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THE FERREL CELL MESSING UP BRITAIN'S WINTER- AGAIN


iapennell

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Posted
  • Location: Brighton (currently)
  • Location: Brighton (currently)

Yes a high percentage of above average winters and a decreasing number of days with snow cover. 

In fact, if we see the Met Office map for number of days for lying snow, most low lying areas should be seeing 5-10 days a year and quite a few with modest elevation 10-20 days. This is of course the 1981-2010 average and we know very well that the last decade average will be lower.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/snow/snow-in-the-uk

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Posted
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
1 hour ago, karyo said:

Yes a high percentage of above average winters and a decreasing number of days with snow cover. 

In fact, if we see the Met Office map for number of days for lying snow, most low lying areas should be seeing 5-10 days a year and quite a few with modest elevation 10-20 days. This is of course the 1981-2010 average and we know very well that the last decade average will be lower.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/snow/snow-in-the-uk

I wonder how long it will be before snow becomes ‘extinct’ from this country?  Probably not in my lifetime, but you have to wonder about kids of today?

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Posted
  • Location: Carryduff, County Down 420ft ASL
  • Location: Carryduff, County Down 420ft ASL
32 minutes ago, Don said:

I wonder how long it will be before snow becomes ‘extinct’ from this country?  Probably not in my lifetime, but you have to wonder about kids of today?

It will be gradual thing where the snow simply becomes rarer and rarer. 

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Posted
  • Location: Brighton (currently)
  • Location: Brighton (currently)
43 minutes ago, Don said:

I wonder how long it will be before snow becomes ‘extinct’ from this country?  Probably not in my lifetime, but you have to wonder about kids of today?

As @mountain shadow says it will be a gradual process but it has started some time ago. I think we will have to rely on perfect synoptics to bring any decent cold here because there be a lot less cold available and the warming seas will moderate it more and more.

Even for land locked places like my hometown in Greece, there has been less snow days in recent years.

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Posted
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, Snow, Windstorms and Thunderstorms
  • Location: Ireland, probably South Tipperary
5 hours ago, Terminal Moraine said:

Taking my location, and counting a winter within 0.2c of the 30 year mean as average, shows the following stats since 1987/88.

Milder than average 17

Average 6

Colder than average 8.

So, not 75% but nevertheless an impressive 55% milder than average, and only 26% colder than average. In fact if you lump together milder than average and average your 75% assumption is pretty much spot on. After all, how many people remember an average winter? 

Doing similar for the CET over the last 30 years (assuming this month finishes about 7C after corrections), using >0.5C for above average 0.5 to -0.5 for average, and <-0.5C for below average we get:

image.png.05d6ee689615d1c0bc16e2a905fee52d.png

While winter temperatures are still highly variable, the trend is very clear to see.

image.thumb.png.3540ba9782126526b34beb92f8f2d331.png

Quite remarkable on that graph, that if the exceptional 2009/2010 (coldest of the last 40 years) winter had occurred in the late 1600s, it would have been considered close to average.
Even the 2010/2011 winter would have been considered close to the 30 year average for 42% of the record, and for 64% of the record pre-1900.

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Posted
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada

Wow, I hadn't looked in here until today ... the more recent posts I can see general agreement with, the recent trends are self-evident although we were being told back around 2005-06 that we would never see snow again nor would any months ever dip below 3 C (a certain "Stratos Ferric" was well known for these opinions here), opinions which to be fair might have looked a lot less ridiculous had December 2010 shown up only on the GFS and not in reality (this year we only got as far as the GFS). 

The earlier discussions about large-scale engineering of the atmosphere to produce desired results gets into questions about (a) cost effectiveness, (b) actual need for these changes, and (c) scientific validity of the theories of cause and effect (in other words, would the high walls and other proposals actually create the changes desired, or something else, or nothing much at all?). 

I will note in passing that while Donald Trump might never build such a wall to slow down the subtropical jet stream, an even greater force built quite an impressive wall across southern Asia and the weather in Japan seems to be quite subtropical most of the time. Jet streams have a way of working around or over these barriers. But I can't dismiss the concepts presented out of hand because there is no way to know what the real effect of these projects would be, other than wrecking the view for selected unlucky towns in the desert southwest.

Other posts suggest the onset of a period of more intense stormy weather due to global warming. This has become one of the big talking points of the climate change movement, aware as they have become that the general public either feel skeptical about the magnitude of warming or secretly wish it would warm up (believe me, in Canada, there is no shortage of this sentiment). But in reality the trends seem to be in the opposite direction. This warming climate seems a bit on the bland side compared to the 20th century or the colder 19th century. I recently finished a study of pressures over the Irish Sea from a data set derived from the NOAA reanalysis. This covers the period from 1851 to 2014 but I don't think there have been lower pressures than the ten lowest in that interval since Darwin (Feb 2014).

The twelve lowest pressures were recorded in these years (in order) -- 1951, 1884, 1989, 1886, 1905, 1877, 1966, 1929, 1949, 1915, 2014 and 1876. If the study had extended back to 1839 that would have joined the list, possibly in first place.

There is no sign in that list of any tendency towards increased frequency of low pressure in the vicinity of the British Isles. The mid-point of the study interval is 1932 and by then, seven of the twelve had occurred. The interval from 1876 to 1886 produced four, and that was a time of generally cold winters (although the specific dates of the strong lows fell in less cold periods than those famous cold winters such as 1878-79 and 1880-81). 

Anyone interested in seeing the data set can find it posted in my research thread in the Science sub-forum. I posted it in the last week so it should be near top of the menu there (and in the last post of the thread until somebody comments on it). 

This matches what I have read from seasoned weather watchers on various forums, that the frequency of very strong winds seems to be decreasing in recent years. Many different people whose opinions I trust have commented that there were more frequent severe wind storms in the 1980s and 1990s than we are seeing in this recent decade. And when you think about the list of most damaging wind storms in history around this region, most of the obvious candidates are well back in the past, a few like 1987 or 1990 not so far back, but off the top of my head I would say 1703, 1839, 1884, 1886, 1903, 1953 are among the leaders. 

This warming climate may prove to be more benign than malevolent. We've heard a lot about increasing frequency of hurricanes and tornadoes as well, but actual statistics seem to point in the other direction over the past decade. Anecdotally of course, there is always the one event or season but there again, we've seen worse in the distant past. The very worst hurricane season was probably 1780 and the worst tornado event was in 1925 (second worst in 1974). Perhaps if we are going into a long-term solar downturn we might be wise to thank our lucky stars that we were here to take the edge off LIA-2. 

And if you want snow, try Buffalo. There's a high vacancy rate in their hotels during the winter and their snowfall to date is 102" but if that's no good for you, may I recommend Marquette, a lovely town in northern Michigan on the shores of Lake Superior, currently dealing with four feet on the ground, and expecting two more this weekend. Snow to date, 184". (seasonal average 200", so probably on the way to an above-normal season).

Personally, I continue to think that this recent climate "change" is more of a return to high variability temperature signals that were associated with the years around 1770 to 1800 and perhaps the 1970s into early 1980s. There is a human component to it, more like icing on the cake that would have existed without us being here at all. And I don't buy into theories that suggest we are altering the large-scale patterns. Just like the urban heat island may be strong locally but not really disruptive of weather patterns, our greenhouse gas emissions are just warming up the existing and inevitable weather patterns, and if one studies the data carefully, that warming is mostly happening in the overnight hours. I don't think it has large implications for positions of storm tracks, jet streams or Ferrel cells for that matter. These are where they might have been, had squirrels been the dominant life form on our planet, but those squirrels would have faced chillier nights, still they have fur and we don't, in most cases. 

 

 

 

Edited by Roger J Smith
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