Greenland Express: Snow showers possible from Monday night

highdef

fraxinus1 wrote: »

That’s me done on here for this winter (unless something solid snow wise does materialise in the next 6 weeks).

Ha ha ha, contradiction of the week!

Donegal Storm

Clonmel1000 wrote: »

So in 3 days we are gone from countrywide snow showers to normal January weather? There is a bit of sensationalism creeping in to here this winter I’ve noticed.

It's far from a new phenomenon, I've been on here over 10 years and the same thing happens multiple times every single winter. People see cold westerlies and think nationwide disruptive snow, it ends up as the usual high ground NW affair with a few photos of car bonnets with a dusting of snow at lower levels to justify the thread. Rinse and repeat countless times..


In saying that, Tuesday through to Thursday should be interesting across the north and west, thundery squalls and potentially an intense storm to look forward to, definitely not mundane as someone mentioned above

Mullaghteelin

Cold westerlies have delivered quite well in the past, even here at sea level in North county Dublin. Tuesday evening looks potentially very wintry to my eyes.

The very strong winds tend to blast the showers across the country with less fizzling out overland. The flakes tend to be very large, with thunder near West coasts.
Expect nasty road conditions across inland Connaght, Ulster, the North Midlands etc, with constant showers or longer spells of precipitation.
The Leinster coast North of Dublin also tends to get more precipitation from these potent cold westerlies than from northerlies, which tend to be drier affairs.
Yes, it will be a slushy mess the next morning.
Yes, there will be no hard frosts... but expect widespread falling snow, which can be a rare sight for many of us.

Gaoth Laidir

This is the most wintry frame from the ECM, 18Z Tuesday. Rain and sleet showers, with the possibility of wet snow in the heaviest ones. Either it is grossly underestimating the cold (along with the Arome, GEM and BOM), or it will turn out to be correct and the others (GFS, ICON, Arome) will turn out to be too cold. Something's got to give. They can't all be right.





Hi-res Swiss Arome




The ECM has the lowest 500-1000 thickness around 520 dam and 700-1000 thickness of around 2800 m. I would consider these borderline snow values and would prefer to see the 516 and 2760 lines closer to us to guarantee us snow showers to all levels, not the mixed stuff that looks more likely. Of course the GFS delivers all this in spades, but it's a bias that it has always had.





I reckon the strong jet for tomorrow will cause a northward shift and earlier deepening of that midweek low, which will shift the cold northwards too. Hope this is all bull and we all get pasted with nice fluffy snow showers with no hint of rain (at low levels), but I doubt that we will.

George Sunsnow

Well Arome there has rain on lugnaquilla and snow in Arklow at the same time
I can pretty much confidently say that’s nonsense anyway

Donegal Storm

George Sunsnow wrote: »

Well Arome there has rain on lugnaquilla and snow in Arklow at the same time
I can pretty much confidently say that’s nonsense anyway

It's showing blue(snow) over the mountains and orange (sleet) around Arklow

George Sunsnow

Donegal Storm wrote: »

It's showing blue(snow) over the mountains and orange (sleet) around Arklow

Well a rain and snow mix there yeah and rain on lug which would of course be nonsense

George Sunsnow

George Sunsnow wrote: »

Well a rain and snow mix there yeah and rain on lug which would of course be nonsense

Wait blue is snow on that viewer ?
Now that is confusing :O

JCX BXC

Yup blue is snow and green is rain, you'd imagine that blue would be rain and green would be sleet/snow.

Gaoth Laidir

George Sunsnow wrote: »

Wait blue is snow on that viewer ?
Now that is confusing :O

You've just been looking at too many GFS charts!

George Sunsnow

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

You've just been looking at too many GFS charts!

Seeing so many of them is indeed A blurry eyed byproduct of posting here

piuswal

George Sunsnow wrote: »

So now we have Scenario (again) of Synoptics shown by nwp’s less than a week ago from a mix of the west and north just like phantoms from the east and north a forthright or so ago disappearing into what’s more like our climactic norm

I do hope the older forecasters left in met offices are passing on their experience to the younger Turks in there on how sometimes you need to use hunch and manually blend in past events before preparing forecasts

Nice thought but I doubt if there are many if any left who have not been brought up on models and "contaminated" by them; removed from the detailed analysis, day in day out, that allows one to build up the "hunch" experience, as you call it.

I suspect also, that in small organisations like Met Eireann, there are so many demands on operational forecasters, that time for detailed analysis is at a premium.

Off topic but felt the need to comment on the point made; the old order has gone.

sdanseo

Met's forecast has changed again, back to much more detail about the week to come (starting to think my hunch about duty forecaster not sticking their neck out was right)
A little less optimistic for snow but still some strong words. "polar maritime airflow"

Technical question; is it a case here that potential for severe cold has been lowered a bit by the sheer speed of the winds? Can all that activity warm up the lower atmosphere just that little bit too much?

Met &#201 wrote: »

Tomorrow

A mix of bright spells and blustery showers on Monday some of the showers turning wintry in parts of the north and northwest by evening time. It will turn colder as the day goes on with mid-afternoon temperatures ranging from 4 degrees in the north to 8 degrees in the south. Westerly winds will be fresh to strong and gusty, reaching gale force along the west coast.

Outlook

Polar maritime airflow becomes established over the country tomorrow and persists through much of the week. Cold with frequent wintry showers, gales and the risk of coastal flooding on Atlantic coasts due to high seas.

Monday night: Cold and windy Monday night with showers turning increasingly wintry, especially in western and northwestern counties, accompanied by westerly winds gusting to gale force. Showers will tend to be less frequent in the east and south, though some wintry falls will occur here also. Overnight lows of zero to plus 3 degrees with frost in sheltered places.

Tuesday: Winds will veer to a more northwesterly direction on Tuesday, and become increasingly windy and blustery, with gale or strong gale gusts. Very high seas will develop along Atlantic coasts bringing large waves and a risk of coastal flooding to these areas. Showers will be widespread, and many of them will be wintry in nature with hail, sleet and snow, together with a risk of thunder. Daytime temperatures will range 1 to 4 degrees generally, but 5 or 6 degrees near the south coast and it will feel colder due to wind chill.

Tuesday night: The strong to gale force northwesterly winds will continue through Tuesday night with the risk of coastal flooding persisting along Atlantic coasts. Wintry showers will become more scattered overnight. Lows of minus 1 to plus 2 degrees Celsius with a risk of frost and icy stretches.

Wednesday: Winds will back west to southwest and ease a little for a time on Wednesday, though it will still be rather breezy. Showers will tend to be less frequent than on Tuesday and those that do occur will tend to be of rain and sleet, rather than of snow. Daytime temperatures will range from around 3 degrees in Ulster to 6 or 7 degrees Celsius further south. Rain will start to move in off the Atlantic on Wednesday evening. High seas will continue along the Atlantic Seaboard.

Wednesday night: There is some uncertainty regarding the details at present, but a potentially disruptive period of weather is possible on Wednesday night as a deepening Atlantic depression tracks near to or perhaps even over some parts of Ireland bringing spells of rain and very strong winds.

Thursday: Very windy on Thursday morning, with the risk of disruptive winds and scattered showers. The westerly winds will slowly ease through the day, veering northwesterly in the evening. Showers will continue throughout the day, and some of them will turn wintry as temperatures drop through the afternoon. Daytime highs will be around 4 to 7 degrees.

Friday& the Weekend: Continuing unsettled through Friday with blustery showers but indications suggest winds will ease by the weekend.

George Sunsnow

piuswal wrote: »

Nice thought but I doubt if there are many if any left who have not been brought up on models and "contaminated" by them; removed from the detailed analysis, day in day out, that allows one to build up the "hunch" experience, as you call it.

I suspect also, that in small organisations like Met Eireann, there are so many demands on operational forecasters, that time form detailed analysis is at a premium.

Off topic but felt the need to comment on the point made; the old order has gone.

I disagree
Joanna,Evelyn and others in Met É have been at this a long time
Their experience built up over time is priceless
Gerry Murphy is no spring chicken either and errs on the side of likelihood
Models have been actively used since the 70’s but it’s obvious nature trumps them a lot
That’s where experience comes in

It’s a real case of the old dog for the hard road and the pup for the path
The pup of course will gain experience and become better over time
Evelyn often explains her forecasts well
That’s most definitely not a case of,too many time pressures

Gaoth Laidir

The idea that forecasters in Met Éireann don't have time to formulate a proper forecast, and that they don't have/use their experience, is just wrong. Their job is forecasting. That's it. They're not making the tea, cleaning the toilets, carrying out research projects, etc. There's plenty of time in the day to correct formulate good forecasts, and that's what they do. The problem is the complexity of predicting highly dynamic systems not yet formed over a vast ocean devoid of many observations.

sdanseo

The HIRLAM now has Tuesday in view...and it's going for snow also. Note: for Dublin at least, it was not correct last time, although it verified for many other places.

nacho libre

Personally speaking i miss forecasters like John Eaglton for the reasons outlined by our man in Cuba- by way of Arklow. He had that folky charm about him and always gave his own thoughts on what could happen. I was disappointed when he retired from tv forecasting. As regards that low on Wednesday, i bet it will be further north than currently shown and i fear it will reduce the window for snow too. We should get some snow though on Tuesday. This nonsense that you can't get snow from a pm airflow is just not true. It won't lead to ice days with people snowed in, but in the past we had anything from 3cm to 10 cm from potent northwesterlies. I don't think anyone here has said there will be large accumulations at lower levels from this one. A few cms settling at night to lower levels in the north and west is feasible in the early hours of Tuesday morning. I would desperately love if Gerry Murphy was on tv one day soon warning us of a blizzard to come, like the one mentioned in 1982, maybe if we all live long enough we will get to see one like that before we exit stage left.

squarecircles

nacho libre wrote: »

Personally speaking i miss forecasters like John Eaglton for the reasons outlined by our man in Cuba- by way of Arklow. He had that folky charm about him and always gave his own thoughts on what could happen. I was disappointed when he retired from tv forecasting. As regards that low on Wednesday, i bet it will be further north than currently shown and i fear it will reduce the window for snow too. We should get some snow though on Tuesday. This nonsense that you can't get snow from a pm airflow is just not true. It won't lead to ice days with people snowed in, but in the past we had anything from 3cm to 10 cm from potent northwesterlies. I don't think anyone here has said there will be large accumulations at lower levels from this one. A few cms settling at night to lower levels in the north and west is feasible in the early hours of Tuesday morning. I would desperately love if Gerry Murphy was on tv one day soon warning us of a blizzard to come, like the one mentioned in 1982, maybe if we all live long enough we will get to see one like that before we exit stage left.

He'd lock himself in a broom cupboard in glasnevin and change the broadcast roster if he got the chance.

Although his forecast in December for snow was like weather porn.

I'm sure he felt really dirty afterwards.

Gaoth Laidir

nacho libre wrote: »

Personally speaking i miss forecasters like John Eaglton for the reasons outlined by our man in Cuba- by way of Arklow. He had that folky charm about him and always gave his own thoughts on what could happen. I was disappointed when he retired from tv forecasting. As regards that low on Wednesday, i bet it will be further north than currently shown and i fear it will reduce the window for snow too. We should get some snow though on Tuesday. This nonsense that you can't get snow from a pm airflow is just not true. It won't lead to ice days with people snowed in, but in the past we had anything from 3cm to 10 cm from potent northwesterlies. I don't think anyone here has said there will be large accumulations at lower levels from this one. A few cms settling at night to lower levels in the north and west is feasible in the early hours of Tuesday morning. I would desperately love if Gerry Murphy was on tv one day soon warning us of a blizzard to come, like the one mentioned in 1982, maybe if we all live long enough we will get to see one like that before we exit stage left.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people will see some brief wet snow falling on Tuesday evening, and it will settle in the northern half of the country and on high ground elsewhere, but I also still think the showers will be mixed at low levels and not the 100% snow that the GFS is showing. Cold rain, sleet and hail will probably make up most of the precip at lowest levels away from the north. For me, this is nothing to look forward to. I'd love to see what the GFS is showing, I just don't think I will.

If the midweek low deepens more and sooner than expected then it will curve northwards and slow down sooner too. This would divert the coldest Atlantic flow away from us and modify the airmass for later in the week. It's still all up in the air, with a few twist and turns to go. It's like the 89th minute now, but there's a lot of Fergie time to be played.

nacho libre

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

If the midweek low deepens more and sooner than expected then it will curve northwards and slow down sooner too. This would divert the coldest Atlantic flow away from us and modify the airmass for later in the week. It's still all up in the air, with a few twist and turns to go. It's like the 89th minute now, but there's a lot of Fergie time to be played.

I bet that is what will happen. If I can go wrong for cold weather being prolonged it likely will. As long as that pesky azore high is where it is, we will never get proper blocking. It will ensure everything gets flattened out eventually

Say my name

Just after seeing the weather forecast on Countryfile.
Widespread snow showers on Tuesday (even in the SE).
Then this low pressure needs watching for Thursday. The track is still not tied down.
On the southern flank is rain and snow on the northern. So it all depends on the track as to what people get.

JanuarySnowstor

Well snow looks widespread Tuesday evening/night and I would expect warnings to be issued by the morning.
Plenty troughs moving down could be substantial snow lying by Wed morning.

Okay it's another 24 event BUT snowdays are rare in this country so even though some will scoff the reality is it could be the best we see this Winter!

Meteorite58

Some very decent 850 hPa temps on the GFS but has been pointed out tend to be a couple of degrees below the ECM which tends to be more accurate. Watch the rise in temps when the storm goes by and return to cold again.

Tues looks good alright. One hell of a cold spell with savage windchill.

.







500 hPa temps

Oneiric 3

nacho libre wrote: »

Personally speaking i miss forecasters like John Eaglton for the reasons outlined by our man in Cuba- by way of Arklow. He had that folky charm about him and always gave his own thoughts on what could happen.

If I am honest, I rarely go out of my way to watch the RTE TV forecast these days. Can't quite put my finger on it but something seems to be lost. Far cry from when I was young and used to watch the entirety of news just to get see forecast!

Oneiric 3

squarecircles wrote: »

He'd lock himself in a broom cupboard in glasnevin and change the broadcast roster if he got the chance.

Although his forecast in December for snow was like weather porn.

I'm sure he felt really dirty afterwards.

The whole idea that Gerry Murphy seems to be afraid to mention 'snow' seems to be based on nothing more than a self regenerating urban myth on this very forum! I am sure if he saw that snow was a possibility in a forecast, he'd mention it freely, without feeling 'dirty'.

munsterlegend

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

If I am honest, I rarely go out of my way to watch the RTE TV forecast these days. Can't quite put my finger on it but something seems to be lost. Far cry from when I was young and used to watch the entirety of news just to get see forecast!

There was no internet then might be a major factor.

dacogawa

The 18z HIRLAM seems to be happy enough...

Oneiric 3

munsterlegend wrote: »

There was no internet then might be a major factor.

Could be, or maybe another factor is having to watch some twat dancing around a carton of super slim-line milk before the forecast.

Often wondered why, that as tax payers, licence fee payers, etc, that RTE still has to find a sponsor to fund a 2 minute forecast by met eireann?

George Sunsnow

munsterlegend wrote: »

There was no internet then might be a major factor.

The forecasts were much more dramatic too in black and white on the 405 line set

Kermit.de.frog

12z Euro4

12 am - 6 am Tuesday



6 am - 12 pm




18:00 update soon.