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

It’s unbelievable. This is my current view in the wilderness in west Cork, Jupiter centre of the photo.

Looks a bit grumpy , you are right !

Barnesmore

We are now getting our first look at the weekend's potential snow risk via the 51-hour, high resolution Arome model. It paints a more realistic picture of how things may pan out up to 10pm Saturday with snow accumulations restricted to higher ground and some inland spots.

Brilliant. Like a pic from a documentary on Galileo!

Lough salt road(well named) Donegal was closed after a number of accidents

ECM highest accumulations centred ever so slightly further south from previous run. Increased snow depth chart as well. Two areas of 50cm. Narrow patch N Kerry extending in to S Clare and one NE of limerick city around Newport area. I might scrape 1 or 2cm. I’d be happy with that compared to nothing. ECM still has snow showers coming down from the north early next week.

Less talk of 'disruptive' snow this morning in Met E outlook. Still very cold but where the snow falls and how much seems to be a mystery still. Maybe they're just backing down a tad in tone from yesterday morning.

Arpege as you were! Heavy snow early Sunday

just looked at all of the models. Definitely a southward movement of the front on all with it sliding more than was the case yesterday. It does look very good snow wise for a band from north Kerry to Wicklow. Hard to find any model not showing snow here. For other areas some models are great, others aren’t. Most show Cork and Dublin cities getting some snow for an hour or too on Sunday afternoon but after plenty rain (heavier rain in Cork). Dublins risk is that the precipitation stays south of it - some models show this. Cork (as always sadly) has no fears on the precipitation front but its risk is it stays as rain / sleet. Every model has snow falling for decent periods in north Kerry, Limerick, south Clare, Tipp, KK, Carlow and north Waterford. Most have decent snow for South Connaught and most of Leinster.

the trend southward is good news for most so long as it stops now. If it continues ( and here’s the risk for everywhere save south Munster) the precipitation could end up being too south. From an imby perspective it can keep trending south mind you!

GFS best for Dublin I think. Ukmo best for Cork city and Waterford city.

Definitely a southward trend and who knows how much further it will trend South over next 24 to 36 hours. Looks a lot of rain/sleet anyway away from high ground at the moment.

The UKMO has the milder air now barely touching the south coast, the below is as far north as it gets. As Rebelbrowser said this is a nightmare to forecast!!

Btw looking further out in the XC weather app, which is based off the gfs, for my location south of cork city there is a few cms of snow Tuesday morning and temperatures go as low as -9 some nights next week, never seen a forecast like it!!

AROME 1.3km shows a wintry mix for many and could be most accurate ,but it's so difficult that anything could happen, a pasting is likely especially in higher terrain.

Just going to enjoy the cold spell and anything after that is a bonus now.

The uncertainty can be handled with a watch to warning system, almost all places would now be under a winter storm watch that would be upgraded to a warning when there was an inevitable outcome foreseen.

Does this one have a name yet? If not, what name would it be given?

I think the highest impacts will be in west-central, central, inland southeast counties tapering to slighter impacts in far north but I wouldn't want anyone in any location to imagine they are in the clear, there are ways this could produce unexpected amounts of snow in Dublin for example (and not in higher outskirts only).

15 to 30 cm of snow is quite possible in some areas by Sunday, on top of iced-up roadways from the initial slushy phase.

I will post some satellite imagery of the developing storm later today.

So it looks like those of us further north could have light snow or stay mostly dry. Let's hope we can get a trough or two that comes down over the country following the system on Sunday. A positive of the system trending south is the arctic airmass taking a better hold so any warm sectors that may rise can be overcome. The ideal would be a polar low at some stage to give a near nationwide snow fall