Band of rain/sleet/snow pushing up from the south 29th+30th Dec - Snowstorm or not?

paddybar

So who else is calling it then?I'll go with weathercheck and say "SNOW" and lots of it.

Min

BBC there had snow for us here.

The Northern Ireland forecast said snow from Dublin southwards.

leahyl

paddybar wrote: »

So who else is calling it then?I'll go with weathercheck and say "SNOW" and lots of it.

Me too! I always go with the people who call snow!;)

Villain

Let it Snow:

squonk

I'll call Rain. Too warm here for anything else I think.

paddybar

leahyl wrote: »

Me too! I always go with the people who call snow!;)

Do bear in mind lovely leahyl that I am both inebriated and ignorant and am just going along with wiser and more sober conjecture.
while I applaude and indeed take great pleasure in your enthusiasm you would do better seeking wiser counsel than mine.

Villain

squonk wrote: »

I'll call Rain. Too warm here for anything else I think.

For Tomorrow? yea probably but this is just the start wait until the Radar watching starts and you see showers been thrown up all over the Irish Sea

leahyl

paddybar wrote: »

Do bear in mind lovely leahyl that I am both inebriated and ignorant and am just going along with wiser and more sober conjecture.
while I applaude and indeed take great pleasure in your enthusiasm you would do better seeking wiser counsel than mine.

I'm going with Weathercheck not you!;)

whitemocha

leahyl wrote: »

I'm going with Weathercheck not you!;)

me too always go with weathercheck;);) even if he is wrong:D

jonny_b

I hope snow hits and sticks in Carlow town over the next few days......

gally74

im with rain at the start and turing to snow after a few hours,

the wind has really picked up here, bitterly cold, its the ice that is the real problem for people, wouldnt mind if it would melt out before the snow comes,

in fairness to Eagle his bodylanuage was saying this is a close one,

:cool:

paddybar

leahyl wrote: »

I'm going with Weathercheck not you!;)

I offer profound apologies for my impudent assumptions.Weathercheck is indeed far wiser counsel than I.

WolfeIRE

The following gives a very good explanation of when conditions favour snow. It is from the UK Met Office. To view dew points in your area visit here. To view air/ground temps visit here or here

To view the precipitation or rainfall radar (as ME ominiously call it) click here. The following sites are also very good if you wish to track precipitation.
http://www.yr.no/satellitt/1.5941760 (can someone tell me if that is a low forming to the north west of ireland and whether it will have any bearing on the next 48 hrs. there is also a low forming below greenland to the north of it)
http://www.raintoday.co.uk/
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/radar/


Dew And Frost
When a jug full of iced drink is taken out of the refrigerator, water droplets condense on the outside of the container (provided the jug is made of a material which is a good conductor of heat, such as metal). This happens because the jug is at a lower temperature than the dew-point of the air.
'Dew-point' is defined as the temperature at which the air, when cooled, will just become saturated. For example, on a summer's day when the air temperature reaches 18°C, the dew-point might typically be 8°C. By sunset the air temperature may have fallen to 12°C, but the dew-point will still be around 8°C. During the night the temperature continues to fall and if it reaches, say, 7°C the temperature of the ground is below the dew-point of the air and droplets of moisture begin to form - this is dew. Since the air is now being 'robbed' of some of its water vapour, the dew-point of the air will actually start to fall very slightly.
Next morning, as the incoming solar radiation gathers strength, the dew will evaporate and the grass will become reasonably dry (and suitable for sitting on during the day). However, in winter, when calm conditions prevail, the daytime evaporation may be so slow that dew may persist all day.
Hoar-frost is composed of tiny ice-crystals, 'feathery' in appearance when well developed. It is formed by the same process as dew, but occurs when ground temperatures are below freezing point. Consequently, when the grass is covered in a white hoar-frost at dawn it cannot be assumed that there has necessarily been an air frost.
Sometimes dew forms during the evening and subsequently freezes to become hoar-frost with globular ice on the grass.
Snow
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Snowflakes can be formed by the collision of ice crystals within clouds. This is known as the process of aggregation and usually accounts for the larger snowflakes that are seen to fall. Smaller snowflakes are formed by the Bergeron-Findeisen process. Supercooled water droplets (i.e. those with a temperature below freezing) are 'picked up' by the falling ice crystals. The ice crystals grow at the expense of the water droplets.[/FONT]
For snow to reach the ground the air temperature must be no more than 2°C. One would expect the falling snow to melt as soon as the temperature rises above freezing, but this is not so. As the melting process begins, the air around the snowflake is cooled. At temperatures above 2°C the snowflake will melt to become 'sleet' or rain. In this country, the heaviest falls of snow tend to occur when the air temperature is between zero and 2°C.

• Individual ice crystals and snowflakes can be the shape of prisms, plates or stars - but all have 6 sides.
• 30cm of fresh fallen snow has about the same water equivalent as about 25mm of rainfall.

Timistry

When are temps in the the south expected to drop. Its still 5C!

leahyl

paddybar wrote: »

I offer profound apologies for my impudent assumptions.Weathercheck is indeed far wiser counsel than I.

That's quite alright:)!

Redsunset

This time tomorrow night we won't be licking our wounds because its only really beginning then for lower levels as we begin to get the cold air to start making its presence felt.
High ground tomorrow yes will see some snow

paddybar

excellent explanation wolfeire
thank you. I think I finally understand it

Su Campu

redsunset wrote: »

This time tomorrow night we won't be licking our wounds because its only really beginning then for lower levels as we begin to get the cold air to start making its presence felt.
High ground tomorrow yes will see some snow

I think it will be the second half of Wednesday before we see anything happen

Chicken Run

could anyone on here possibly explain the pressure changes that precede snowfall ?

For years now I've been getting a really specific type of headache shortly before snow arrives - only thing I can think of is it's due to pressure alterations.

(I don't have a headache yet - in Clare - but will update on here if I do - it's usually pretty accurate)

pistolpetes11

Chicken Run wrote: »

could anyone on here possibly explain the pressure changes that precede snowfall ?

For years now I've been getting a really specific type of headache shortly before snow arrives - only thing I can think of is it's due to pressure alterations.

(I don't have a headache yet - in Clare - but will update on here if I do - it's usually pretty accurate)

You could take over the mantel of the Donegal postman !

gally74

i have a headache, but its more to do with last night and arthur guinness

WolfeIRE

Chicken Run wrote: »

For years now I've been getting a really specific type of headache shortly before snow arrives

can you post here if you get a headache during the night

regarding your headache and pressure changes look here...http://www.relieve-migraine-headache.com/barometric-pressure-headache.html

regarding pressure changes in snowfall from a low system, they will be more extreme than in the case of pressure changes during the anticipated snowfall along the east coast on thursday which are not being caused locally by low pressure.

Su Campu

Chicken Run wrote: »

could anyone on here possibly explain the pressure changes that precede snowfall ?

For years now I've been getting a really specific type of headache shortly before snow arrives - only thing I can think of is it's due to pressure alterations.

(I don't have a headache yet - in Clare - but will update on here if I do - it's usually pretty accurate)

I think it could be dehydration. For snow to occur dewpoints must be 0 or below, so while you're sitting in your house at 20°C, with a dewpoint of say -1°C, that a relative humidity of 24%. That plus the fact that with the cold you won't feel like drinking as much liquids, your body can become dehydrated, leading to headaches.

Drink some water and they'll go away.

Dr. Campu

Min

When they (the weather people) say high ground when it comes to snow, is that above 200 metres or is it higher, they never really say?

nacho libre

http://www.raintoday.co.uk/

starting to make inroads now. the precipitation doesn't seem to be that heavy either especially over the south east

Redsunset

At 17.18 i posted this.

Lads and lassies im calling widespread disruption over the next few days for sure.
Lets bite the bullet.

We are going to be locked in a deep freeze with those north easterlies with the east bearing the brunt of heavy prolonged snow showers and im not including the very strong potential for a whiteout tomorrow sometime.

All high ground folk are in bother in my view

---

I haven't change my mind about tomorrow because i did say high ground.

And of course the potential is always there for some lower levels to get a dose but that will come later.

mike65

Mild outside baby mild.

WolfeIRE

dew points have dropped by 0.5 to one degree C in the last half hour in most places as have air and ground temps.

leahyl

mike65 wrote: »

Mild outside baby mild.

that means snow! Remember those wise words "it always gets milder before a snowfest" !!!:D

nacho libre

redsunset wrote: »

At 17.18 i posted this.

Lads and lassies im calling widespread disruption over the next few days for sure.
Lets bite the bullet.

We are going to be locked in a deep freeze with those north easterlies with the east bearing the brunt of heavy prolonged snow showers and im not including the very strong potential for a whiteout tomorrow sometime.

All high ground folk are in bother in my view

---

I haven't change my mind about tomorrow because i did say high ground.

And of course the potential is always there for some lower levels to get a dose but that will come later.

to be honest i think we are all aware high ground is likely to get a pasting between tomorrow evening and wednesday. however, if weathercheck's prediction is correct he deserves the plaudits because few here and in met eireann are backing his opinion of how this will pan out at lower levels