Spring moans, ramps, chat and banter

[mushymanrob]

On 15/01/2016 at 4:32 PM, mushymanrob said:

great post from tamara , worth checking out!

i see a case being made for snow on monday, but tbh i think its ramping. the uppers for monday as a system comes in are imho too high. we rarely get much snow from incoming westerly buffeting up against cold, nothing that lasts anyway (a few hours of wet snow before it turns to rain is common enough i guess) .
of course if we get an inversion we might get some - but that usually occurrs when a more rapid attack from the west comes in (doesnt it?) . the cold starts going on sunday in the west, so with the arrival of the system on monday id have thought we would also import less cold surface air too..

but if the piper has called this right and we do get a dumping - ill doff my hat to him!

 

oh the irony

the snow spotters were so busy talking about mondays potential, no one spotted the overnight dumping* (before it was mentioned in the forecasts) .  ironic that some spend all winter looking for a snowy evolution and miss the one that delivers! lol.

meanwhile those of us who were skeptical over mondays potential appear to have our thoughts justified as the tv forecast do suggest milder air ahead of mondays front.

of course it is knife edge, an undercut of cold continental air would make snow potential greater, but thats unlikely to happen as its looking like milder atlantic air will be bulldozed in ahead of the front.

* the caveat being that i didnt read EVERY post, so MIGHT have missed one that did mention it.

[Evening thunder]

4 hours ago, cornish snow said:

I know your pain but seen this soooooooo many times,water off a ducks back now.

Do what i do,forget about net weather for a bit,dont turn the telly on and get outside and enjoy living where we do because,come on,you wouldn't want to live anywhere else,would you?

Let them have their bit of snow.

Very true. I tend to get frustrated about the weather when there's downgrades, but then after a while I accept it and all is well again.. lol.
 

And that's good advise, I've lived somewhere else (not that the weather was much more interesting in Egham), but it made me appreciate this area and also some weather types it can do better for. This place has it's frustrations, such as often missing snow, heat or surface based storms in summer, but you're quite right.. I'd still rather live here than many places in the country due to the scenery and diverse coastline/geography etc.

1 hour ago, reef said:

During this cold spell we haven't got below -0.1C here so far. In fact, the lowest of the winter is -0.4C on the 1st January and we've only had three air frosts in total.

Its been a pretty poor effort so far really and we've still had no measurable snow since January 2013.

That does sounds quite poor.. I am in a valley so of course a bit of a frost hollow, but some places around here have similar figures or may not have had any air frost, especially on the coast (though I think that happened in 2013/14 in places like Teignmouth). Looking at some sites at 200/300m on the edge of Dartmoor (Bridford, Haytor), even they have struggled to get below zero.

Definitely behind 2013/14 here so far, though 2011/12 had only recorded -2.8C by now (but a higher number of frosts), and went on to record -7.6C in February.

[wishingforsnow]

4 minutes ago, Thunderbolt_ said:

Just reading the MOD, I don't know why people get so hung up over when the breakdown is going to be. If you have cold and snow where you are right now and you like that weather type, then why don't you enjoy it whilst it's here, rather than worrying about what the weather is going to do next weekend?

There's still a good 3-4 days of cold weather to go yet, along with the rest of today, and given the performance of the models lately...

I agree with this (new poster here). Too many knee jerk negative reactions in there when models, progress of strat warming and the science behind its process (a temporary tightening before a breakdown) and experts are hinting that there may be further cold down the line for the UK in store. 

[feb1991blizzard]

14 hours ago, Thundery wintry showers said:

The Greenland High cold/snow setups tend to have a lot of warm air advection up the western side of Greenland, resulting in anomalous warmth in western Greenland and northern Canada, while the Svalbard/Franz Josef Land sector of the Arctic sees close to or below-average temperatures, resulting in potent cold blasts from the N and possibly NE.  This was the prevailing setup during the winter months of 2009 and 2010.

The Scandinavian High setup tends to see unusually warm temperatures pumped into the Svalbard/Franz Josef Land area, while northern Canada and, most importantly for us, continental Europe, ends up very cold.  Hence the potential for very cold air to come across from the east.

The point being that, for cold snowy weather, we are looking for significant poleward inputs of warm air to affect parts of the inner Arctic Circle but with colder air on the other side of the block that then comes our way- having anomalous warmth across the whole Arctic doesn't particularly help because it means that none of our blasts originating from a long way north are likely to be particularly cold.

That said, the recent period has had unusually cold temperatures over Scandinavia, so if we'd been able to get a draw of north-easterlies, it could have been a major snowfest for eastern areas with the high SSTs around the UK and the deep cold Scandinavian air creating very vigorous convection over the North Sea.  But instead we've had north-westerly and northerly winds pulling air down from around the Svalbard area, which has been about 10 degrees above the normal for the time of year.

Cheers, would I be right in saying though that an optimum setup would involve a very quick transition involving continental Europe suddenly cooling down in terms of surface and uppers early on in season, so quickly that the North sea just doesn't have as much time to cool down and then circa -15 850mb temps with a direct hit on the UK, as we had a really cold upper 850mb profile in Feb 2013 but didn't really get the dumping one might expect, although that said I was never all that confident then because the 500mb heights weren't low enough IMO.

[ReindeerMarmalade]

2 hours ago, Thunderbolt_ said:

Just reading the MOD, I don't know why people get so hung up over when the breakdown is going to be. If you have cold and snow where you are right now and you like that weather type, then why don't you enjoy it whilst it's here, rather than worrying about what the weather is going to do next weekend?

There's still a good 3-4 days of cold weather to go yet, along with the rest of today, and given the performance of the models lately...

The performance of the models recently is the only thing still giving me hope I'm not going to make a hatrick of winters with no snow

I guess it's human nature to want favourite things to stick around as long as possible, and given the seeming difficulty of getting seasonal weather (I'm not even sure what that is anymore!) to our shores in winter it's only to be expected that people dread the breakdown and return to bilge. People lucky enough to have snow are hoping it lasts a little bit longer, and people without (like me) are hoping we get another chance. I guess it's like experiencing a couple of years of drought and hoping the rain continues. 

[I Cumbria Marra I]

Can't see any disruptive snow next week that the BBC mentioned a couple of days ago.

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

Given the accuracy of our Netweather winter forecast so far, I expect February to be mild.  From my POV an early spring would be greatly appreciated.

[Methuselah]

1 minute ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

Given the accuracy of our Netweather winter forecast so far, I expect February to be mild.  From my POV an early spring would be greatly appreciated.

Eh? Please explain...

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

5 minutes ago, Ed Stone said:

Eh? Please explain...

Well, as I check the Winter Forecast on our site today (17/01), the predictions for December and January are very close to what materialised, so I expect the section for February to be equally accurate: mild, less rainfall than December, with possible very mild weather (i.e. early spring) late in the month.

Edited January 17, 2016 by chrisbell-nottheweatherman

[March]

MetO's 3 month forecast from late November has been pretty good imo. 

[Thundery wintry showers]

1 hour ago, feb1991blizzard said:

Cheers, would I be right in saying though that an optimum setup would involve a very quick transition involving continental Europe suddenly cooling down in terms of surface and uppers early on in season, so quickly that the North sea just doesn't have as much time to cool down and then circa -15 850mb temps with a direct hit on the UK, as we had a really cold upper 850mb profile in Feb 2013 but didn't really get the dumping one might expect, although that said I was never all that confident then because the 500mb heights weren't low enough IMO.

The above scenario happened in late-November 2010 when Scandinavia suddenly cooled down and we had a north-easterly blowing straight from Scandinavia, but North Sea temperatures were still quite warm.  It is harder to get a plentiful supply of snow showers off the North Sea when the sea surface temperatures are lower, but given sufficiently deep cold, it can still happen well into March.

Northerlies seem able to generate widespread showery activity throughout the winter half-year, probably helped by the long sea track, though in the absence of troughs and polar lows, the showers often end up confined to coastal areas.

Conversely, in frontal scenarios with milder airmasses colliding with cold ones, I find that high SSTs are mainly a hindrance for snow because frontal setups are often very marginal and the warm sea can make the difference between a dumping of snow and sleety rain.  These observations help to explain why North Sea areas rely a lot on North Sea convection for a dumping of snow whereas central and western areas tend to be more dependent on frontal scenarios.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Thundery wintry showers

[mountain shadow]

4 minutes ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

Well, as I check the Winter Forecast on our site today (17/01), the predictions for December and January are very close to what materialised, so I expect the section for February to be equally accurate: mild, less rainfall than December, with possible very mild weather (i.e. early spring) late in the month.

Ah, but the Netweather Forecast was for a colder January curtesy of a SSW, which has no occurred, therefore the forecast was not correct. Also, with a later SSW possible, this increases the probability of a colder end to Winter than a warmer one.

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

3 minutes ago, mountain shadow said:

Ah, but the Netweather Forecast was for a colder January curtesy of a SSW, which has no occurred, therefore the forecast was not correct. Also, with a later SSW possible, this increases the probability of a colder end to Winter than a warmer one.

Isn't the cause being different somewhat of an academic difference, though?  In very other respect, it appears to have been incredibly accurate to date.

Edited January 17, 2016 by chrisbell-nottheweatherman
Correcting typo.

[mike Meehan]

After the Beast from the East receding a little in the last few days I notice it is now starting to encroach westwards again with temperatures falling again in central/east Europe - maybe, just maybe........

[wishingforsnow]

17 minutes ago, mike Meehan said:

After the Beast from the East receding a little in the last few days I notice it is now starting to encroach westwards again with temperatures falling again in central/east Europe - maybe, just maybe........

Yep! With those prospects, and the models showing a blocked outlook starting to form again after the Atlantic breakthrough we may not have to wait for eternity to get our next, better cold spell of the winter eh?

[Yarmy]

It's almost precisely mid-winter with some interesting developments in the strat, and people are seriously chucking the towel in? 

Edited January 17, 2016 by Yarmy

[wishingforsnow]

7 minutes ago, Yarmy said:

It's almost precisely mid-winter with some interesting developments in the strat, and people are seriously chucking the towel in? 

Mind boggling. I would understand throwing in the towel if models and charts and the Met were suddenly churning out zonal, stormy and extremely wet and windy December like forecasts and the experts were all saying 'no chance of cold coming back, return to December pattern imminent' but to act like that is the case when at the moment its more likely that any Atlantic breakthrough will be short lived and not as stormy and mild as November/December was with better prospects for further cold? 

Edited January 17, 2016 by wishingforsnow

[78/79]

Jay Wynn on Country File says temps back up to 11or 12 by Friday, looked as pleased as punch about it

[wishingforsnow]

3 minutes ago, 78/79 said:

Jay Wynn on Country File says temps back up to 11or 12 by Friday, looked as pleased as punch about it

However whilst it may turn warmer for a while, the signs are there that it may only be temporary.

[Weather of Mass Disruption]

Countryfile weather report has it warming up by the weekend, back into double digit figures with wind and rain! Pretty disappointed by this past few days of cold weather and although we had snow, about 4cm I can't help but feel under whelmed by it all. It hasn't really been that cold and we had more snow last Boxing Day (2014) 

What is so frustrating is that we've had nothing but rain for weeks on end and then the moment we get some cold weather it all but disappears, then the mild weather comes back and the precipitation along with it. 

 

Really hoping Feb and early March can deliver some true winter weather 

[78/79]

24 minutes ago, wishingforsnow said:

However whilst it may turn warmer for a while, the signs are there that it may only be temporary.

Here's hoping

[March]

25 minutes ago, Weather of Mass Disruption said:

Countryfile weather report has it warming up by the weekend, back into double digit figures with wind and rain! Pretty disappointed by this past few days of cold weather and although we had snow, about 4cm I can't help but feel under whelmed by it all. It hasn't really been that cold and we had more snow last Boxing Day (2014) 

What is so frustrating is that we've had nothing but rain for weeks on end and then the moment we get some cold weather it all but disappears, then the mild weather comes back and the precipitation along with it. 

 

Really hoping Feb and early March can deliver some true winter weather 

Well the problem is you don't live in a particularly cold country. I didn't get anything Boxing day 2014...

[Spah1]

GP's torpedo has just arrived at Exeter

Fergie @MarkyDub there is a signal for +ve GPH anomaly building later Jan across/N/NE of the UK but not all ensembles go that route. Time will tell

[wishingforsnow]

31 minutes ago, Spah1 said:

GP's torpedo has just arrived at Exeter

Fergie @MarkyDub there is a signal for +ve GPH anomaly building later Jan across/N/NE of the UK but not all ensembles go that route. Time will tell

The plot thickens for Winter 15/16 .... 

 

And long range forecasts since the beginning of the season have mentioned that this winter would have a mild, wet start but a sting in its tail

Edited January 17, 2016 by wishingforsnow

[Stationary Front]

I think GP is talking about a trough NE of UK with positive Ghp NW of Uk