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Following a useless fruitless waste of time and energy hunt for cold / snow during the last 4 months, I’m warming to the idea of what the ECM 12z operational is showing!

Well, it's the last day of Smarch, and all is set fair for a stonking day on the farm! Okay, so it'll nae what you call 'hot'...but polytunnels do have their own micro-climate! Ooh aaargh!??

Hey all. A warm pattern is starting to show for next week, meaning that warmer and perhaps more settled weather is possible, with temperatures in the high teens likely. Some warmer and more settled weather could be possible from Easter Sunday onwards... if this verifies!

I like the GFS 12Z at T+384! A nice Atlantic trough and HP over Europe...Nailded!

This is where the use of the Anomaly charts comes into play. When they are consistent, they are very accurate in determining the most likely pattern of ridging and troughing. Time and time again this winter when some operational runs hint at an Easterly, getting peoples hopes up, there was no anomaly support, therefore the chances of them becoming reality were very low. View the Anomaly charts, then match the nearest operational GFS or/and ECM for the 6-14 day period. Doing this you CAN place faith in day 10 charts to a degree. You can spot a genuine cold spell or a genuine warm spell, of course you cannot determine the detail but you can get a good idea.

Loads of things, mate, and many that I'd previously never even heard of! But at least I now have my 'Key Worker' letter...Just in case the local constabulary might want to put me in gaol..? And it was a stonker: partly cloudy this morning; unbroken sunshine for the afternoon...Tomorrow? Good enough for me...probably!

Hardly a breath of movement, grey with a smattering of blue gaps, 8.9C max. Much like life at the moment.

Needless to say developments under the new Atlantic trough with the ecm are completely different, albeit not significantly regarding the UK weather for the weekend

Over Friday and Saturday the aforementioned trough continues south and phases with the troughs further south which results in sundry surface low centers in the Atlantic with the main one south of Iceland. But at the same time the subtropical high amplifies so initially only N. Ireland and Scotland remain under the influence of unsettled weather But as can be seen, according to the gfs further developments occur under the umbrella of the main trough with a surface low to the south west of Ireland by midday Sunday qith some quite warm air adverted into much of the UK Best left here I feel

The end of this week will se a brief interruption of the high pressure dominance By midday tomorrow a trough that has broken away from the tpv is over Iceland and from there will track east The cold front associated with the latter starts to move south across Scotland accompanied by rain and a strengthening wind. Further south fairly cloudy but dry Over Wednesday night and through Thursday the Iceland trough duly moves east and merges with the tpv resulting in the surface wind veering over the UK with further fronts tracking south in the circulation. This introduces colder air in the North with snow showers in Scotland and perhaps gales along western coasts, But note yet another breakaway trough moving south along the eastern flank of the intense high pressure over Greenland

First 70F of the year if the 12z runs are correct.

Duns Co-op. My local is in Biggar. At least there's a system at yours - it was still a free for all in Biggar on Saturday. The glamour.

I think life just now is like a total eclipse. Dead weird

I've neen using them for 7 or 8 years, they have to be used with great care and one has to remember that they are for 500 mb. What they do help with though, as mushy commented, is the general pattern at that level. This can give a good idea of the type of weather in general, settled, unsettled, changeable, warm, cold etc. The suggestion by mushy of, IF they are consistent over a few days and with one another of trying to match the synoptic charts in the 6-10 day period is also worth looking at. Like I say used with great care they can be a big help in what the overall weather pattern is likely to be. I did show some statistics several years ago comparing them with EC and GFS at the 10 day range. They were almost without fail much better than the synoptic charts. A value of 70% generally winter and summer compared to values below 40-50% most times with the synoptic patterns. Areas of poor return are 1) Lack of continuity over several days and with one another 2) the Northern Hemisphere change over periods; winter to summer and summer to winter 30 The Atlantic hurricane season Good luck

Lovely photos there:) I always find polar sourced air, or anything from around that vicinity, to be the 'best' air if there can be such a thing. Allergies and the like always feel better when it is overhead. And now with travel so reduced, the air just seems so much cleaner anyway. A mix of clouds and sunshine above Surbiton today, although according to Carol on BBC this morning it could clear to blue skies and sunshine this afternoon. Fingers crossed, it was great sitting out in the sun last week to top up on vitamin D. I hope everyone is keeping well.

In the ext period it still appears to be whether the re-alignment of the tpv, particularly the trough in the north west Atlantic will allow any signifant amplification of the Subtropical high in the east. At the moment the jury is still out on that

Morning campers! Weather has been calm, sunny and dry since Thursday but absolutely baltic! Those stiff breezes fairly pack a wind chill! Very calm today, overcast and light drizzle. I'm told we may get a dusting of snow by the weekend. I doubt that, maybe the mountain tops but not at low levels. A pleasant if chilly constitutional on Sunday with a friend and her dog, maintaining a discrete distance off course! Might do a little light work in the garden, cover over raised beds to warm them a little prior to planting. Have to say I'm enjoying the quiet up here now. Normally things would be picking up now in time for Easter with plenty cars and dreaded camper vans around. The added bonus is I can hear the wee birdies singing now. I can stand in the garden for a good ten, fifteen minutes before a car passes. Then wait another thirty minutes until the next! It's a wee bit busier this morning as obviously there are people on their way to work, but after nine it really is so quiet. Other than that I see the occasional neighbour and the postie and that's my lot till I make the weekly trip for groceries. Life sure is exciting these days, eh? No, not exciting, just worrying.

Air quality was absolutely superb today, with excellent visibility.

Well for someone who LOVES snow and longs for it all winter, I am now desperate for the opposite and some lovely Spring and Summer weather! Last week was amazing and I even caught the sun, despite the cool-ish air!! I see on the Meto that Sunday has a southerly flow and despite it still being breezy and cloudy, will at least be a bit warmer with 14c atm.... obviously subject to change at this stage!!xx

Still looking good for a warm-up, should the GFS 12Z be anywhere near correct:

wrong thread

Just noting that I edited my CET posted earlier to 10.6, think it's going to get rather mild.

Nice rainfall recovery in Australia this year after the driest year on record last year, as IOD plummets to neutral. Especially pleasing for drought ravaged agricultural farmlands of New South Wales. There has been no temperature extremes either in the last two months after a wild ride of records during the first half of summer.

A simplistic overview of the NH anomaly charts from the EC weeklies update for the last half of April would simply be that the tpv alignment is not far away from what is being indicated in the ext period at the moment The difference being that the Atlantic has withdrawn a tad and the subtropical has thus got more traction in the east. Hopefully this portends a more settled and drier spell

Hang on a sec NOAA= Climate Prediction Center - 6-10 Day 500mb Outlook WWW.CPC.NCEP.NOAA.GOV ECMWF-GFS= http://mp1.met.psu.edu/~fxg1/ECMWF_0z/hgtcomp.html

Nah, we're not jinxed It's just that the current long wave pattern allows these miniscule, insignificant looking lows to cause a cold looking scenario to collapse. If the atmosphere, generally, was conducive then that low wouldn't be there to scupper a cold evolution OR that low wouldn't have behaved a certain way Hopefully late November to late Feb 20-21's long wave pattern will allow cold patterns to evolve with no drama as in many instances between 2009-2013. However, 'something' is happening to make the long wave pattern unfriendly to colder patterns/scenarios - even the northern blocking of July 2019 still ended up with a very warm month for England and Wales

6.8c the 30th 1.0c above the 61 to 90 average 0.3c above the 81 to 10 average _____________________________ Current high this month 6.9c the 18th, 25th, 26th, 27th & 28th Current low this month 4.8c the 5th

Yes thanks for explaining how one tiny low can ruin everything regarding the Northerly,are we jinxed regarding cold weather . However last year Northern Blocking controlled much of the first couple of months of summer ,like it was laughing at us ! as obviously it’s no good having these set-ups in the summer months.! Going forward I hope we have a long dry summer so everyone can enjoy being out and about hopefully by the summer months.

Easter Saturday according to GFS I wouldn't normally post a single FI chart but this has been appearing a lot on GFS recently. Might be something, might be nothing at that range of course

The preamble and detail for the weekend from this evening's ecm is not hugely different to this morning so I wont run through it all again except to say by Monday the frontal rain is a tad further east, but that's too far away to worry about that detail

As it appears likely that the month will finish in the 6's this might surprise you, but only one other year has ever seen its first three months in the 6's. That was 1846 (6.3, 6.4, 6.1) which later had the warmest June. If the month finishes on 6.4 or 6.3 it will also be the first time since 1783 when a year has started off in such a narrow range (that time it was 3.4, 3.3, 3.3). The Maunder (with its rounded off means) produced the only year with identical Jan, Feb and Mar CET when 1668 had three 5.0 values to start. In third place for least range among Jan, Feb and Mar CET values is 0.2 from 1764 which had 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9 tied with 1899 which started out 4.9, 5.1 and 5.1. If March is corrected down to 6.4 or lower, then the range from November to March of only 0.6 will tie the current record 0.6 from 1698-99 (3.4 to 4.0). The second lowest such range for these five months is 0.9 in 1787-88 (3.6 to 4.5) which was tied in 1922-23 (5.6 to 6.5). This extended winter can take the dubious prize of second place with a March CET of 6.5 or 6.6.

6.8c the 29th 1.1c above the 61 to 90 average 0.3c above the 81 to 10 average _____________________________ Current high this month 6.9c the 18th, 25th, 26th, 27th & 28th Current low this month 4.8c the 5th

It's funny, I saw your pics and wondered if it was 'our' air from a few days ago! We are all working from home so feel very fortunate; luckily my lad is 20 now and running a YouTube channel in addition to college work, but 10 years ago he would have been an autistic kid trying to cope with lock down. Are you likely to be able to fly any time soon or indefinitely marooned (albeit in a very nice place)?

Thank you. It really was exceptional air quality here yesterday, like being in the mountains. A joy to breathe lol Hope that you and your family are safe and well? Heavy and frequent snow showers today, some snowflakes, some polystyrene-like balls. Chilly at just 2°C currently.

Dry and sometimes bright for many next few days, but often a lot of cloud around. Turning colder with wintry showers across Scotland briefly on Thursday. Turning milder at the weekend. Read the full update here

The third decade of March has been rather cold, especially in the Adriatic regions. Therefore, the month of March in Italy will close around + 0.5 ° / + 0.7 ° above the 81/10 average, since the first two decades have been warm.

Frequent fleeting showers of rain interspersed with a few glimpses of sun (good rainbow weather). Light N to NW winds and warmer today with a max of 9.5c. Novelty of home-schooling wearing off for the kids "when's the holidays so we stop all this homework". Going to be a strange Easter holiday for sure, just a repeat of the last week of lockdown!

Sunny but chilly here. Quite pleasant.

Incredible that a small retrogressing low in Southern Greenland's vicinity can turn what appears to be a nailed on N'ly... ...into this, just 24 hours later If this was Dec, Jan or Feb (or even March) I'd be pretty annoyed. And then a (very) long fetch SW'ly another 48 hours on Unbelievable turn around Jeff Coldies shouldn't despair too much, though, as there is another ghost cold chart to chase at 240 on the ECM!

In contrast I've been quite pessimistic, going for 3.5-3.75, just ahead of 2012. My main reasoning relates to the low snow cover over Eurasia following a very mild winter and the high levels of sea ice export, which contributed to the relatively high winter sea ice extent but may make the ice more vulnerable to melting later in the season. I also note that the two lowest September minimum extent years in the 1990s (1990, 1995) both followed strongly +ve NAO winters, as did 2007 (though not 2012). Of course a lot depends on the synoptics that we get during the upcoming summer, but I have a nagging feeling that 2020 might run 2012 close.

Interestingly I think one of the recent low years (2012?) Started from quite a high base at the end of winter and obviously went very low. Doesn't mean much if summer for example goes very -ve AO/NAO and huge heat gets pumped up.

Just got bombarded with hail a minute ago. IMG_1212.MP4 IMG_1213.MP4

VIDEO forecast with Jo Farrow. Pressure in the north Atlantic reached 1055hPa with a new March record for the UK. Variable amounts of cloud for viewers of the next Starlink Satellite train. Watch the video here

The air quality and visibility today is very good, as the wind is coming from a relatively clean direction (NNE) Panasonic LX-15

Sorry to break it to you Don but no one gets out of any of this alive? It's a one way trip so you'd better make the most of it!

I think the drop out of pollution from asia augmented by the drop off in air travel might lead us to a surprise low this year as land snow cover crashes as augmented temps impact the coastal regions around the basin? I worry that both the mid latitudes and the Arctic Basin will see some extreme impacts driven by a number of competing factors (low solar/warm winter/high export from Fram etc) all augmented by the 'rebound' that cutting out the levels of 'Dimming' we normally see across our hemisphere? As for 'soot'? Soot will continue to accumulate on ice surfaces even as the ice melts so lowering Albedo day after day so 'milking' the incoming solar ever more leading to a more rapid melt out? Should the permafrost region see early warmth then the drying of the top layer leaves it open to wildfire which , in some cases, heads into the dead vegetation itself keeping the fire going underground. I know we have other things taking up our attention at the moment but we should not forget the 'slow Motion' catastrophe that is climate change/shift..... one tipping point too many crossed and we enter a climate cascade that could bring some elements of change up to the speed of Covid-19's impacts!!

I notice you've been mentioning the lack of aircraft data in the data assimilation stage is affecting the accuracy of the NWP. This looks fairly logical, but I didn't know how much of an impact it would have, or the amount of input data that comes from this source. After a bit of hunting on the internet I found a study on the accuracy of the modelling (RMSE) when removing each source of input data (admittedly the focus is short run predictions). Aircraft data is most significant for wind and temperature and the study finds it to be significant. So my conclusion is that it must be a significant source of error in the modelling. Sorry couldn't get the link to the study to work. The title if you are interested is: Observation System Experiments with the Hourly Updating Rapid Refresh Model Using GSI Hybrid Ensemble–Variational Data Assimilation

Snowed here late last night, was nice seeing it come down heavily for a while. Most of it has gone now, but some left in the shade.