Tuesday 9 January, chance of lying snow Munster / South Leinster

I said I would pen a thread here just for a bit of fun. This is not an "event" even if it comes off. And straight off this looks to me to be a 50% shot for, especially, higher ground, in west Wexford, south KK, south Tipp, west Waterford, north Cork, south east Limerick and east Kerry. I think it is unlikely, even if it comes off, to be lying snow in Waterford and Cork cities and suburbs, but we live in hope. I'd give them a 10% chance of seeing anything other than a dusting / slushy mix as we are too near the coast. The shower trains will need to be cooled by travelling over the colder land before they fall as snow - i.e. the relatively warmer water over the sea will be the problem near coasts. I don't think there will be precipitation at all in Limerick city.

All that having been said, there is also at least one model suggesting more widespread snow tonight affecting a lot more of Leinster (eg Kildare etc).

Moreover this is NOT a thread in relation to a possible proper cold event next week. You can keep up to date on that in the t 120+ thread for now. If the guidance continues as is / improves then no doubt one of the other posters will open a thread in the coming days. My money is on the amphibian.

Anyway, back to tonight (the risk really is overnight into Tuesday) and I have pasted below the latest guidance from the models. Going on those, the sweet spot right now is somewhere around Carrick-on-Suir.

I should say, the reason why you might get these showers tonight is because of an extremely cold upper layer of air that will be above us for a few hours overnight - ca. -10 at 850 hPa (usually ca. 1,500m but its not that cut and dried I understand) is suggested by some models. Such cold air traveling over the relatively milder sea (and wind is forecast to be brisk and SE'ly) will trigger streamers or lake effect snow. See the stickied thread about parameters needed for snow in Ireland to understand this all better.

Anyway, we can capture thoughts on this snow chance on this thread for the next day or so and we can close it then so as not to confuse things with the (hopefully) bigger event we are watching out for next week.