Stratosphere Temperature Watch 2013/2014

[Buriedundersnow]

temps finally starting to pick up from 65N-90N

 

[Cheshire Freeze]

 

 

That is all.

[karyo]

Impressive warming on the 12z GFS especially towards the end of the run! Definitely the best run so far at the 30hpa level!

The vortex is weakening and is getting ready to give up as the warming attacks from both the Asian and the Atlantic side!

 

Karyo

[Ruben Amsterdam]

Erm, guys? Lookin' good!

[ITSY]

 

Wow. Highest temps modelled yet for the strat - lets see how this develops, cos if it continues in this way then the chances of propogation down to our level at the atmosphere will surely start to increase.

[Cheshire Freeze]

Impressive warming on the 12z GFS especially towards the end of the run! Definitely the best run so far at the 30hpa level!

The vortex is weakening and is getting ready to give up as the warming attacks from both the Asian and the Atlantic side!

 

Karyo

 

And with a weakening +QBO there really could be fireworks as we progress through Jan. It's what I've been seeing but expected a foothold in the blocking much earlier! Kudos to Chiono though on timing IF we see this manifest itself.

 

I stand by what I've said all along, there is the potential (sig potential) for a very severe spell of winter weather during January.

Edited December 30, 2013 by CreweCold

[lassie23]

If the stratospheric warming continues to get upgraded like that, then we could be in for a potent cold spell later this month.

[bluearmy]

on the 12z gfs, the strat vortex doesnt actually split (there are occasions when splits occur at different levels but never quite separate as per the 06z run).  what is evident is that as this very strong upper vortex slowly wanes, it continues to pass its core back and forth from siberia to canada. we know from experience that this causes upticks in the atlantic jet when we see it at trop level.  given the way this monster weakens over little more than a ten day period, i guess there is a lot of energy to disperse. i suspect this forecast warming pattern has happened in the past but we've not seen its like since the strat began to attract our attention back in 2009/2010.  is there a link to all the previous ssw's to see their evolution and compare or are we restricted to recent times in this regard ?

[chionomaniac]

I have always maintained since before winter that a split SSW is possible around the end of January. This has gone against previous wQBO neutral ENSO and solar forecasts but as I have shown in the winter forecast, these splits have occurred more often than not in these conditions. In fact the stratospheric winter analogues look (at this point) to match up really well. Before winter started my peak timing for a possible SSW would have been the last third of January and I see no reason to change this - may change possible to probable though.... I don't think that we will see any significant cold until after the split date though. 

 

Also we may not get long term propagation though I suspect (from previous experiences) that if a complete split does occur then there will be a high chance of an easterly in the week after the split date. We have seen it before - notably after the split in 2009 - the dark days when it was difficult to get anyone to believe that the strat could influence the trop. It's been far better in that respect this year because I have been able to take a back seat and let this thread run itself due to the great input from many others.

[chionomaniac]

on the 12z gfs, the strat vortex doesnt actually split (there are occasions when splits occur at different levels but never quite separate as per the 06z run).  what is evident is that as this very strong upper vortex slowly wanes, it continues to pass its core back and forth from siberia to canada. we know from experience that this causes upticks in the atlantic jet when we see it at trop level.  given the way this monster weakens over little more than a ten day period, i guess there is a lot of energy to disperse. i suspect this forecast warming pattern has happened in the past but we've not seen its like since the strat began to attract our attention back in 2009/2010.  is there a link to all the previous ssw's to see their evolution and compare or are we restricted to recent times in this regard ?

Yes - it doesn't actually split on the 12Z run - but the amount of warming seen at 10hPa at T+384 suggests to me that the upper split would probably propagate towards the trop. I think it is fair to say that we will see strong wave 2 activity that isgoing to weaken the vortex considerably with a full SSW split right up there in the possibilities.

Edited December 30, 2013 by chionomaniac

[Dancerwithwings]

Sorry about this... Q as i'm no expert in this, But this warming of the stratosphere http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=384&mode=10&carte=1

 

It's that deep in FI what makes you think it won't change, Don't get me wrong i love it, But if this was a stonking Surface pressure chart Deep in FI...

Emmm, Well all i can say is even though we get excited We all know it changes, So what the difference or is this set in stone

[chris55]

I seem to remember previous warmings have tended to happen over Asia and wrapped into the vortex from the other side of the globe. This "potential" warming looks to be centred right over Greenland and a lot closer to the UK than any we have seen in the past few years. Is this significant? I wonder if the position of this warming could be beneficial for our patch, rather than having the warming else where in the NH. Or is this irrelevant - as the goal of the warming is to destroy the strat Vortex - so no matter where the warming takes place it would do the job anyway?

 

Strat novice question there, hope it makes sense lol.  

Edited December 30, 2013 by chris55

[Snowy L]

I seem to remember previous warmings have tended to happen over Asia and wrapped into the vortex from the other side of the globe. This "potential" warming looks to be centred right over Greenland and a lot closer to the UK than any we have seen in the past few years. Is this significant? I wonder if the position of this warming could be beneficial for our patch, rather than having the warming else where in the NH. Or is this irrelevant - as the goal of the warming is to destroy the strat Vortex - so no matter where the warming takes place it would do the job anyway?

 

Strat novice question there, hope it makes sense lol.  

 

This paper looks at what happens to the vortex during an SSW, go to the bottom of page 8 for what happens during a vortex-split (what we could be seeing in a few weeks):

 

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008JCLI2365.1

 

The common theme with splits seems to be that the vortex usually splits to similar locations - a large segment over Siberia and a smaller one over Hudson Bay - Canada. I'm sure this was the case in last winter's split too, and this was despite the fact that the 2 warmings happened over Siberia and then Northeast Canada. So it doesn't look like the location of a warming influences where a lobe of the vortex will go to.

Edited December 30, 2013 by Snowy L

[chionomaniac]

Sorry about this... Q as i'm no expert in this, But this warming of the stratosphere http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=384&mode=10&carte=1

 

It's that deep in FI what makes you think it won't change, Don't get me wrong i love it, But if this was a stonking Surface pressure chart Deep in FI...

Emmm, Well all i can say is even though we get excited We all know it changes, So what the difference or is this set in stone

It will change and has run to run - but with these FI strat charts following the wave 2 activity there is a bit more of reliability at this level of the strat that is normally very stable. At this point we can surmise that there is going to be some type of warming brought about by wave activity breaking from the trop. What we cannot tell at this point is how severe this will be and whether it will be strong enough to create a technical SSW. For that we would need the output to be closer to the event.

[chionomaniac]

I seem to remember previous warmings have tended to happen over Asia and wrapped into the vortex from the other side of the globe. This "potential" warming looks to be centred right over Greenland and a lot closer to the UK than any we have seen in the past few years. Is this significant? I wonder if the position of this warming could be beneficial for our patch, rather than having the warming else where in the NH. Or is this irrelevant - as the goal of the warming is to destroy the strat Vortex - so no matter where the warming takes place it would do the job anyway?

 

Strat novice question there, hope it makes sense lol.  

I don't think we can answer that just yet. In my experience the wave breaking events do initiate downwind of the mountain ranges - but there will always be some variance at how these waves displace the vortex and where exactly the split will occur - no two events are perfectly similar if you look at the Martineau previous SSW animations posted by Lorenzo earlier.

Edited December 30, 2013 by chionomaniac

[Cloud 10]

Going to be interesting watching the earth wind map at 10hpa the next few weeks

as the stratospheric vortex continues to stretch.

 

earth wind map 10hpa stratosphere

 

 

Today's chart..

[aginob]

hi to all

 

Japan Meteorological Agency ( JMA )

animation maps <=> northern hemisphere

 

http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/acmi.html

===

03.01.2014

northern hemisphere

stratosphere

 

Edited December 30, 2013 by aginob

[aginob]

northern hemisphere

stratosphere

temperature

loop

 

===

potential temperature Anomaly at 700 m

northern hemisphere

stratosphere

loop ( slowly )

 

Edited December 30, 2013 by aginob

[Recretos]

I remember saying that I will post some animations when things get interesting. Well, now I present 2 3D animations from the latest 12z GFS. Both present 3 layers. 10mb, 30mb and 100mb. The animation goes from 204h to 384h on a 12h interval. 

The main goal will be to spot the interaction on different levels and possible propagations. In this case I only have one parameter. Both the topography and the colour present geopotential height. I will do topography+temp animations when/if the whole "SSW" process intensifies in the coming days. 

 

First is a side view animation. To explain the perspective: It is like looking from Europe (man that sounds weird ). It is like looking Netweather.tv or meteociel stratosphere maps in 3D.

The interesting thing about it, is the fact that the early shift of "power" from left to right (from Siberia to Canada) is pretty much instant in all layers throughout the strat. while the later height rises are mostly evident on 10mb level and slightly on 30mb, while 100mb seems mainly unaffected. 

The animation repeats 2 times. 

 

GFS_side_animation

 

Second is the front view animation. This is the same perspective as on instantweathermaps.com

So just imagine that you are looking those gph maps in 3D. The interesting thing here, is the intensity by which the vortex gets beaten up at 10mb. You can see fast height raises and around the end, the two waves almost connect over USA. If the animation would go on for a few days, the vortex would be pretty much a goner. 

 

GFS_front_animation

 

I can only imagine how brutal the animations would look for the upper strat. I have to apologise for not making one, because I still haven't found the master grib files for the full GFS output, which has the whole strat included on the complete timescale. I can only find files for individual times, but that would takes ages to process. I guess I will have to wait for the event to go by, and then plot it from reanalysis. 

 

Personally I really like these animations, because it allows me to quickly asses the dynamics and spot some aspects that would otherwise be harder to notice on the classical 2D maps, since you cant see multiple layers at once. 

 

Nevertheless, here are 384h 3D layers of the upper strat. The layers from top to bottom are 1mb-3mb-5mb-10mb-30mb.

The thing that stands out the most, is the wave intesity. In the upper strat, the Atlantic wave is the dominant one, but lower we go, the more dominant the Pacific wave gets, with the Atlantic wave hardly there at 30mb. This is pretty much the answer to the dynamics that Snowking was pointing out earlier, how the vortex gets tiled back with height on a horizontal axis.This pretty much explains it by showing how the stronger Pacific wave acts pretty much as a blocking ridge that prevents the vortex to tilt in general and prevents displacements towards that region. In the upper strat the Atlantic wave is stronger and is pushing the vortex toward west where the Pacific wave is not strong enough to hold in the "pat" position that we were used to see in the past days/weeks. 

 

First aspect is from the Europe side again, while the rest 3 are from the classical "USA in front" perspective, demonstrating the wave intensity with height and the impressive vortex tilt that corresponds with the changing wave intensity with height.  

 

   

 

 

I was thinking of pasting some ensemble output, but I dont want to be a partybreaker. The ensemble output has no dynamics, except for the classical two waves in the pat position. It seems that it just cant grab onto the dynamics, which is mainly the consequence of the low model top. I am counting on the improved ECMWF EPS to do the ensemble job here. 

 

Does someone remember the CFSv2 outputs I presented in November?  2-month lead time forecast. How about this for a verification?  A few days faster than GFS, but still impressive with the general idea in my view, considering it was a mid-November run. (I cant believe I published such low quality processed graphics at that time, but It was as good as I was capable back then).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Currently, CFSv2 is quite on terms with GFS, but as usually warmer on the waves and in the vortex core. 

 

 

 

I have noticed that compared to 12/13, we have somehow forgot about the ozone this season. There was some talk about it in the early parts of the season only.

 

  

 

 

So much for now. Bring on the rock'n'roll.

 

Kind regards.

Edited December 30, 2013 by Recretos

[feb1991blizzard]

The return of the 10mb split on the GFS 18z.

 

http://www.instantweathermaps.com/GFS-php/showmap-strat.php?run=2013123018&var=HGT&lev=10mb&hour=384

 

 

Thanks to this enhanced warming.

 

 

Question is, how far can it propagate?  to 30mb on the 18z.

 

Edited December 30, 2013 by feb1991blizzard

[chionomaniac]

The return of the 10mb split on the GFS 18z.

 

http://www.instantweathermaps.com/GFS-php/showmap-strat.php?run=2013123018&var=HGT&lev=10mb&hour=384

Best split so far - the trend grows....

 

1hPa

 

 

10 hpa

 

 

[ITSY]

 

The strat is just about the only thing to hold onto in an otherwise drab output at the moment. But a very impressive split. Whilst not technically a SSW, the warming looks like doing some serious business up above us - on the current output at least. Here's hoping it delivers. 

[Snowy L]

 

The strat is just about the only thing to hold onto in an otherwise drab output at the moment. But a very impressive split. Whilst not technically a SSW, the warming looks like doing some serious business up above us - on the current output at least. Here's hoping it delivers. 

To be fair I'm sure we'd see the SSW if the GFS went up to T400+

[lorenzo]

Fantastic work Recretos glad you got your Internet fixed, the GFS side animation reminds me of this from NASA.

http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/researchhighlights/SSW/fig_8_epv_01142013_obs_fcst.png

 

http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/researchhighlights/SSW/

 

Impressive charts this evening on Instantweather.

[Recretos]

Fantastic work Recretos glad you got your Internet fixed, the GFS side animation reminds me of this from NASA.

http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/researchhighlights/SSW/fig_8_epv_01142013_obs_fcst.png

 

http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/researchhighlights/SSW/

 

Impressive charts this evening on Instantweather.

 

 

Thanks Lorenzo. Trust me, I would be in a really bad mood if those telecom people wouldn't show up ASAP.

By the way, I am also working on potential vorticity animations like those, but I am having a slight problem with my RAM. It wants to burn out. It will take further optimization to reduce the load on the computer, so I can make some 3D animations. 

 

Lets have some more fun (I say "more" because the 18z kinda began the real fun and games). 

If a technical SSW is what you are after, than look no further than the CFSv2. The most optimistic scenario so far. Take a note that it has a technical SSW around 22/01 (pretty much on 21/01 I think), with an awesome residual vortex displacement right over Europe.  This is actually the first time I have noticed the CFSv2 with a technical SSW. It is interesting how quickly it cools down the top strat. afterwards. It is also worth mentioning that it completely reforms the upper strat. vortex within a week.  

 

  

 

 

   

 

 

 

Regards. 

Edited December 31, 2013 by Recretos