Jayces

Just in case anyone else was struggling..... It may well be that the forecasts are mild. Last year, pretty much everyone was cold and blocked. But I have to honestly admit that I think conditions are much better this year. We have hit the solar minimum with very low geomagnetic activity, the NAO has been stable negative, the troposphere completely blocked throughout the year, and the QBO appears to be facing the eastern phase. Finally, we have a tripole in the North Atlantic that favors a negative NAO (also opposite the last 5-6 winters) with heat around Greenland, especially West Greenland as well as colder water at Newfoundland, which is developing again: Last year, SST clearly pointed to a positive NAO with cold water in Greenland - and we have had that trend since the cold winters ended in 2013. We had a western QBO and El Nino. So there are several things that speak for a cold European winter this year, I mean. Last year, they were probably lured into believing the promising forecasts. We also have the prospect of a neutral ENSO, which it immediately looks like. This means that there is likely to be nothing here that matters to Europe. Then it opens up the possibility that the solar energy and the Eastern QBO in combination can have a common and powerful effect on blocking with the Atlantic tripole. I'm pretty optimistic for a cold winter.

Yeah that's pretty much it, interview with Dr Robert Simpson who helped make the Saffir / Simpson scale - https://novalynx.com/store/pc/Simpson-Interview-d53.htm DI: Dr. Simpson, in your opinion, since the Saffir/Simpson scale is an open ended scale, do you think that hurricane windspeeds could become a category 6 or 7? RS: I think it's immaterial. Because when you get up into winds in excess of 155 miles per hour you have enough damage if that extreme wind sustains itself for as much as six seconds on a building it's going to cause rupturing damages that are serious no matter how well it's engineered. It may only blow the windows out, but on the other hand, it can actually rupture the stairwells, the elevator wells and twist them, and it's happened in many buildings so that you can't even use the elevators after they've experienced this. So I think that it's immaterial what will happen with winds stronger than 156 miles per hour. That's the reason why we didn't try to go any higher than that anyway. FE beat me to it, I should have Googled quicker

Latest NHC update out, winds 185 MPH, hasn't weakened and expected to remain at that strength for next 12 hours and moving at 5 MPH, not good for the Bahamas. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/#Dorian

Both impressive and scary how quickly he's grown. The models seem to be trending more and more to him not striking land though and curving away from land instead which is very lucky for those in the original predicted path if that is indeed what happens.

39.5c on Thursday in London.

He's been officially named Barry.

Feel free to give us a forecast yourself?

They can only show what they are programmed to show based on the start data and algorithms they use to work out what may happen from that point? It's the same old challenge here in the UK being a small island trying to pinpoint or weather is very hard beyond a couple of days. Today was a lovely day and it was only 21 degrees in my area so I'll happily take 25 and if it gets hotter it's a bonus. It's looking like it will, it's rare for the big 3 to agree beyond 48 hours so will have to wait until midweek to see what is in store for next weekend.

Deadly? Not to put a damper on things and not the right thread but certainly in context but is this a good time to bring it the old climate change argument? I guess it's a wait and see how this pans out but I don't think anyone wants the sort of heat India is currently experiencing and certainly not regularly.

The IPBES Global Assessment on biodiversity was released yesterday at https://www.ipbes.net/ and makes grim reading. It lists climate change as an increasing factor in the state of life on our planet. Although the report says it's not too late to act it does stress that changes on a global scale have to happen now if we are to prevent mass extinctions on a global scale of our animal and plant life in the near future. The headline is that 25% of all animal and plant species face extinction within decades. The message is that Climate Change and biodiversity issues need to be dealt with together as they are inter connected. Scary stuff but it's clear from watching the news yesterday and seeing the newspaper headlines today that here in the UK the potential extinction of humankind isn't as important as another royal baby as only 2 major newspapers had it on their front page this morning and the BBC dedicated 37 minutes of the 6 PM evening news last night to the royal baby and 2 minutes to the future of our planet. Makes one wonder when 'we' will wake up and realize we need to actually listen to the scientists, accept the evidence presented to us and come together on a global scale and fix the mess we have created.

I've seen a similar comment to this one elsewhere in the media recently and I was genuinely wondering how this could be beneficial? I'm 49 and there certainly seems to be more reports of natural disasters (fires, storms, flooding and heatwaves) in the news these days then when I was a child and we do have facts showing a rising temperature, melting ice, rising sea levels, shrinking forests and rising CO2 in the atmosphere so if the latter is indeed causing the former then I'm curious as to how this could be thought of as a good thing?

Some lovely pics here this morning Nothing to write home about here in Croydon and rapidly melting even though we were close to the 'jackpot' zone. I think one of the issues is the ground is probably too warm hence why there is such a fast melt going on. That and it just never snowed as much as we were all going for of course.

It's like the good charts that always seem to be 10 days away, every time I check the met office app for South Norwood the heavy snow is coming later though lasting longer! It now has heavy snow for this area starting at midnight into rush hour tomorrow and then a mixture of sleet and light rain all day!

11?! But I'm sleepy....