Winter Weather 2016/17 - General Discussion

Donegal Storm

Gonzo wrote: »

I think most of us can forget about any snow for this week, the east coast was never really in line to get much if any snow anyway. Hopefully a proper easterly will happen in next few weeks and deliver the real goods.

An easterly doesn't deliver the real goods for most of us either, aside from a thin coastal strip a typical easterly usually just means clear frosty weather for 95% of the country. Don't quote get the obsession with them on here

pedigree 6

Right GFS now says an easterly for next Thursday.

I'm doing it.

There feel better now.:D



(Probably when the start of Feb comes i'll be praying for mild weather).:pac:

Villain

Donegal Storm wrote: »

An easterly doesn't deliver the real goods for most of us either, aside from a thin coastal strip a typical easterly usually just means clear frosty weather for 95% of the country. Don't quote get the obsession with them on here

Majority of the population lives in Eastern areas and nothing better than some streamers off the Irish Sea in terms of forecasting and observing

force eleven

Donegal Storm wrote: »

An easterly doesn't deliver the real goods for most of us either, aside from a thin coastal strip a typical easterly usually just means clear frosty weather for 95% of the country. Don't quote get the obsession with them on here

The only time an easterly can potentially deliver for the rest of us is the classic battleground scenario of low pressure to southwest and high pressure northeast with a bitter Siberian feed. Mild weather fighting that can produce prodigious snow amounts. However you can probably count on one hand the amount of times this has occurred in the last 50years. Two hands if you stretch it to 80...;)

squarecircles

Met eireann forecast now mentions the possibility of Siberian air encroaching next week !

q85dw7osi4lebg

squarecircles wrote: »

Met eireann forecast now mentions the possibility of Siberian air encroaching next week !

coillsaille

MJohnston wrote: »

I know this is probably backseat modding, but why are there so many posts about next week, which should presumably be in the FI thread?

Chat isn’t allowed in the FI thread, just posting of charts and technical discussion. People have to have somewhere for general chat about potential future weather.

Easterly Beasterly

squarecircles wrote: »

Met eireann forecast now mentions the possibility of Siberian air encroaching next week !

I saw that.. weird that they even mention it so far in advance. They did that in 2010 though. I remember they showed a graphic from Dec 18th on Dec 9th and it stuck in my head!

red_bairn

KingdomRushed wrote: »

GFS comes around to easterly in 6z. Certainly now a threat of cold developing unlike anything seen in years.

HOWEVER, no matter how solid the guidance any easterly sourced cold is still >144,hours away for Ireland

But am I getting excited?

Yes for sure

Do you have a link to the pic?

BBC have the high over France:
http://www.bbc.com/weather/feeds/38563948

ArKl0w

Easterly Beasterly wrote: »

I saw that.. weird that they even mention it so far in advance. They did that in 2010 though. I remember they showed a graphic from Dec 18th on Dec 9th and it stuck in my head!

It's in the ECM you see
If it showed the sugarloaf erupting ,that would also be in the forecast
Watch pressure in any Easterly
Above 1025 largely dry
Below that game on
Regardless it would by about day 3 be potentially brutally cold even in the daytime i.e. Freezing washing on the line cold
Hard to say if it will happen but undeniably strongly signaled if you understand?

squarecircles

If this easterly comes about,are we looking at 2010 like conditions,in terms of cold.

RobertKK

Donegal Storm wrote: »

An easterly doesn't deliver the real goods for most of us either, aside from a thin coastal strip a typical easterly usually just means clear frosty weather for 95% of the country. Don't quote get the obsession with them on here

Here in Kilkenny, we get the heaviest falls when there is an easterly. It is also the coldest direction, just like it can bring very warm to hot in summer.
Can get a lot of snow from the east.
The Irish Sea produces lake effect snow.

ArKl0w

squarecircles wrote: »

If this easterly comes about,are we looking at 2010 like conditions,in terms of cold.

Possibly but no more than a week or two in longevity

Rebelbrowser

squarecircles wrote: »

If this easterly comes about,are we looking at 2010 like conditions,in terms of cold.

Probably not, but you could have -9 or -10 uppers which allied to an easterly wind will inevitably lead to "lake effect" snow or streamers for the east coast. The 2010 event was largely a northerly outbreak but basically the polar vortex migrated south over us for a week. That was epic cold but, ironically, there wasn't much wind so no windchill on top which made it feel a little less cold.

An easterly can be like the snow the east coast got in Feb 2009 or can be a full blown easterly like Feb 1991 or Jan 2007 where there was oodles of snow for most (not just the east). There was a dry easterly in 1986 I think.

For those old enough to remember, Jan 1987 was epic. This was the time of the Ian McCaskell forecast that is often mentioned here. Here in Cork it snowed off and on (melting) on the Sunday until one mega shower dropped 4 inches at tea time. Temps dropped like a stone then for the next 5 days. I think there was lots more snow for the east after that but we had our snow covering for the week so were happy with that.

As a 10 year old I remember going to school on that Monday morning and being sent home for the week before lunch - happy days! Pipes froze up and down the land and it felt well below -10 all day with windchill. I remember pouring a glass of water outside during the daytime and watching it freeze on impact.

Sadly for those who remember it, THAT WAS 30 YEARS AGO TOMORROW! T'would be nice to recreate it again in the next week as my eldest is give or take the same age now.....

ArKl0w

@Rebelbrowser
The reason I say possibly is because if this easterly comes off it will have the coldest sustained surface feed(never mind uppers) that I ever remember and I was around for some almighty ones in the 80's
It would be 10 times deeper than the surface cold of February 2009

q85dw7osi4lebg

ArKl0w wrote: »

@Rebelbrowser
The reason I say possibly is because if this easterly comes off it will have the coldest sustained surface feed(never mind uppers) that I ever remember and I was around for some almighty ones in the 80's
It would be 10 times deeper than the surface cold of February 2009

What surface cold would you be thinking?

Stealthfins

RobertKK wrote:

Here in Kilkenny, we get the heaviest falls when there is an easterly. It is also the coldest direction, just like it can bring very warm to hot in summer. Can get a lot of snow from the east. The Irish Sea produces lake effect snow.

I've relations in Glenmore and they're up very high, back in the 80's they got huge snow drifts.

Larbre34

Quite the beast from the east on the GFS. Tight isobars and a long freezing fetch, could be thundershowrama if it played out. Probably wont but chances are certainly increasing of an easterly incursion of some sort, and given the frigid source we may see spells of icy disruption, precipitation more hit and miss as yet.

Donegal Storm

RobertKK wrote: »

Here in Kilkenny, we get the heaviest falls when there is an easterly. It is also the coldest direction, just like it can bring very warm to hot in summer.
Can get a lot of snow from the east.
The Irish Sea produces lake effect snow.

I was too young to remember the late 80s & 91 easterlies so for me at least easterlies have never delivered much more than frost and sunshine. We must be due an interesting one some time soon. The four biggest snowfall & cold events for me have been 95, 00, 09 and 10, all four a result of Arctic northerlies or ne'erlies. Plenty of cold potential as well, all four had minimums of -13C or lower.

Villain wrote: »

Majority of the population lives in Eastern areas and nothing better than some streamers off the Irish Sea in terms of forecasting and observing

I'd argue a northerly is more interesting with far more instability in the flow and more widespread snow potential. Each to their own of course

KingdomRushed

Ah, that day time lull between the 6Z GFS and the next model updates. All eyes down for the next 4 hours as the 12z model outputs become available. Lot of interest brewing. Whether we see a cold snap, a cold spell, ice days or a snow fest, it's all possible next week, and I am awaiting the 12z outputs with some real anticipation for the first time this winter.

q85dw7osi4lebg

F5 F5 F5

pedigree 6

Here i'll keep ye entertained.:D

A few cloud scape pics from just there now.

Rebelbrowser

KingdomRushed wrote: »

Ah, that day time lull between the 6Z GFS and the next model updates. All eyes down for the next 4 hours as the 12z model outputs become available. Lot of interest brewing. Whether we see a cold snap, a cold spell, ice days or a snow fest, it's all possible next week, and I am awaiting the 12z outputs with some real anticipation for the first time this winter.

I fear right now will be the high point when we look back - that brief moment when it appeared widespread snow was two days away (instead of the sleet we inevitably get) and when we had genuine reason to believe an easterly was 8 days away......

q85dw7osi4lebg

All I'm sensing is upgrades

munsterlegend

Derek Easy Block wrote: »

All I'm sensing is upgrades

I am of a similar view. Reminds me of 2010 when all the models came on board.

HighLine

Just remembering back to the epic snow of January 2010 up in the Wicklow Mountains. Can anyone remember if it was an easterly that brought the majority of it?

*Just to note... the 4x4 was not mine thankfully and it remained there for several weeks

threein99

Haven't opened a winter weather thread since 2010

ArKl0w

There are two fetches to look at in an easterly,the long draw of its source,the longer the better from the far side of Moscow preferably
Then your shower fetch over the Irish Sea,the greater Dublin area has the best sea fetch in a true East direction

You're likely to get very low humidity on a long fetch easterly and very cold dew points if the surface cold and snow cover remains over Eastern and Central Europe
The surface air would be more than two thirds of the way travelling over a very cold land
That's why you are almost guaranteed frontal snow when this air clashes with an Atlantic system because it's interacting with air from cloud to ground that's below or just a degree or 2 above freezing

Donegal Storm

HighLine wrote: »

Just remembering back to the epic snow of January 2010 up in the Wicklow Mountains. Can anyone remember if it was an easterly that brought the majority of it?

*Just to note... the 4x4 was not mine thankfully and it remained there for several weeks

Jan 2010 was an Arctic north easterly, totally different source to anything currently in the pipeline

ArKl0w

Donegal Storm wrote: »

Jan 2010 was an Arctic north easterly, totally different source to anything currently in the pipeline

Not really,as the air we might advect in from Russia is also artic air except crucially COLDER