December 2024 was a very wet and a rather mild month in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. with almost 9 inches of rain.
Strathpeffer – December 2024 Read More »
Just a compilation of posts to my new Blue Sky account of this week long early cold spell across the country.
15 Nov 2024
1500-2100 UTCUTC Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Temp changes
I generated this chart to see how the cold air was progressing into the NW behind the cold front. Then I noticed just how quickly this evening had cooled across S England under near perfect radiation conditions.
15 Nov 2024
06-20 UTC
Precipitation Totals
Estimates from weather radar.
Just 0.6mm of rain from cold front in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469..
16 Nov 2024
1112 UTC
1097 M Snow already starting to accumulate on the Cairngorms at 1097 M.
It’s -3°C at 1245 M so freezing level ~500 M 🤔
16 Nov 2024
2153 UTC
Some snow in these heavier showers on the Velux windows in Strathpeffer.
18 Nov 2024
1610 UTC
Looking down from the Nevis range over Ft William & the top end of Loch Linnhe if I’m not mistaken.
It looks like the SW end of the Great Glen has been in fog all day.
18 Nov 2024
NASANASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. Worldview
You can see the extent of the snow cover across the N of Scotland this lunchtime.
Loch shin stands out very sharply.
18 Nov 2024
21 UTC Surface analysis
An absolutely fascinating chart, I wish I had more time to analyse it more properly.
It’s already -8.3°C at Glascarnoch, beating this mornings -7.8°C at Tulloch Bridge, and it’s on[y 21 UTC.😮
Heavy snow at Waddington 🤔
16-19 Nov 2024
12 UTC Temp anomalies
The cold air has slowly extended further and further S each day since Saturday.
19 Nov 2024
1445 UTC
The sky has grown very dark in Strathpeffer as it fills in with CBCB Cumulonimbus cloud. Well-developed cumulonimbus clouds are characterized by a flat, anvil-like top’s coming down from the N.
It’s an active trough and deep convection, with thunderstorms in the Moray Firth.
It’s just started to snow – big flakes – vis down t0 800 M.
20 Nov 2024
0855 UTC
Strathpeffer
A good ~4 cm level snow cover from overnight snow showers which continue this morning.
The old wives tale that temperatures increase when it starts to snow are true this morning 🤔
20 Nov 2024
12 UTC
Strathpeffer-Knockfarrel
Plenty of CB coming down from the N but moving fairly rapidly.
An icy wind & a little drifting on the top. Still sub-zero this lunchtime 5 cm of snow lying.
20-29 Nov 2024
12 UTC
2M Temp anomalies
ECMWFECMWF The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by most of the nations of Europe. It is based at three sites: Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom; Bologna, Italy; and Bonn, Germany. It operates one of the largest supercomputer complexes in Europe and the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data.
Its lasted a full week in N Scotland not bad for an early cold spell.
It’s a winter wonderland in Strathpeffer today, with a max of just 0.2°C so far.
I imagine the kids will be sledging down the golf course shortly.
20 Nov 2024
1630 UTC
Snow showers all day long in Strathpeffer, despite the fact that we’re 100 km away from the N coast of Scotland.
I’ve just measured 10 cm of lying snow by the traditional Met OfficeUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy method of the mean of 3 measurements. 😉
20 Nov 2024
2345 UTC
Quite sharp pressure falls & an ominous blob of cloud on the IR satellite imagery, combined with a lot of mod/heavy ppn across the N of Sutherland at the moment.
21 Nov 2024
08 UTC
Snow Depths
Certainly much deeper than 14 cm just after midnight, but temps rose from -3°C to 1°C and the snow turned sleety from 02 UTC.
Still only 0.7°C with some light snow in Strathpeffer.
21 Nov 2024
09 UTC
Surface analysis
This cold warm front solution seems to kind of fit the weather we’ve seen in Strathpeffer overnight.
21 Nov 2024
07 UTC (31 hr total)
Total precipitation
Estimates from weather radar
Most of this, inland at least, fell as snow. Estimates look a bit too high.
21 Nov 2024
1040 UTC
It’s snowing again in Strathpeffer, although you can’t see it so well in this webcam image.
Temperature dropped back to 0.3°C.
It’s a rather nasty day out there all in all.
But it’s not over to the fat lady starts to sing.
Apologies to any fat ladies out there 😉
16-23 November 2024 Cold Spell Read More »
One day I’ll get around to adding some temperature and rainfall anomalies to these climate statistics, until then all I can say is October 2024 was a fairly average month for our part of Ross-shire.
Oct 2024 – Strathpeffer Read More »
I’ve just refactored the main window in my Vantage Pro database application, and added a three-line footer to provide means and extremes for whatever month or season the data has been filtered on.
Sep 2024 – Strathpeffer Read More »
Anyone who is fortunate to have a Davis Vantage Pro2 AWSAWS Automatic Weather Station as I do, know only too well, that the software it comes with doesn’t present the climate data it collects at all well. I’ve made a new unit in my VP DelphiDelphi Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software. application, to graph temperature data a little more clearly. I recently came across some LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. data for StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469., I don’t think it’s been calculated from real weather data but probably derived from gridded monthly climate data the UKMOUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy make available. I mention this LTA data because it enables me to calculate anomalies, something dear to my heart. Anomalies let you gauge how the climates been performing, whether a day has been hot or cold, or a month or season wet or dry, in your own back garden.
The lower chart shows mean anomalies for the last 90 days for Strathpeffer, and clearly shows why May 2024 was a record warm month in northern Scotland. The top chart shows temperatures for the last year, and by dragging the yellow coloured box you can replot the lower graph to show the anomalies for the period you are interested. The width of the yellow box can also be adjusted with the mouse as well.
Next unit precipitation.😉
Davis Vantage Pro2 Read More »
A warm dry month with no frosts and mild nights.
Sunshine a little below average, despite some sunny days.
May 2024 – Strathpeffer Read More »
Although we’ve seen a number of snow showers this morning in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469., they all proved light and were on their last legs before they managed to put a dusting down along the Strath. This is our sixth winter here, and I reckon that snow showers in a winter situation like this with a 30-40 knot N’NW gradient generally have a range of around 90 km as they come in land from the north coast before they simply just run out of steam, or should that be water vapor. Obviously with a stronger gradient, deeper cold air and increased instability, or change in wind direction that 90 km longevity might well increase.
The Bermuda Triangle of Scotland Read More »
Not so much an item as a Twitter dump of stories, charts, graphs and images from tweets I wrote concerning Storm Babet. Not sorted out too well chronologically either. I’ll try to do better next time. Maybe I’ll stick with the blog and just upload links to Twitter from now on?
Storm Babet 18-21 October 2023 Read More »
Dear Diary
For a change we have had four centimetres of fluffy snow overnight, everywhere is white including the A834, and it’s -2°C here in the Strath this morning. Some of the ice that survived the cold spell from earlier in the month survived to see it. I am now firmly of the opinion that the climate of a Scottish glen is more akin to that of southern Norway during December and January when the sun is very low.
27 Dec 2022 – 06 UTC analysis Read More »
Hi Diary
The Moray Firth hot-spot is alive and kicking this morning! After dipping to -1°C by midnight, temperatures in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. are close to 3°C by 8 am, after a moderate easterly wind picked up at 4 am and blew milder air into the ‘funnel’ that is the Moray Firth.
The rumours of a giant alien spaceship crashing into the Firth over 8,000 years ago and causing a massive Tsunami could well be true, and last night they must have fired up the engines.
The spread of anomalies across the country this morning is quite impressive across IONAIONA Islands Of North Atlantic.
Yes I know there's an island called Iona, but this is so I don't have to use the term 'British Isles' when referring to the whole of Ireland and the UK. once again, from -12°C across the south, to +1°C across the NENE North East of Scotland. There’s a good covering of snow on the braes of Ben Wyvis above 200 M, but it’s just sleet or wet snow down in the strath, and very reminiscent of the last few winters in this part of the world.
The Moray Firth hot spot Read More »
Dear Diary
Not feeling particularly cold this morning here in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. with temperatures close to 3°C. No measurable rain since the second of the month, but a few spots of rain in what little wind there is this morning. There’s a coating of snow on Ben Wyvis, but nothing down here in the strath. Hoping for something from this second cold front later this afternoon, but not counting on it.
Wed, 7 Dec 2022 – 09 UTC analysis Read More »
Dear Diary,
The first rather modest signs of the much heralded colder weather arriving in the Shetlands this morning.
The cloud from front this will thwart the frost we might have seen tonight, instead of low cloud from the east, it’ll be low cloud from the north.
Sometimes you forget that you’re on an island and the weather is dominated by the sea.
Temperatures did their usual trick in the strath overnight: 0.1°C at midnight with clear skies, winds back into the east and low cloud rolls up the Cromarty Firth turning it cloudy, temperatures rise to 2°C at dawn, skies clear again as the wind backs more to the north, temperatures fall back to 1°C by 10am. This is a very common occurrence here and must be at least the third occasion it’s happened this Autumn.
5 December 2022 – 09 UTC analysis Read More »
Dear Diary
I don’t know how we managed to avoid a frost last night but we did with a minimum of 0.3°C at 0017 UTCUTC Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).. After that I imagine the cloud must have increased because the wind remained very light from the W’SW. The unusual thing is that although you would expect the minima to occur at around sunrise (0831 this morning) it didn’t. Instead the overnight cloud quickly dispersed and we were left with blue skies, but temperatures continued to fall back from 3.9°C at 0700 UTC to just 1.2°C at 1100 UTC. This is because as the name suggests StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. is in a strath and from about the end of November the sun never gets over the Cats Back (a long ridge to the south of the village). The sun eventually struggle over the ridge but it takes till mid morning to do it. The Highlands are full of glens and straths like this, many of them won’t see direct sunshine again until the end of February.
Highland temperatures Read More »
A truly extraordinarily mild day across the country today. Temperatures in the strath have already reached 18.6°C in this mornings sunshine, making it the warmest place in the British Isles, and even a touch warmer than along the Moray Coast. These high temperatures are being fueled by a super foehnFoehn A foehn, is a type of dry, relatively warm, downslope wind that occurs in the lee (downwind side) of a mountain range. It is a rain shadow wind that results from the subsequent adiabatic warming of air that has dropped most of its moisture on windward slopes (see orographic lift). As a consequence of the different adiabatic lapse rates of moist and dry air, the air on the leeward slopes becomes warmer than equivalent elevations on the windward slopes. effect that’s going on in the southwesterly flow in the broad and elongated warm sector, with winds over Ben Nevis and CairngormCairn Gorm Cairn Gorm (Scottish Gaelic: An Cà rn Gorm) is a mountain in the Scottish Highlands. It is part of the Cairngorms range and wider Grampian Mountains. With a summit elevation of 1,245 m (4,085 ft) above sea level, Cairn Gorm is classed as a Munro and is the seventh-highest mountain in the British Isles. close to hurricane force 12, and gusts in excess of 100 mph.
18.6°C in Strathpeffer Read More »
