The latest in a series of cold fronts has pushed through Scotland and heading SE over England and Wales. The coldest air to date (Greenland sourced) is bringing the first snowfall to many parts of Scotland today.
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Here’s the surface chart at 12z today.
Credit: AccuWeather Pro
We’ve a true northwest flow blowing in straight from Greenland. Cold enough despite crossing the relatively warm waters of the North Atlantic for bringing the first snowfall to many. Even lower elevations.
Here was the A9 at Ballinluig (near Pitlochry) earlier.
A little further up the A9 at Drumochter Summit.
Yes it even snowed down to lower levels here in Lennoxtown at the foot of the Campsie Fells.
It’s a cold Sunday and Monday but as high pressure builds into the cold air later Monday and 850s are in the -50 to -10 range, IF there’s enough clear sky and winds are light over snow covered ground in the Highlands or North Pennines, I believe somewhere may drop to -10C Tuesday morning. Hard freeze widely elsewhere.
Surface 00z Tue
850 temps for the same time.
Projected snow on the ground.
Based on all the above, we could have by far the coldest night ahead of warming SW winds during the day Tuesday as the next front approaches. This one could be a real troublemaker!
As stated, there’s a brief lull in proceedings Tuesday ahead of potentially severe weather later Tuesday into Wednesday. We’ll see a temp rise Tuesday following a cold Monday (0-4C) and fall then a sharp fell will be followed by storm-force, even hurricane-force wind with rain changing over to snow as the main front pushes through.
Surface chart at 66 hrs
Notice how tightly squeezed the isobars become following the passage of the cold front during Wednesday. That’s hurricane-force winds ramming NW Ireland and Scotland, driving in the next batch of Greenland air.
Check out the ECMWF’s projected 10m wind gusts Wednesday. 70-80 knots equates to 82-92 mph!
850 temp chart shows the next cold push off Greenland.
Just look at this ‘snow on the ground’ forecast off the ECMWF through 168 hrs. Hum.
Europe overall!
This next punch from Greenland is sure to build the N UK snow pack further and based on the strength of NW wind we could have a colder air mass (faster transportation of air between Greenland-UK means less moderation over warm Atlantic waters) and so accumulating snow even near sea level is possible. As stated in this morning’s video, forecasting snow is extremely difficult and it’s easy to bust!
Following a wild mid week period, winds remain fresh to strong but begin to shift more northerly so a more arctic rather than Greenland source of cold appears to be heading our way late next week into the weekend. Very interesting times we’re in that’s for sure.
500mb height anomaly shows the upper setup nicely.
Before concluding, I had a glance at the GFS ensemble NAO forecast last night and for the first time in a few weeks, it’s showing a negative trend. Certainly good to see and worth keeping a watchful eye on this given what some models are hinting at towards Christmas on into January.
Apologies to those living outside of the UK/Ireland. I know a lot of the focus has been on the UK but the focus of weather has been here lately. I shall have a look at the broader European pattern perspective tomorrow.
Be sure to check out the video for more!
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