Model discussion - Warm spell ending as Spring begins

[MP-R]

9 minutes ago, Ed Stone said:

That seems a very reasonable way of looking at things, Matt. Unless it's something akin to late April 198 (snow lying for two consecutive days) or Easter 1975 (snow falling on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday) cold after mid-March is often more of a nuisance than a pleasure...

Anywho, we'll get whatever we'll get, whether we like or not!

Quite. I actually rather enjoyed the colder spells of late April 2016 and 2017 for their convective nature and good visibility rather than the notion of cold spell. I think that would be more realistic if anything.

[Frosty.]

The longer term GEFS 6z mean ties in with exeter's latest update for early april with a more changeable looking pattern but it should be noted that there is considerable uncertainty in that range from exeter.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Frosty.

[Methuselah]

A vintage 2019 weather chart: cold air too far east to be of any use to coldies; anticyclone too far west to be all that useful to warmies...

But this, on the other hand, would be just about perfect: 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Ed Stone

[MATTWOLVES 3]

Bit of warmth for the mildie brigade at day 10.

[Methuselah]

Could be a nice set-up for some (as the late, great Michael Hunt would've said) April shahs:

And I do very-much hope that those hot uppers, darn sarf, are the shape of things to come: 

Some nice maxes indicated by the GEFS ensemble:

Edited March 19, 2019 by Ed Stone

[Frosty.]

Looking at the Gfs 12z operational, most of next week looks great with high pressure centred over the uk..better than this week..and the run also ends on a high! 

[MATTWOLVES 3]

To sum up we have some warmth towards the end of month, then gfs and gfsp tends to send us quite a bit cooler as we start April , there will be some unsettled spells during this time, but with high pressure not being a million miles away there should still be plenty of dry conditions towards the S/SE

 

Edit. Looks like me and Karl posted similar charts at same time again. Lol

Edited March 19, 2019 by Mattwolves

[Frosty.]

Looking at the GEFS 12z mean, high pressure dominates most of next week as the operational showed..particularly pleasant across most of england and wales.

[Frosty.]

April Fools Day might be a bit wintry!

[MATTWOLVES 3]

Not a lot to get overly excited about with ecm, some warmer days later this week, much cooler weekend but still relatively dry.. Looking rather cool in to next week with i would imagine a good deal of cloud. Looking at the set up you will gather that the air is much colder to our NW than it is to our East! So an Easterly at this point wouldn't be packing to much of a punch. 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Mattwolves

[Frosty.]

Looking at the Ecm 12z the uppers next week are considerably lower  due firstly to the injection of colder air this coming weekend which never really gets properly mixed out and also due to the different positioning and orientation of the high with cooler continental air feeding in across especially the southern half of the uk (a little milder further north at that stage)..hopefully to compensate for the cooler uppers it will be sunnier next week compared to this week's rather cloudy but warmer high (especially in any sunny spells).

Edited March 19, 2019 by Frosty.

[Frosty.]

Looking further ahead, tonight's Ecm 12z ensemble mean is set fair next week, indeed as means go it's rather spiffing!!

[Methuselah]

Indeed Karl...With any luck we're heading for some 'shades of '76'? Or, failing that, a 'Barbecue Summer'? Not that that either of those two famous predictions ever delivered the goods, mind you!

[damianslaw]

Compared to the first half of March, the second half more or less looking much more benign, with anticyclonic conditions gaining the upper hand. Nothing especially exciting, rather alot of cloud about next two days with some warmer air aloft, Friday to Monday looking more unsettled for all, and cooler, chilly in the north return to wintry showers and frost, next week promises more in the way of dry weather and hopefully something much brighter, but it doesn't look especially warm, decent enough but nothing exceptional.

Further ahead - signs of something colder from the north as we start April, very common in April to have northerly shots..

[Frosty.]

Tonight's Gfs 18z operational for next week looks very anticyclonic and with these sort of temperatures it would feel pleasantly warm in the strengthening late March sunshine.

[Frosty.]

And then winter returns!

Edited March 19, 2019 by Frosty.

[MATTWOLVES 3]

Good summary from Karl, was just gonna say gfs kind of ends with a bang with more arctic type air in place.... Wouldn't be surprised to see a Ntly set up in April, its pretty common tbh! Wouldn't rule out snow showers either... Lying snow.... Well it's a long shot, but let's just see!

[feb1991blizzard]

Cold set coming out here.

EDIT : Mind you just as that happens, the eps have trended milder again.

Edited March 19, 2019 by feb1991blizzard

[MATTWOLVES 3]

18s ensembles look a tad colder, I'll take the pink one right now. 

[MATTWOLVES 3]

This one's a beauty, if this sets up just the once I will be happy.

[knocker]

The ext EPS has been pretty consistent over the last three days in moving towards a more zonal outlook.

Still highly amplified upstream with the Aleutian low, strong Alaskan ridging and Hudson bay/west Greenland vortex. Troughs associated with the latter eastern North America and, in particular, stretching SE over Iceland. A strong upper flow exiting the eastern seaboard, particularly the north east, but there is some divergence and weakening in the eastern Atlantic, courtesy of some positive anomalies northern Scandinavia and low pressure south east Europe

Nothing particularly drastic indicated here but perhaps more unsettled further north vis the UK with temps around average. But still above over Scandinavia, perhaps an indication that the source of the air is south of the American trough.

Last night's NOAA is not a million miles from this and tonight's will be of some interest

Edited March 20, 2019 by knocker

[Man With Beard]

On 18/03/2019 at 11:57, knocker said:

With the usual proviso that I find transferring these map projections into a NH context above my pay grade I'm afraid I really fail to see how you are inferring an easterly out the clusters this morning with the Atlantic trough being the dominant feature  Again I find it difficult to assimilate five days of clusters but i find nothing to contradict the trend more towards zonal

But still looking at temps above average

Hi Knocker - sorry a bit late in replying - I was mentioning where I personally thought things "might" go based upon the evolutions I was focussing on, certainly not where I expected them to go. But alas!! Last night's clusters suggesting the "weak easterly" possibility is alive - cluster 1, height anomaly north, trough anomaly south, which puts a south-easterly or just maybe an easterly in play

Even so, only 33% of ensembles in this cluster, so the return of Atlantic based weather remains the favourite as the month ends

 

[Summer Sun]

UKMO has finally returned after not updating for a number of day's and it shows high pressure over the UK dry for the vast majority but some isolated rain/showers is still possible

 

[knocker]

13 minutes ago, Man With Beard said:

Hi Knocker - sorry a bit late in replying - I was mentioning where I personally thought things "might" go based upon the evolutions I was focussing on, certainly not where I expected them to go. But alas!! Last night's clusters suggesting the "weak easterly" possibility is alive - cluster 1, height anomaly north, trough anomaly south, which puts a south-easterly or just maybe an easterly in play

Even so, only 33% of ensembles in this cluster, so the return of Atlantic based weather remains the favourite as the month ends

 

But at a guess I would put the surface high cell to the east, possibly south east and with a trough the W/SW a SW/S flow more likely as indicated with the upper flow. And in any case we are merely talking about the anticyclonic circulation and thus probably light airs. The latter part of this morning's det run is certainly supporting a breakdown to more unsettled but we need to wait and see

 

Edited March 20, 2019 by knocker

[Methuselah]

A very benign-looking 06Z today; even All Fools' Day looks benign: 

But that looks like being the 'calm before the storm', so to speak, as, in Early April a large Atlantic LP takes up residence, close to the UK: 

And I do like cold uppers with low pressure, things might even get a tad convective: