Stratosphere Temperature Watch 2012/2013

[mountain shadow]

Im not great at reading these charts but are there subtle signs the vortex will be displaced to Scandinavia?

Not a bad place to be.

[chris55]

Those warmer temps are getting nicely wrapped into the Vortex on the 6z,

[snowking]

Warming really starting to show now at day 10 on the ECM:

SK

[AWD]

And at this stage the PV looks like going east away from Greenland;

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t30_nh_f240.gif

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z30_nh_f240.gif

But early stages yet.

Edited December 15, 2012 by AWD

[Sean19]

This happens to be my first post here on these forums. But.... I am no expert but am a lover of cold weather. I would just like to say that why do the long range models always show the stuff we want to see but when we actually get there they never materialize. I cant help but look at the models as such a tease.

[Matty M]

I don't think the position of the strat vortex has too much direct relation to the 500hPa vortex, as in the positions are not the same.

[Suburban Streamer]

This happens to be my first post here on these forums. But.... I am no expert but am a lover of cold weather. I would just like to say that why do the long range models always show the stuff we want to see but when we actually get there they never materialize. I cant help but look at the models as such a tease.

They don't. Look at the strat profile this time last year - was rubbish until mid jan. I personally have found these warming forecasts in fi much more reliable than surface fi forecasts.

I think the key thing to remember is that even with a warming and displaced/pv we still need various features to be in the right place for the UK to benefit. Instances like this can lead us to feel 'teased' but that's not really the case

Edited December 15, 2012 by Suburban Streamer

[Buriedundersnow]

quick question for chiono.

i read your post about ssw and vortex displacement and read the paper u posted the link to (well what i could understand of it) and what u said about the siberian high being pushed west but the models dont seem to be playing ball and the operationals want to bring the pv back over this way.

the thing i was wondering is some of the ensembles in the ecm are showing the chance of an easterly is it entirely possible the the models will be struggling with the set up of what u explained with the siberian high moving back west and that is what some are picking up on.

could u plz tell me aswell is the pv ment to come back over this way as i thought it was ment to be setting up shop in aeastern siberia.

sorry thats 2 questions.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Buriedundersnow

[lorenzo]

Couple of charts from Berlin site. Wave 1 geo heights cranking in at 1400 for the 10 day chart and also heat flux looking decent, perhaps some cross polar flow in the area when these verify?

In regards to the heat flux chart last time I tracked this to Day 0 the 10 day projection was understated.

Looks like the temp chart has reached another plateau ready to shoot up from here again.

I am wondering if we will soon see the models flip in the other direction soon away from the more Zonal charts driving all to despair at present.

[sebastiaan1973]

Chio, at http://www.weerwoord.be/includes/forum_read.php?id=1731079&tid=1731079 & http://forum.vwkweb.nl/chatbox/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13253&p=120946#p120946 I made a translation in Dutch of your experiment with Cohen/Jones article.

[Recretos]

The 1400m wave 1 would certainly surpass the last one.

But even if everything goes as planned and in the best way possible, we would still have to deal with the lag. Like Chionomaniac has pointed out yesterday, and as it is shown in this graphic from T. Reichler.

[kold weather]

Is lag such a bad thing though?

We could see the increase in wave activity start to affect us just as any SSW might really get cooking, which would certainly lead to some interesting look northern hemispheric profiles I'd have thought!

[Recretos]

Well I wasn't really referring to it as a bad thing, but just keeping it in the picture, so people don't expect the forecasted warming at upper and mid strat to have an immediate effect on the tropospheric patterns.

[karyo]

The 1400m wave 1 would certainly surpass the last one.

But even if everything goes as planned and in the best way possible, we would still have to deal with the lag. Like Chionomaniac has pointed out yesterday, and as it is shown in this graphic from T. Reichler.

In other words, it could be that we have to wait till the end of January for the tropospheric effects...

[snowking]

Couple of charts from Berlin site. Wave 1 geo heights cranking in at 1400 for the 10 day chart and also heat flux looking decent, perhaps some cross polar flow in the area when these verify?

In regards to the heat flux chart last time I tracked this to Day 0 the 10 day projection was understated.

Looks like the temp chart has reached another plateau ready to shoot up from here again.

I am wondering if we will soon see the models flip in the other direction soon away from the more Zonal charts driving all to despair at present.

Wave 1 is in fact even stronger at an even earlier timeframe, and has been consistently shown to be so over the pas few days

Here it is at even day 7:

http://wekuw.met.fu-berlin.de/~Aktuell/strat-www/wdiag/figs/ecmwf1/ecmwfzm_ha1_f168.gif

SK

[phil nw.]

Is lag such a bad thing though?

We could see the increase in wave activity start to affect us just as any SSW might really get cooking, which would certainly lead to some interesting look northern hemispheric profiles I'd have thought!

It can be said that we have already seen some evidence of trophospheric vortex distortion and will continue to do so Kold-just from the mainly number 1 wave breaking events we are already seeing.

Even on current modelling we can see the fragmentation around the edges unfortunately the strands of energy breaking off have precluded a stable blocking Northern high around our region.

Hopefully our luck-if cold seeking-changes for the better when the forecasted full on warming completely undermines the Stratospheric vortex.

[Cheshire Freeze]

In other words, it could be that we have to wait till the end of January for the tropospheric effects...

Correct. This is why I'm not a fan of waiting/relying on later in the season stratospheric phenomena to bring us cold. By the time we potentially see any reward there may only be a few weeks of winter left!

Luckily this time the warming advertised is fairly early (last week of December) so mid Jan is possibly a time of interest.

Nice to see signs of warming though!

Edited December 15, 2012 by CreweCold

[SnowObsessor90]

This thread is where I'm going to be focusing most of my attentions on for the time being. Looking at general Model output is a fruitless exercise at the moment even though I probably should have already fully realised that simple fact days ago.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Anonymous21

[mcweather]

Correct. This is why I'm not a fan of waiting/relying on later in the season stratospheric phenomena to bring us cold. By the time we potentially see any reward there may only be a few weeks of winter left!

Luckily this time the warming advertised is fairly early (last week of December) so mid Jan is possibly a time of interest.

Nice to see signs of warming though!

Pretty much inline with GP'S Winter forecast then.

[lorenzo]

@snowking, good spot with the Wave 1 heights - got to think a re-shuffle is on the cards for the NH soon..

[cooling climate]

The warming we are seeing in the strat charts is this not similar to last years

warming albeit slightly earlier. Although it seem to be making inroads in the

Arctic quicker than last years one if the charts are correct of course.

Also did we have the wave 1 activity similar to what is forcast in the coming days

ahead.

[lorenzo]

Correct. This is why I'm not a fan of waiting/relying on later in the season stratospheric phenomena to bring us cold. By the time we potentially see any reward there may only be a few weeks of winter left!

Luckily this time the warming advertised is fairly early (last week of December) so mid Jan is possibly a time of interest.

Nice to see signs of warming though!

This is where I find this thread the most interesting, I totally get that folk are looking for cold and winter and all the fun of the fair with enhanced snow chances brought about by a carved up Vortex.

However, another aspect is the science of what is happening up there which in itself is equally fascinating, I mean look at that warming wave, let alone all the factors that assist in engineering such a reaction - the QBO,BDC, tropospheric pre-cursor blocks, Snow Cover, Tropospheric Control, Stratospheric Control, accelerated zonal wind profiles, Ozone integration & profiles across not just the NH.

I think there is a really danger of folk correlating a SSW with being a magic bullet for Easterly after Easterly or Northerly after Northerly, enjoy watching the NH change dramatically and then anything leaning towards full on Winter is a bonus.

@CC this link has all the historic time series http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/

Edited December 15, 2012 by lorenzo

[karyo]

This is where I find this thread the most interesting, I totally get that folk are looking for cold and winter and all the fun of the fair with enhanced snow chances brought about by a carved up Vortex.

However, another aspect is the science of what is happening up there which in itself is equally fascinating, I mean look at that warming wave, let alone all the factors that assist in engineering such a reaction - the QBO,BDC, tropospheric pre-cursor blocks, Snow Cover, Tropospheric Control, Stratospheric Control, accelerated zonal wind profiles, Ozone integration & profiles across not just the NH.

I think there is a really danger of folk correlating a SSW with being a magic bullet for Easterly after Easterly or Northerly after Northerly, enjoy watching the NH change dramatically and then anything leaning towards full on Winter is a bonus.

@CC this link has all the historic time series http://www.cpc.ncep....trop/gif_files/

I agree with what you say, it is an interesting subject. However, it is the potential cold outcome that makes it fascinating!

Karyo

[kold weather]

Worth noting the warming is now just starting to inch into the GFS high resolution charts, clear warming by 192hrs.

[Snowy Liverpool]

Can anyone post a link to the 10hpa stratosphere temperature forecasts from GFS that keep getting posted here?