John, the cloud is the occluded front moving towards us from the north. This is bringing some snow to the Highlands and Aberdeenshire. Behind it is the much colder arctic air to come in by midnight with snow showers in the north. We probably won't see any snow here as we are well sheltered from a northerly.
In the meantime though, the temperature has actually gone up over the last few hours with all of that cloud around and as at 10pm this evening, was now up to 3.3°C at Edinburgh Gogarbank, 4°C at Edinburgh Airport and 3.6°C at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh.
The forecasts did say that some places could get down to -5°C or -6°C tonight but at the moment, we are heading in the wrong direction for that to happen and if our frost-free hell continues for yet another night as a result of all of this cloud which is around just now, I will not be a very happy bunny!!
The north of Edinburgh, usually always missing out on snow events which occur not just within the rest of Scotland or the UK, but also within the rest of Edinburgh.