Prelude to Cold Weather/Snow - Sun 25th Feb (Onwards)

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

At the risk of being a spoilsport.... Seriously am I the only one not "excited" by this idea?

I remember 2010..traffic chaos, massive heating bills, the entire country slowly grinding to a halt because we don't plan ahead as a rule, always react late and not enough, and never learn from the experience.


Yea, fun times!

It might be fun if you're a kid who gets a few days off school, but if you've to work or do things in that sort of weather it's a disaster.

I've ordered some snow chains from Amazon, and I'm gonna order an extra 500L of heating oil, and fill 2 gas cylinders.

I'll have to go to the shop to get whiskey and rum (hot whiskeys, and hot rum cocos)

Not looking forward to the increased heating bills., but.. better to keep the house warm than deal with burst pipes.

But yes, I agree, as a country, we don't plan ahead.

mikeecho wrote: »

I've ordered some snow chains from Amazon, and I'm gonna order an extra 500L of heating oil, and fill 2 gas cylinders.

I'll have to go to the shop to get whiskey and rum (hot whiskeys, and hot rum cocos)

Not looking forward to the increased heating bills., but.. better to keep the house warm than deal with burst pipes.

You'll be needing a gun and some bear-mace too, pal.

Mallory Squeaking Celebration wrote: »

Complete weather lay-person here, I come in peace, just wondering what this might mean for public transport in Dublin? If this weather event hits full on are we likely to see cancelled trains/buses etc?

I'm kind of excited to see it but of course getting to and from work is going to be a disaster.

Yeah if it hits as the models are currently saying, then yeah you'd imagine Dublin will grind to a halt.
There's potential for huge snowfall and days where the temperature doesn't get above freezing.

Maybe they'll keep the Luas going, but they didn't manage to in 2010

Mallory Squeaking Celebration wrote: »

gabeeg wrote: »

Yeah if it hits as the models are currently saying, then yeah you'd imagine Dublin will grind to a halt.
There's potential for huge snowfall and days where the temperature doesn't get above freezing.

Maybe they'll keep the Luas going, but they didn't manage to in 2010

Ok, so my options will be walk 20km or don't go in. Excellent.

It's difficult enough to predict what the weather will be, let alone its effects on transport. It's a case of wait and see

300 comments on IWO FB page and as many shares.
Glad won't have to commute next week.
Lovely walk to school this morning. Cool & bright.

up for anything wrote: »

I've just wandered into this off the back of M.T.'s daily forecast and it's the first I've read of it (my laptop was in the hospital). I haven't the time this week to delve into the thread and work out the dates and the extent of the cold/snow expected from the model runs to date.

Would some kind soul please take pity on me and post (I know it's impossible to predict accurately this far out) date beginning... this DAY 10 (Is that day ten from now or day ten of the cold spell?) that the last couple of pages have mentioned and what sort of minus figures cold and how much snow we're looking at. I promise I won't sue if we don't get it. In fact, I'd be really happy. It's just that next week is a bit of nightmare already for me and I have five people relying on me to organise them, some dependent on public transport, and I'd sooner prepare for the worst and have over-prepared rather than be caught on the hop. I also need to travel but don't want to be stuck and not able to get home to some minors. I can cancel ahead if I think I'd sooner not be stressed nearer the time but cancelling a day ahead will not be looked on kindly regardless if the entire country is buried under 50' of snow.

Please and thank you, I hope.

If you are old enough to remember, my read is that this (on present guidance) will be like January 1987 (though Feb sun will make it a bit milder by day but, ironically, snowier too). Thus I'm thinking -1 or -2 by day (but feeling like -10 with windchill) and -4 to -9 by night. Amazed if there isn't snow in east ulster, all leinster, and all south coast as a minimum. Everywhere at risk though. In this kind of set up coldest temps would be inland west, i.e. Roscommon, east Mayo, east Galway, kind of area. Some sheltered spots could go minus double digit by night.

For those too young to remember, Jan 1987 started, like this one will, on a Sunday. I posted a memory of this yesterday but stupidly did it on the FI thread and it was (rightly) removed. I remember it was 11 January and the FA Cup was on tv. Back then there were no English league games on TV (seriously) so this was one of the few weekends of the year when you saw football on tv. Liverpool were playing Luton away and Luton had a plastic pitch (google it) at the time so anything could happen. Before kick off snow showers started but they kept melting. By half time in the match I had given up on the snow and watched the whole second half without looking out the window. At full time (0-0 before you ask) I walked past our front door (which had dark glass) and vaguely thought it looked a little "bright" outside for 5.30pm in early January. I quickly opened the door to find 4 inches of snow had fallen and it was no longer apparent where gardens started and roads ended! The temp dropped like a stone that evening and, unfortunately, the snow froze hard.

The following day I went to school but by 10am only about a third of the class was there. It was about -3 and the windchill was like nothing I have ever experienced. The school shut up at 11am and sent us all home. It didn't open for a week.

For the next 4 days temps were below zero at all times and it was skinning. I remember one day my brother and I poured out a glass of water on the pavement and it froze on impact. Everywhere was a complete winter wonderland. More seriously in those days of ****e insulation about half the pipes in Ireland froze so when the thaw happened on Friday / Saturday there were a hell of a lot of plumbing issues.

We had a bit of snow on the Thursday night too but we had no snow on the Mon, Tues and Wed. I assume the east coast got pummelled that week but there was no interweb back then so who knew? I think it was dry in lots of the west and I know, bizarrely, in parts of east Cork (Midleton even) it was dry notwithstanding that Cork city got lots that Sunday.

BBC put on special programming (as the entire of Britain and Ireland was off school) and I remember my brother, sister and I watched a five part war series all week on BBC called ANZACs that, bizarrely, starred Paul Hogan. It was that or "Live at Three" (again, google it)! I do remember watching live Ian McCaskgill's now legendary forecasts which are still available on youtube.

Still my favourite cold spell. I suppose I was 10 at the time which helps! Feb 1991 was good too (again we got snow at the very start of it in Cork and nothing after) as, obviously, was Dec 2010 (where yet again we got lots of snow on day one, 17 Dec, but nothing after - a pattern???!!!) but obviously Dec 2010 was an east coast event in terms of epic snow. I don't remember 1982 (I was 5 - I remember snow when I was young but can't say it was year x or year y) but again I think the epic snow that time was an east coast event primarily.

Hopefully a new chapter starts this Sunday!

It's obvious from reading this that none of you have had the joy of trying to feed cattle in the snow

bogman_bass wrote: »

It's obvious from reading this that none of you have had the joy of trying to feed cattle in the snow

Would it change whats going to happen with the weather if we had?

Our local authority bought brand new snow ploughs after the 2010 snow, they've been in storage since so looking like they'll finally get a run out.

monty_python wrote: »

What's the chance of this affecting flights into Dublin?? I'm flying in on the 1st

High

power pants wrote: »

What makes this such a certainty when in general it's very hard to gauge snow even a day or 2 before it supposedly hits?

Genuine question. Thanks

Its not certain but at this stage it would be:-

90% certain that the start of next week will be cold even for February
70% certain it will be exceptionally cold
70% certain of frequent snow showers on east and south coasts
50% certain it will be once a decade cold
40% certain there will be very serious snowfall
20% certain that this will be 1947 revisited for a week at least....

The confidence comes from the fact that the cold eastern air is already on the move toward us and none of the weather models now see any impediment to it landing on our shores. That said we have seen this before and at 4 / 5 days before hand the forecast changed and the cold weather went south into France and Iberia. What seems different this time is that there has been a sudden stratospheric warming (out of my depth here...) which usually leads to east winds. The UK Met have been forecasting this spell of weather with confidence for many weeks. All in all it seems, as I said, 90% certain some cold is coming at the weekend, and possibly some really, really notable cold.

And for the record, when the cold comes over land from the east its very different to atlantic sourced cold. If there is precipitation next week then, on current guidance, it will be snow (not sleet nor rain) and it will stick everywhere very readily.

Of course having tempted faith like this cue the 6z GFS in a few minutes showing all the cold going into Europe instead of us....