Abigail, winter 2015-16’s first named major storm looks set to make it’s closest approach to Scotland overnight tonight with pressure dipping towards 965mb during Friday.

Current visible satellite shows the storm gathering strength west of Scotland with cloud hook becoming more distinct.

GFS has centre down to 964mb at ooz Friday (overnight tonight)

Strongest winds will probably peak between 12-6am tomorrow morning with travel disruption highly likely.

Peak gusts in exposed NW Scotland, Outer Hebrides and Northern Isles will reach between 80-90 mph while the Cairngorm Plateau may see gusts reach 130 mph.

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ECMWF 10m wind gusts at 00z Fri.

Even down as far as the Ayrshire coast, gusts may reach 70-75 mph with the populated Central Belt potentially seeing gusts beyond 60 mph. Expect blanket cancellations to ferry services and restrictions on most bridges and possible flights delays.

Wave heights will be significant, particularly just off the Outer Hebrides where waves may approach 40ft.

Flooding rain is also likely to be an issue but probably the second most noteworthy aspect to this storm will be the drop in temperature between today and tomorrow.

Today we’re in the relatively mild air.

Tomorrow afternoon will feel distinctly cold with heavy snow likely above 2,000ft. Expect blizzard conditions in the Highlands.

Highs widely over N Ireland, Scotland and N England will be supressed to between 5-8C, colder with elevation and with a gale for severe gale blowing, expect below freezing wind chills.

We could see snow amounts of 6-12 inches over the highest summits with perhaps some snow down to 1,500ft, affecting high parts of the A9.

Interesting to see the North Pacific and Atlantic mirror with two major storm systems approaching west coasts of both North America and Europe.

As this system lifts out, we remains in a cold, strong westerly flow with air being pulled in from Greenland through Friday into Saturday but the next system quickly replaces the gap and Sat-Sun may see an additional 4 inches for western upslopes of Wales, England and Scotland. As you can see from the below ECMWF, we remain highly unsettled throughout the next week to 10 days but one thing well worth pointing out is the height rises up towards Greenland.

See this morning’s video for the discussion.

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Tags: europe cyclone, Europe Storm, storm abigail, UK Storm