We've all got everything crossed - but still relatively early days Carsey. Could yet be skiing into May....

Sustained lift served snowsports pre Christmas has been the exception rather than the norm in the history of Scottish Skiing, indeed for the West pre New Year openings have been historically rare.

It's why one very frustrating aspect of Scottish Snowsports is that there are a large number of people who will stampede toward a queue for one or 2 lifts and a few narrow strips of ice in November or early Dec, but be nowhere to be seen in April when most of the mountain is open with beautiful spring corn snow!

The trouble with this Sudden Stratospheric Warming lark is if it does blow the Polar Vortex into fragments and generate a tropospheric response - high or mid latitude blocking can be persistent, thus it can be a surprisingly fine line between jackpot and disaster for us in terms of how the long wave pattern sets up.

If high pressure is stuck limpet like over Southern England or just SE of England mid January than permission granted to panic!

[edit]

Also pointing out that there could have and would have been a fair bit of lift served snowsports on CairnGorm by now under different circumstances!



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 19.29hrs Thu 27 Dec 18 by alan.

[www.severe-weather.eu]

Its going to get colder and snowier

Hopefully it sorts things out to get a decent covering down. Looking good from tuesday onwards. Hopefully the west will get a decent hit too!

looking promising

Be Nice to Skiers, they have it hard enough already

Attachments: 17th jan 2019.png (298kB)   17th jan 2019 snow risk.png (110kB)  

Minus 30°c 850 hPa temps at our latitude about to head into the Western Atlantic. If the daughter polar vortexes dropped into different locations something totally of the scale stupid could occur, be it extreme crippling cold or if that sort of cold hits warmer air over the Atlantic explosive cyclogenesis !

Does that mean it is going to snow?

Even the ensemble sets are still flip flopping and scenarios that would push towards record breaking at both ends of the temperature scale continue to show up.

Will cold dig into Scotland on the first attempt, or need several goes? Forecast model watching is quite dramatic unlike the present weather borefest outside the window!

However good news is the ground which particularly in the West got saturated is frozen solid and it’s currently -0.5°c at 2800ft at Glencoe. Got the digital thermometer back online there.

Being able to transiston into a pattern that gets some snow down with it being preceded by a mild wet stormy spell would make a big difference.

Doesnt seem like its as good as initially expected.

Any updates - good or bad - from those in the know??

According to BBC monthly outlook Southern stratospheric warming has occured, polar vortex will filter into UK later on, hopefully we will have a late season finish on a good note.

Met office reckons some snow for the summit at Glencoe.

heres what the models are reckoning for the 850s.

T48hrs

ECMWF


UKMO


GFS(P)




And at T144

ECMWF


UKMO


GFS(P)

It promised such delights a week or so ago too and look how it turned out..


Mike in Edinburgh
Assorted scottish pics - www.prog99.com

2nd half of January isnt looking too bad!

seems to be the story of the winter so far though Carsey, the cold weather is always a week or so away in the models then nothing happens!