WhiteFox
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Posts posted by WhiteFox
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I think another thing to consider is just how dry it has been for quite some time, especially in the SE. Some brief wetter interludes, but it has generally been below average rainfall for most of the past year.
If we have another dry summer then water shortages seem almost certain at some point. Might as well get some rain in now!
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2 minutes ago, Faronstream said:
The problem is that many people are in denial here about what's normally average weather in march and seems to expect it to save the winter every year which is not the case. Statistics shows that the coldest period is between 15 Jan- 15 Feb so something should/must happen now if we want real winter to arrive for a longer period
The same can be said about cold periods in average winters. Long cold spells are rare and particularly cold spells such as last year are rarer. Spells like we've just had are more common. But, February tends to be more blocked on average so chances are greater for a cold spell.
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47 minutes ago, Jason M said:
GEFS have a bias towards Greenland heights at very long range so that needs to be factored in. The amount of times you see greens and yellows over Greenland post 300 hours is ridiculous. They rarely amount to anything though.
Strong southern euro heights is pretty much nailed on out to mid month I'd have thought.
It could be that the push of extra cold air from North America is enough to change the pattern to one that allows heights to build across southern Europe as you say, but I don't think it's nailed on.
The Siberian high, although it may not directly affect us, can certainly ridge far enough west to slow the Atlantic and leave us in the middle.
Worth keeping an eye o. n
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1 hour ago, tight isobar said:
Morning!!..
The big deviant for our part (telecon)..
=PNA.
the signal atm is clear and notable 2 see why we have rapidly converted and lost the desirable blocking formats!!!
Look @how the pacific placement has leaned away and for now scuppered/and thrown the positive teleconect signal into chaos..
We no longer (for now) have a desirable punch of angle @/around the pacific mid/western seaboard...its an angle of misery-placing pressure on the canadian/american lobe..yet unfavourably..again-for now, and aligns the jet (as modeled) with a steep run into the nirthern americas-and a sharp forcing of an-atlantic boom jet...rite across the atlantic...and YES at us!!
The PNA has been particularly stubborn This season and has thrown many a medium to longer range forecast out of the window.
The feeling was that the developing EN+ would create more of a negative pattern and this would then allow tropical forcing to deliver more northern blocking.
This hasn't happened, so that is one of the questions that will be asked.
@TEITS makes a fair point about how do we know if the questions asked about what happened this year are the correct ones and how the answers will be correct. The answer is that we don't. It's about gathering informational and unfortunately the weather obviously doesn't allow us to run controlled experiments!
I think one are of focus is the combination of descending Westerly QBO and SSW. No doubt there will be analysis done on this over the next year and it all adds to existing information.
If longer range forecasting was easy it would be dull. The interest lies in trying to crack the code!
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9 hours ago, Djdazzle said:
Been hearing that all winter. We may have to face facts that this winter will go against all the signals. Yes there is still time but the chances of getting another beast at the end of Feb for the second year running is remote.
What would be interesting is if Feb turned our to be the complete opposite of what the signals suggested. I for one would never believe them again.
The enquiring mind seeks to understand things like we have ended up with the pattern we have.
The cynic seeks nothing but to ridicule everyone else.
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10 hours ago, Catacol said:
I’m not convinced about early spring - while we have failed to get a reversed pattern we have seen cold air spill out of the arctic, and the jet overall has dropped further south. I don’t see a warm March - anticyclonic and grey would be my call given ongoing expectations that the Atlantic will gradually fade under SSW conditions.
Totally agree about North Atlantic rolling over the top. The odd thing is that it hasn’t actually been stormy. If we think back over the last few weeks we have had very little in the way of strong cyclonic activity.....and yet still we haven’t managed to get a block to pop i
Best argument out there to me has been the idea that the atmosphere has actually been very unstable and twitching in response to the interplay between a very warm polar stratosphere coupled with a very cold tropical stratosphere. Suggestion here is that, under very cold tropical strat conditions, the MJO loses its coherence and jumps around a lot....and that the speed of transfer between phases without any sustained holding in either 7, 8 or 1 has prevented the block from forming. We certainly have had some very swift MJO progression so maybe there is something in this explanation...and a twitchy atmosphere would create tropospheric vibration too insignificant to shift the whole pattern. Maybe.
I did also read earlier today the article linked by Butler to QBO research. Authors acknowledge a definite connection between QBO sign at 15 and 30hpa and NAO and AO tendency. We have been wQBO at those heights for a while, so there is a forcing we can grasp. I think we all knew going in to this winter that it was disappointing that the eQBO was on its way out, and back in early autumn some of us were posting hoping it would slow its progress. This fact we have been ignoring over the last month.
Anyway enough waffle - I am looking forward to seeing whether late winter brings any interesting variations. We should all know by now that the long range Met forecast isn’t worth toast and jam.... and twice in six years March has delivered more cold and snow than any of those same 6 Februarys.....so maybe we are seeing a pattern developing regarding the back end of winter in the current period. Cold and anticyclonic March wouldn’t need too many tweaks to become blocked and easterly.
And this EPS chart isn’t far off being interesting. Winter isn’t over yet
Thanks for the summary @Catacol. I know that the analysis has already begun on 33andrain so it'll be interesting to see what comes out.
Tamara's thoughts on the cold tropical stratosphere were also interesting. There has been an affect on the Atlantic profile as you mention: the treacle analogy srpings to mind. In most other winters with such a PV setup over Canada we would have seen a flat Atlantic pattern. What we have seen instead is systems ejecting and slowing down as they reach the eastern Atlantic. The cold pouring out of North America certainly seems set to produce a little more momentum this week, so yes a flatter and milder pattern, but I also think it unlikely that we will see a prolonged blowtorch through early spring. Of course, that now means that it is guaranteed!
I'd be very surprised if winter has finished with us, but until the PV lobe checks out of Hotel Canada we are unlikely to see sustained blocking. We may chase the odd thread the needle easterly at medium range, but such end of line easterlies are very difficult to land and can go wrong so easily.
But, as we see the PV wane naturally into February a more meridional pattern is likely at times. That will open the doors to some cold from north or east at times, albeit not necessarily prolonged.
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It's a wrap in Reading. Sitting under or near light greens or yellows for hours and hearing reports of heavy snow in Bracknell yet nothing here but what can best be described as a wintry mix.
Glad I made the most of last night's fall, but the sludge that is out there now is going to be horrific after it freezes.
Anyway, it's been fun. We should do this more often...
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5 minutes ago, DAVE_ALLEN said:
Met O on to something. An upgrade !!
Damn! I thought it was midnight tomorrow night at first!
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5 minutes ago, Reefseeker said:
@Mark wheelerIn answer to your question, heavy sleety rainy stuff here at the moment, not pleasant!
Perfect example! Radar shows pink over your area, yet Google maps shows no delays. Therefore no snow (or at least not settling)!
Same in Reading again too as it happens. Should be hammering down here according to radar, but it most definitely is not. Perhaps that bit over Bracknell will deliver?
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2 minutes ago, Sparky68 said:
Doesnt mean its snowing
It generally does if a whole area is showing red or yellow like in Basingstoke earlier. It's a method I've used for years and it usually verifies. I'm not asking you to believe me! Just something I do.
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5 minutes ago, Delka said:
that definitely is a problem too when watching for showers much like now, can never see where they're developing or if they're dying out or not til they're practically on your doorstep
if you find another radar with better coverage let me know!
I use rain viewer when I'm in Malaysia to track thunderstorms. It shows worldwide PPN (where there is radar coverage at least).
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3 minutes ago, Sparky68 said:
Isnt that just the amount of traffic on the road?
No, the colour is the average speed. Green means flowing normally, yellow slower than average, red very slow and dark red is stationary.
It will show as yellow where there are roadworks, such as the M4 between Reading and Maidenhead, but other than that it's a pretty good guide
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Thanks for that Knocker: great explanation of the formation of a storm.
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Some bigger flakes now as dewpoint has dropped to -1 and temperature to 1.0.
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7 minutes ago, Delka said:
what website is this?
Go to Google maps and turn on the traffic layer. It's a great way to verify what is falling: if it's snow you'll see lots of red or at quieter times yellow.
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Ah! This is what I'm looking for! Some yellows appearing on google maps to the East; sign of more frozen PPN I trust!
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Some snow now as genuinely heavy PPN moves in over RG7. Still quite a mix of PPN though and temperature has risen to 1.2. Some covering of car windscreens and the like but that's it. Going to be an almighty mess when this all freezes, although that looks like being tomorrow night now as I suspect cloudcover will keep temperatures above or close to freezing tonight.
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1 minute ago, Steve Murr said:
Blizzard
Is that a 10 on the Murr scale?
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Time for me to take the dog for a walk in our graupel/snow. Will report back in a bit!
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1 minute ago, kold weather said:
I used to work in the Basingstoke area, know it quite well, I bet that main road into the town center from the M3 is a nightmare right now!
The A33 is stationary about halfway from Reading to Basingstoke now. I've a feeling people are going to be trapped for a number of hours.
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Just now, kold weather said:
The whole region has turned orange and red now. A3 is getting heavier as well as rush hour starts and the snow continues to build up.
Basingstoke is a utter mess though!
Love watching this, almost as good as watching the radar!! Thanks Whitefox!
My pleasure. Even when there's nothing near me I'll often get a fix by looking at google maps and then traffic cameras to see what it's like. The lengths I go to to get a s now fix!
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Finally starting to see some proper flakes and temperature dropped to 0.7 in RG7. Nowhere near intense enough to settle though.
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4 minutes ago, coram said:
Huge fluffy snowflakes have been coming down moderately/heavily for the last hour just ENE of Basingstoke. Have had 3-4" already with no sign of a let up. Jack-knifed lorries and roads blocked all around. Keep it coming.
Whole area looks in chaos. Gaps in flow on google traffic show that several roads are now blocked. Lots of accidents reported as well.
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2 minutes ago, kold weather said:
I think I've almost been as lucky with this as I was unlucky last night. Good way to balance out the luck for sure!
And vice versa here!
SE and East Anglia general weather discussion 07/11/2018
in Regional
Posted
-5.7 recorded here last night which equals Wednesday night for the coldest of the winter.
Looking back, Friday really destroyed a large part of our snowcover. There was a lot of liquid PPN mixed in during the evening and this reduced the lying snow to around 4cm, as well as clearing all busier roads. Had a total of 12.8mm PPN which actually ranks as one of my highest PPN days if the winter.
Yesterday was a steady thaw with all snow on paved areas disappearing in places which received sun after about 11am.
Still treacherous in areas that did not receive much sun as the slushy mess has frozen solid.
Lots of avalanches yesterday as slabs of frozen snow and ice plunged from pitched roofs: quite a loud rumbling it made too and deposited abiut 5cm of ice on the front path!
Anyway, expect further thawing today and then for it to be washed away when milder air and rain pushes in.