Cold throughout the coming week.Snow for some

This looks like a very marginal event to me.
If this were the early 1990's,I'd be more confident of snow but there has been an ambient temperature rise since then in Ireland on average of over a degree.
They say a week is a long time in politics but a degree celcius is a pretty big dividing line between rain and snow or between sleet and snow.

I think snow for ground above 600ft inland is a certainty.I think Longfield will be pushing out the door with the snow by the end of the week but as for sea level-it's going to be wet and slushy at best if anything at all.

Since it's marginal though,of course sea level and coastal areas could get snow and if it falls,that in itself will drag the temperature down further than what it is programmed to be.
Snow falling heavily will settle whilst it is falling,it just wont last on the coast in daylight sunshine when temps are above 2c which they will be.

Now regarding the Irish sea - I think Darkman is seriously underestimating its effect!

In january 1982 Rosslare got rain for about half of the spell,yes rain and that was under some of the best conditions possible for such an event.It did turn to snow there eventually but the Irish sea did have an effect.

On the plus side, the reason it probably turned back to snow there was partly because the air flow was out of a very cold and snowy wales at the time.

This time,Coastal wales is not near as cold and wont be,the sea is a lot hotter and we dont have an air feed from siberia.

So lets be realistic here if its snow you want-the chances at sea level on the coast are about 40% and no more but it is a significant risk ie not a certainty,rather a probability.
The risk in my opinion for inland areas (greater that 5 miles) rises by another 20% and if you are above 500ft and greater than 5 miles inland ,snow becomes almost definite.

Some favoured areas will see a lot of snow I think this week.

Danno,I expect you to have a lot of snow if these systems take the right track.
You should have a good several hours of the stuff,more than in recent years.

As for the GFS-theres no such thing as a back track or upgrade or anything like that at the moment, theres so much chopping and changing and uncertainty.

To cut a long story short, if you want to know the weather at the moment,you'll have to do it like it was done in the 80's ie watch the TV bulletins.

Hopefully you will see a strong high appear over northern Norway stretching out to Iceland and into Siberia... on some chart or other the Eagle displays.

There should be lots of snow in Tullow aswell.
Thursday will be very interesting.

The uncertainty now is mainly in how fast the front will progress.
Current indications suggest to me that it will be slow enough for a good dumping in the midlands North and in the East.
The East though only away from the coast and on higher ground,though I wouldnt rule out something for the coast or lower ground in the East either,though they are less favoured.

The uncertainty though could also mean the front mightnt progress far north at all in which case , there'll be nothing untill the next attempt at the weekend apart from coastal showers that is.

Felixdhc wrote:

Tristrame (where did the old Earthman name go? ),

When you say away from the coast, how far? I tried to check my elevation before on a site I saw posted on TWO but it didnt cover Lusk :rolleyes: Rush however was about 27m from what I remember, pretty low and I would suspect Lusk is even lower.

I'm trying to be on sebattical from boards at the moment for various reasons,but the smell of snow brought me back temporarally.

High ground is by my definition anywhere above 600ft above sea level.
So I wouldnt count Lusk or my location in that.
With marginal temps and dewpoints 500ft can make all the difference between sleet falling or snow falling.
It can also make the difference between snow falling and snow sticking.
Ie it could be snowing wet at elevation 0 but snowing dryer at elevation 600ft due to even a 0.5c temp difference and sticking as a consequence.

I'd also include in my definition of "high ground" lower elevations that are a good bit inland or lower elevations(of more than 300 -400 ft) that are nestled in between ground much higher than that.
By a good bit inland,I mean more than 5 miles and preferably closer to 10 miles or more,though 7 or 8 will do.