S.Murr Winter Forecast 2014/15

[Polar Continental]

Thank you Steve, years of enthusiastic research and work gone in to producing your winter forecast, reading your work and that of Joe B’s helps me to slowly understand this mostly incredibly complex subject. At the moment I dare only to try and predict just for the month ahead, that is complex enough for me, though my accuracy has been fair, my November forecast was quite close to the mark, accurately forecasting the colder spell during the 3rd week, but getting the last week completely wrong.
Good luck with your winter forecast, fingers crossed you are correct, Looking forward to some decent wintry weather.

Paul C

[phil nw.]

Nicely presented Steve,good work.

Glad you posted your forecast,good luck with it.

[Bobafet]

Thanks for posting Steve and as others have said lets hope you are on the right track. Love your style of writing and helps complete novices like me understand a bit more.

[ForeverPomeroysnow]

Thanks for this Steve and good luck with it, although I hope you are wrong about Ireland being above average for January. That said good to see you have gone ahead and posted this lrf.

[Mike Poole]

Steve, thanks for the forecast, and all the analysis in the previous thread.  It's well reasoned and I hope that in 5 years time long range forecasts of this nature are the norm.  Good luck, love to see some snow in January!

[SE Blizzards]

Nice one Steve.

 

Good luck.

[Hotspur62]

Nice one Steve and glad you posted the LRF as you put a lot into this. Hope it verifies as there will be a lot of happy people on here if it does

[mountain shadow]

I was enjoying it until the bit in January about a cold England but milder Ireland and Scotland. :-(

Would be an unusual synoptic that.

[Steve C]

I was enjoying it until the bit in January about a cold England but milder Ireland and Scotland. :-(

Would be an unusual synoptic that.

 

Might not be too bad. I think the winter of 1963 was colder in England than Scotland and Ireland.   

 

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/datasets

Edited December 3, 2014 by Steve C

[I remember Atlantic 252]

I was enjoying it until the bit in January about a cold England but milder Ireland and Scotland. :-(

Would be an unusual synoptic that.

 

very unusual yes, normally in Jan you would expect a raging Atlantic, that would mainly suggest high pressure over SE England with Atlantic air bringing milder air to the far NW

[Ice Day]

Many thanks Steve, fingers crossed that winter pans out according to your forecast.  You, along with a few others, are a huge asset to this site and you consistently put yourself out there to be shot down.  Well done and keep up the good work.

[weathergeek]

Oooo I so hope this happens Steve!! For all us snow fans and for you and your hard work! Will be watching closely for THAT pattern change x

[kumquat]

Always fascinated by your work and reasoning, Steve. Good job!

[Lettucing Gutted]

Great forecast Steve thanks!  It also looks really promising for a winter that's at least in league with the best post 1987 winters such as 1990/1991, 1995/1996, 2008 through 2011 and 2012/2013.     One thing that surprises me though is that the Greenland/Labrador zone has positive 500mb height anomalies in the most +OPI Octobers contrary to the similar +NAO/+AO patterns were the 500mb height anomalies are negative in the same zone.  Likewise even in reverse the Greenland/Labrador zone has negative 500mb height anomalies in the most -OPI Octobers contrary to the similar -NAO/-AO patterns were the 500mb height anomalies are positive in the same zone.

 

very unusual yes, normally in Jan you would expect a raging Atlantic, that would mainly suggest high pressure over SE England with Atlantic air bringing milder air to the far NW

Another pattern to watch out for that can lead to the "mild Ireland and Scotland/cold England and Wales" scenario is when the Mid Atlantic High allows cold Northeasterlies into England and Wales on the hand but also allows warm Westerlies to return anticyclonically into Scotland and Ireland from the North or Northwest on the other hand.  Especially in the cooler months both of these patterns occur during the slow or incomplete toppling of blocking highs from the west to north sector or the slow or incomplete retrogression of blocking highs from the east to south sector.  Alternatively and especially in the warmer months this scenario can occur during narrow ridging of the Azores High with either flattened troughing on both sides of the Azores Ridge as in your pattern or just undercutting deep troughs/lows south of the Azores Ridge as in my pattern respectively.

Edited December 4, 2014 by Craig Evans

[ItNeverSnowsInWindsor]

Let's hope the forecast comes to fruition and proves the OPI hypothesis true too. Here's hoping a spectacular white Xmas.

[IanR]

I certainly have more faith in this outcome than the met office mild bias for their LRF up to february

[johnholmes]

I certainly have more faith in this outcome than the met office mild bias for their LRF up to february

 

Which forecast is nearer the mark we will all know on 1 March. I do hope we do not then get a slanging match as to this or that is nearer. Just note and move on, hopefully most of us learning from what the outcome compared to any of the forecasts shows

Edited December 4, 2014 by johnholmes

[SMU]

Thanks for all the comments - it was important to present a clearly defined split to the December month....

S

Edited December 5, 2014 by Steve Murr

[TEITS]

I certainly have more faith in this outcome than the met office mild bias for their LRF up to february

I must pull you up on this comment.

 

One of the main reasons I take note of the Met O is because they aren't biased. I normally don't take much notice of internet LRF because I find they are biased towards cold i.e Madden. The Met O forecasters are professonals and therefore will produce forecasts based on evidence without any bias affecting their judgement. This is one of the reasons why I rarely forecast anymore because I just cannot stop myself being biased towards cold.

 

Moving onto to Steve M forecast and what an excellent read that was. The above does not apply to Steve M though because in my experience of reading his LRF he does not allow his cold biased to affect his seasonal forecasts.

 

I shall just add that recently I discovered on FaceBook that my cousin in Italy is a weather forecaster. Now the language barrier is a problem and google translate is rubbish but from what I can gather he expects December to be average. He believes winter will arrive with a vengence across Europe in early Jan.

[Smiler1709]

Steve I'm new to the model lark, when you talk about a split December are the current set of model outputs starting to show your expected pattern change?

[SMU]

Steve I'm new to the model lark, when you talk about a split December are the current set of model outputs starting to show your expected pattern change?

 

yes & no

 

They are working towards a better mid term, however im still looking towards post the 15th for any HLB

 

regards

Steve

[feb1991blizzard]

Incidentally I did a few composite analogues and was playing around just picking a few out based on QBO, solar cycle, ENSO, PDO, etc, nothing very scientific, a month or 2 back and Mine came out as a change before xmas, I was going to build into a forecast but my computer completely went and I lost everything on it, also the composite charts I post always disappear after a couple of Days anyway, I think we would be lucky to get a really strong block to the North now though before xmas, what is certainly not out of the question though is a cold December via Northerly topplers and cold frosty nights and possibly a very cold end.

Edited December 5, 2014 by feb1991blizzard

[Smiler1709]

Thanks Steve, I've noticed tonight the models have swung in favour of a more substantial cold spell, hopefully your predictions are coming to light.

[IanR]

I must pull you up on this comment.

 

One of the main reasons I take note of the Met O is because they aren't biased. I normally don't take much notice of internet LRF because I find they are biased towards cold i.e Madden. The Met O forecasters are professonals and therefore will produce forecasts based on evidence without any bias affecting their judgement. This is one of the reasons why I rarely forecast anymore because I just cannot stop myself being biased towards cold.

 

Moving onto to Steve M forecast and what an excellent read that was. The above does not apply to Steve M though because in my experience of reading his LRF he does not allow his cold biased to affect his seasonal forecasts.

 

I shall just add that recently I discovered on FaceBook that my cousin in Italy is a weather forecaster. Now the language barrier is a problem and google translate is rubbish but from what I can gather he expects December to be average. He believes winter will arrive with a vengence across Europe in early Jan.

Fair enough, I did read the post with the email reply from the met office on why they think the period december through to febuary will be on the milder side of average, it went into some depth, and admittedly a little over head at times, and they are sticking to it, despite other signals being contrary,   

Their prediction of a milder than average december is already on dodgy ground, and their previous  track record is not exactly accurate.

 

Of course the whole period could still be in the slighty above catagory despite a cold december.......we shall see

[Hocus Pocus]

Fair enough, I did read the post with the email reply from the met office on why they think the period december through to febuary will be on the milder side of average, it went into some depth, and admittedly a little over head at times, and they are sticking to it, despite other signals being contrary,   

Their prediction of a milder than average december is already on dodgy ground, and their previous  track record is not exactly accurate.

 

Of course the whole period could still be in the slighty above catagory despite a cold december.......we shall see

I've pondered over why they've gone for their model over the other strong signals, is it a case of an over reliance  on climate models these days? Personally I don't think they can have that much confidence in GLOSEA as it's been consistently wrong over the last few years and with all the great senior forecasters at their disposal I would have thought  that they'd  take vast experience and knowledge over a pre programmed computer model. As good as modern technology is these days there's no substitute for experience and the MetO have that in abundance.