Cold Spell Discussion: Heavy Snow this evening especially in eastern/southern areas

North west Kilkenny had a snow shower around 5pm, the hills over there looked white after it, here on the north east of the county we got a snow shower around 7:30pm give or take, whitened the place.

Don't want snow but we have to take what we are given. That said the period where one can see snow goes into May, so potentially a long way to go yet......yes I have seen snow fall in early May here in north Kilkenny.

I don't have to wonder what dew points are going to be here tomorrow, we will have snow, snow is falling with ease at the moment when any precipitation comes by, hope we get no more tonight and I get to the shops tomorrow before it arrives.

Su Campu wrote: »

I remember getting a snow shower in early June!

lol that was bad....and June sounds so nice....looking forward to some heat then....

Weathercheck wrote: »

As much as i totally respect and hightlight your input i do believe you have an unnecessarily negative attitude towards sneactha.

We all know TAF forecasts are cack, and to be honest i would expect someone as experienced as you to know this.

Lets be honest.. we know if not know more than the guys in the Met, we access virtually the same info barring the HIRLAM predictions, otherwise we virtually own the same data! ooooooooops......springs a business venture......! But really believe in yourself mate.. Obv negativity may override the snow malarky and i may slightly overdo it but i would say that the Met and possibly you???? only every expect snow when its virtually falling.. The Met refuses to forecast snow, even at 72/96hrs again they refuesed to mention any snow in the forecast, like other times during this winter.

To be honest its embarassing. They are a Weather service afraid to predict snow! hahah:D:D

........... The whole prob30 thing is a pisstake, i reckon prob30 = prob 70... they are quite simply an embarassment.

I feel a bad hangover coming on...:D

pistolpetes11 wrote: »

You can't beat the drunk post alrite !

Homer Simpson: Beer Quotes
All right, brain. You don't like me and I don't like you, but let's just do this and I can get back to killing you with beer.


You must love this country more than I love a cold beer on a hot Christmas morning.








“To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” – Homer Simpson

Met Eireann weather warning: Issued at 20 February 2010 - 09:40
Weather Warning
Showers of sleet and snow this evening and early tonight, mainly over Munster and Leinster, with accumulations in places .

http://www.met.ie/forecasts/warnings.asp

Weathercheck wrote: »

As much as i totally respect and hightlight your input i do believe you have an unnecessarily negative attitude towards sneactha.

We all know TAF forecasts are cack, and to be honest i would expect someone as experienced as you to know this.

Lets be honest.. we know if not know more than the guys in the Met, we access virtually the same info barring the HIRLAM predictions, otherwise we virtually own the same data! ooooooooops......springs a business venture......! But really believe in yourself mate.. Obv negativity may override the snow malarky and i may slightly overdo it but i would say that the Met and possibly you???? only every expect snow when its virtually falling.. The Met refuses to forecast snow, even at 72/96hrs again they refuesed to mention any snow in the forecast, like other times during this winter.

To be honest its embarassing. They are a Weather service afraid to predict snow! hahah:D:D

........... The whole prob30 thing is a pisstake, i reckon prob30 = prob 70... they are quite simply an embarassment.

Firstly, remember that TAFs are valid only at the surface and within a 10 nautical mile radius of the airport, to give pilots an indication of the conditions on approach and departure. The Dublin TAF say will not give any indication of what's going to happen in say the Wicklow mountains. I myself am an amateur pilot and use them a lot and have found them on occasion to be way out, mostly on their timings, but other times they're bang on. The PROB30 thing is an international standard, and OK you think maybe they bandy it about too much when they should be more positive, and you're right sometimes. But as they're issued 4 times a day, subsequent forecasts usually do reflect increased or decreased probabilities, which is why the golden rule for pilots is always check the weather again last thing before setting out. I think it's very pompous for any of us (with the exception of MT Cranium) to think we know as much as, or do a better job than, professional forecasters. Yes we have access to a lot of data, but we don't have the experience they have. And this experience has taught them not to bandy about weather warnings until they're pretty sure they're going to happen. Last night nobody was certain what was going to happen tonight.

Looking at some TAFs issued by the UKMO for western Wales and England for the same period shows a similar use of the PROB30 for tonight and tomorrow morning. And the USAF had no mention of snow for today either, nor has the 00Z UKMO....





Regarding my opinions, I have slightly different methods than most others here in that I find the 850hPa ThetaE and ThetaW values, instead of purely the temperatures, to be the best indicators of snow probabilities, as they take into account the effect of evaporation and latent heat into account. Taking into account the values we had in January when we DID get snow at all levels and those values predicted today, plus the stronger insolation, I don't see us getting the same extent of snow as we did 6 weeks ago, ie, we're not going to get widespread snow at sea level tonight. If I'm wrong I'm wrong, no argument, but with the south of the country in the warmest air, snow should be above around 100m, and around 50m on the northern and eastern extent of the precipitation band. That excludes a lot of people, but that's the way I see it. If everyone's covered this time tomorrow then I'll gladly admit I was wrong, and will go and have a snowball fight with the kids!

snow ghost wrote: »

Su Campu,

I'm exactly at sea level - well maybe 10 cm above - and I've had a couple of relatively heavy snow showers already this morning... and it was proper snow not sleety stuff, etc.

Fair enough, maybe I am way off then. I wouldn't expect them to be snow in the afternoon though with solar heating, but it'll be interesting to watch what happens tonight.

Weathercheck, I agree with you regarding spatial coverage, the difference is we disagree on whether or not we'll see snow at sea level. If we do then I deserve a slagging!