1st January 2025 - 8th January Snow Potential, Freezing Conditions - Discussion

Of course another positive is we are likely to have a severe frost both Thursday and Friday night. Will help snow to stick on Sat

Mentioned the possibility of significant snowfall over rhe weekend on radio1 just now and bitterly cold next week

In fairness, you could have a 3 million year long ice age under foot, but if it is wet marginal snow it doesn't matter.

Put an egg in the freezer overnight, take it out and put it in the fridge, throw some freezer frost on the egg and see what happens after two minutes. Weird analogy, and I've never tried it, but my point is the air temperature is FAR more important than the ground temperature, because it's only a very thin layer of the ground that needs to be below freezing for snow to "stick". Long term coverage is different, but once snow is on the ground it also insulates the air directly above it from the warmer ground.

Looking at the BBC forecast now and according to them there could be further opportunities next week for more snow with more low systems coming up against the cold air.

Just come across this thread, the one thing snow does is bring out all the gobsh1tes on to the roads to see the snow and how far they car drive in their cars and how they can get stuck, most on the roads now are poor drivers let alone know how to drive in snow and frost, as for watching Rte weather forecast they give a bit of everything to cover themselves, we go by YR.no and they are never to far out directly to our area in the last number of years. Anyone wanting snow needs their head examined as it only brings hardships and the clowns out in numbers.

yr.no uses the ECMWF model that is the forecasting system of choice of choice for Met Eireann. In fact, the Met app produces the exact same 7-10 local area forecasts as produced by Yr.no.

Forecasting is difficult and far from a perfect science. It is made endlessly harder in a country that is an island on the edge of an ocean. When you hear a forecaster give multiple scenarios beyond 3-5 days regarding snowfall in Ireland, it's because of our geographic position and the consequent complications around nailing the extent and specifics of such an event, and a rare one at that.

As for your comment about poor driving by Irish motorists in wintry conditions, that is very unfair. Irish motorists are poor drivers all year round! 😜

One for the winter bingo board 😆

GFS is a touch further north, similar to be ICON. It's so marginal that no forecast is going to nail this down in advance of the weekend. The colder airmass is no way as frigid as it was showing a few days ago so that may undermine snow potential. Pending a complete southward shift of the system, somewhere will see significant and disruptive snowfall. That's about as much as can be said right now.

Will be interesting to see the ECM 00Z, the Merry go-round of the Northerly and Southerly track of the low is quite gripping. Ohs and awhs at the ready 😁

ECM precipitation approaching extreme SW 6am Saturday. By 9am some light flurries inland SW. By 6pm there’s nice accumulations for most of Munster. Come midnight most of country with at least a covering plus 10cm in places, then crazy accumulations for parts overnight up to 42cm is highest I see. Obviously taken with a pinch of salt but potential is there for a huge fall. Heavy snow showers in to the NW Sunday evening.

Looks like a heavy wet snow (15-30 cm potential) for large portions of the nation, inland from south and east coasts, lasting on the ground for a week or so … but a lot of uncertainty remains. In larger cities around coast, likely to be a mixed fall leaving limited ground cover that would be largely gone by Wednesday.

Forecaster's best response is to book off sick.

I am quite interested in the arpege model due to its performance in November. There is a good upgrade on it for snow potential especially Sunday morning and Sunday evening with anywhere in inland Munster being the sweet spot. It even gives a couple of hours snow to the south coast as it pulls away.

met.ie—

Tuesday night: Apart from a few lingering wintry showers in the north, it'll be dry on Tuesday night with clear spells. Freezing fog will form, becoming dense in places. Extremely cold with temperatures expected to fall to between -10 and -3 degrees in light variable breezes.

Their forecast looks great away from the South and Southwest where more rain is likely.

Holy hell, the met Éireann forecast is baltic, disruptive significant snowfall, bitterly cold, - 10 at night, - 5 in the day, wow.