan/ Cootehill Rd (R188) is impassable this morning following heavy falls of snow. Use an alternative route.

MONAGHAN: There's snow along the Threemilehouse/ Newbliss Rd (R189). Extreme caution is advised.

MONAGHAN: There's heavy snow on the N2 Monaghan/ Dublin Rd, particularly around Castleblayney. Heavy snow in the surrounding area also. Extreme caution is advised.

LOUTH: Extreme care is needed around Dundalk this morning due to heavy snow. Particular care is needed on the A1/ M1 between Dundalk and Newry.

Kermit.de.frog

I opened by saying this cold spell is open ended and it still is. I'm sorry for those who may be disappointed but the warm sector tonight was not anticipated to have an effect here to the extent it has. This happens. It is not an exact science.

Some will get recompense this morning. Suffice to say some severe weather ahead especially for Ulster in the coming days and there will be more on that later.

Don't be too downbeat. Lots of opportunity ahead. And to those who never wanted snow I don't care:P

Mc Jakester

boatbuilder wrote: »

Near Shercock co.cavan here. I'd guess some local schools will be closed here. Most snow I've seen in years! Question is do we try to open or make up the missed day out of holidays? !

.
Sure why not! If driving conditions are bad! Staff won't make it!!!

Rock Lesnar

boatbuilder wrote: »

Near Shercock co.cavan here. I'd guess some local schools will be closed here. Most snow I've seen in years! Question is do we try to open or make up the missed day out of holidays? !

So near and yet so far away, seems we got some of this judging by around the bottom of the hedges, but its gone elsewhere and raining at the minute

Manitoban

Bucketing snow in Co Louth, can't post pictures as I am a new poster (long time follower of the weather section) but really big fat flakes, ASL 2km from the sea.

Rock Lesnar

Rain has turned to snow now

Rock Lesnar

Rock Lesnar wrote: »

Rain has turned to snow now

Big change in 10-15mins here, place is white. I dont expect it to stay around for long though

Cork Lass

Anything on the way for Cork City - very disappointing sor far.

icesnowfrost

Just noticed it now. I'm in North drogheda not. C'mon stick, stick!

Kermit.de.frog

Rock Lesnar wrote: »

Big change in 10-15mins here, place is white.

That instability and greater lift that hammered the border counties overnight is slipping south. It's the boundary between the cold and very cold air.


Dublin in the firing line. Could be an interesting commute.