Early run up to Winter 2020/2021 discussion

[Catacol]

21 hours ago, Don said:

Yes they were.  That’s why the 80s winters did it for me!  Different story further north though.  Remember seeing numerous reports of snow further north during the 90s winters, whereas the south had diddly squat.

Feb 96. Snow ploughs in Dorset produced snow banks that the Alps would be proud of. Most snow I have seen on the ground near sea level in my 49 years. Local conditions can still hit the jackpot even 5 miles from the south coast.......

[Mapantz]

28 minutes ago, Catacol said:

Feb 96. Snow ploughs in Dorset produced snow banks that the Alps would be proud of. Most snow I have seen on the ground near sea level in my 49 years. Local conditions can still hit the jackpot even 5 miles from the south coast.......

I don't think there was a great deal here as that would have stood out in my memory. 

I have a feeling that I remember seeing a forecast leading up to that and getting excited and then it turned in to a December 2010 nightmare with naff all.

[Don]

2 hours ago, Catacol said:

Feb 96. Snow ploughs in Dorset produced snow banks that the Alps would be proud of. Most snow I have seen on the ground near sea level in my 49 years. Local conditions can still hit the jackpot even 5 miles from the south coast.......

Winter 1995/96 was relatively crap where I lived with little in the way of snow that amounted to very much.  However, I appreciate it was a decent winter overall.  The only real sustained snow IMBY during the 90's was February 1991.  I did get snow in February 1994 but it was very short lived.

Edited October 1, 2020 by Don

[Georgina]

Hi is it right that we are heading into a La Niña think I saw something on the met office website about it ! What effects of any will this have on the uk ? I’ve read a little bit about it and that it may produce a colder winter for us but is this always the case when we are in one ? 

[East Lancs Rain]

1 hour ago, Georgina said:

Hi is it right that we are heading into a La Niña think I saw something on the met office website about it ! What effects of any will this have on the uk ? I’ve read a little bit about it and that it may produce a colder winter for us but is this always the case when we are in one ? 

Yes we are heading for a La Niña. If it stays weak then that is good news for a cold winter but if it goes strong it will probably be a winter like last year.

[Premiere Neige]

23 hours ago, Froze were the Days said:

Well yes I was talking about my location on the Essex Coast and occasionally in that month we did have the less cold day country wide where as February 86 it never got above 4 c where I lived...CET wise Feb 86 was colder but less snowier.

Ah right. I kind of just remember the satellite imagery of the whole country under snow. Didn't realise it had warmed up in some parts briefly. I remember one morning in the first week of December 2010 the temperature reading on my car was -17c (not sure how accurate they are) and you could see ice crystals in the air reflecting the sunlight. Wonderful!

[Premiere Neige]

2 hours ago, Georgina said:

Hi is it right that we are heading into a La Niña think I saw something on the met office website about it ! What effects of any will this have on the uk ? I’ve read a little bit about it and that it may produce a colder winter for us but is this always the case when we are in one ? 

Weak or moderate is fine for helping chance of cold UK winter but a strong la nina is not good....

[Georgina]

1 hour ago, East Lancs Rain said:

Yes we are heading for a La Niña. If it stays weak then that is good news for a cold winter but if it goes strong it will probably be a winter like last year.

Why is it that if it’s stronger it’s worse for us ? Logically thinking people would think the stronger the better ? Is it that it would be just to strong and end up reversing the whole thing . 

[Relativistic]

43 minutes ago, Premier Neige said:

Ah right. I kind of just remember the satellite imagery of the whole country under snow. Didn't realise it had warmed up in some parts briefly. I remember one morning in the first week of December 2010 the temperature reading on my car was -17c (not sure how accurate they are) and you could see ice crystals in the air reflecting the sunlight. Wonderful!

Yep, I remember doing my paper round in -14C... very rare for Chelmsford. Hit -10C the following Winter but don't think Chelmsford has seen temperatures that low since.

[Relativistic]

16 hours ago, Snipper said:

Think it was winter 62/63 that I rode my bike down the ice on the River Can to Chelmsford’s town centre. 

Now why didn't I do this in December 2010 

[Snipper]

10 minutes ago, Relativistic said:

Now why didn't I do this in December 2010 

The interesting thing to watch was as the ice broke up as the thaw arrived was seeing some brave (idiots) souls floating down the river on the ice flow. 

[Rollo]

Ah memories,back in 62-63 we built an ice rink in a friends back yard just before Christmas,it lasted for days as did some of the bruises!

[East Lancs Rain]

1 hour ago, Georgina said:

Why is it that if it’s stronger it’s worse for us ? Logically thinking people would think the stronger the better ? Is it that it would be just to strong and end up reversing the whole thing . 

I think it's just because a strong la nina or el nino overides everything else. What a strong la nina would do is cool down the oceans which would probably increase our chances of a cold winter next year.

[Norrance]

A graph from my nearest official Met O reporting station which shows how ground frosts can occur despite air temps being well above zero. I am about 1 to 2 miles NW from this station and my records usually show higher ground temps but usually lower air temps perhaps because of the underlying soil or the topography here.

 

[Mike Poole]

On 02/10/2020 at 12:14, Georgina said:

Why is it that if it’s stronger it’s worse for us ? Logically thinking people would think the stronger the better ? Is it that it would be just to strong and end up reversing the whole thing . 

Trouble is ENSO is only one factor affecting winter in the UK, and it isn’t a particularly strong one compared to some of the others.  Weak La Niña seems to correlate with slightly colder winter, strong not, El Niño, depends where it is, if it is East Pacific not good, but Modoki (Central Pacific) can benefit us for winter prospects.  

More important maybe are sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the North Atlantic, here anomaly as of now:

For best chance of a cold winter you want a tripole, in Atlantic, warm band N of UK, cold band about UK, warm band below UK.  Current picture is rather mixed.  

Then we’ve got the QBO which looks like not playing ball and remaining westerly.

Solar minimum is a big tick.

And the Indian Ocean Dipole probably isn’t going to stick two fingers up at us this year like it did last year (hadn’t even heard of it before last year!)

So there you have it.  More uncertainty than you can shake a stick at...we will see...

Edited October 3, 2020 by Mike Poole

[iceman1991]

Anyone know what j Roger thinking for this winter as he normally gives us an insight on up coming winter this time of the  year ?

[Don]

27 minutes ago, iceman1991 said:

Anyone know what j Roger thinking for this winter as he normally gives us an insight on up coming winter this time of the  year ?

Yes, I would be very interested to know, too.

[virtualsphere]

21 hours ago, Mike Poole said:

Trouble is ENSO is only one factor affecting winter in the UK, and it isn’t a particularly strong one compared to some of the others.  Weak La Niña seems to correlate with slightly colder winter, strong not, El Niño, depends where it is, if it is East Pacific not good, but Modoki (Central Pacific) can benefit us for winter prospects.  

...

Then we’ve got the QBO which looks like not playing ball and remaining westerly.

Solar minimum is a big tick.

Posted this in the ENSO thread but may be of interest here.  This shows the mean winter CET for all years since 1951 (on the horizontal axis) and mean ENSO ONI Oceanic Niño Index data for the winter (on the vertical axis).  Symbols indicate QBO data averaged for the winter months, circles are EQBO, squares are WQBO, filled are stronger values, unfilled are weaker, and an asterisk represents very weak / neutral values.  The year shown is for January / February, so '2010' represents winter 2009/10.  

Taking 2010 as a bit of an outlier, this suggests the closer to ENSO neutral the better if it's a cold winter you are after.  QBO also varies, with west and east QBO both associated with warm and cold winters.  Obviously this takes a rather broad brush approach and the interplay between these variables and others are likely to be a key factor as Mike mentions above.

Solar is an interesting one: certainly recent cold periods have generally been associated with low solar activity - 1995/6, 2009, 2010, 2018 - also further back 1963 and 1986,87 - but some other memorable cold periods have been closer to solar max, e.g. 1947 (shown below), 1979, 1991 and 2013.  

The research I've read suggests it's actually the descent from solar max that is least associated with cold winter weather in NW Europe, so now we are out of the descending period we should have a greater chance of cold weather in the coming winters than in most recent years between 2013 and 2018.  Others have commented that it's not just the broader solar cycle activity but actually whether immediate activity is strengthening or weakening that makes a difference - March 2013 is an interesting example in this respect as a sharp period of reduced activity in between two peaks - but I've not seen much research about this.

It does look like colder weather could be favoured this winter with our current solar position being similar to Autumn 2009, and westerly QBO isn't necessarily a problem (1986, 1991 both WQBO for example).  One thing to keep an eye on is how strong the La Nina becomes, if this remains on the weak side then certainly a chance of a cold winter but as we saw last year even with some favourable background signals this isn't a certainty.  

[Summer of 95]

Last time Liverpool lost 7-2 was apparently in 1962/3. Lets hope the weather remembers

[Earthshine]

What fun would weather be without the uncertainty anyways? 

[SqueakheartLW]

Talking of winter weather I thought I'd get the festive mood started with the CFS long range predictions for Christmas Day. I have used the 4 individual 9 monthly runs on Meteociel and looked at the setup on the day on all 4 runs each day for the last 10 days giving 40 outcomes in all for temperatures based on the 850mb temps and 40 in all for predicted precipitation based on the 500mb pattern. This is what the first 10 days has produced so far

CHRISTMAS DAY PREDICTIONS FROM CFS

Start 26/09/2020    End 24/12/2020        Current 05/10/2020

Temps        0z           6z      12z         18z       TOTALS

V Mild                                                             0

Mild            2                        1             2         5

Average     4              6         5            3         18              At present Average to Colder than average is favoured

Cold           4              3         4            3         14

V Cold                       1                       2          3

LEADER    AV/CD    AV    AV/CD    AV/CD    AV

 

Precip               0z          6z     12z    18z    TOTALS

V Dry                                                             0

Dry                    2             4       3        7        16

Average            4             2       4        2        12             At present Drier than average is favoured with a tie between Average and Wetter

Wet                   4             4       3        1        12

V Wet                                                             0

LEADER        AV/WET    AV    AV    DRY    DRY

I will give further updates every 10 days on 15/10/2020, 25/10/2020, 04/11/2020, 14/11/2020, 24/11/2020, 04/12/2020, 14/12/2020 and 24/12/2020

[jules216]

What us the verification record of Meteo France seasonal forecast anomalies? That is a huge signal for -NAO  for Nov and Dec - only a month or two lead time as well. One of the models that doesn't see a strong Nina by the way. Mean northerly winds in UK for December   This anomaly is good for me in central Europe if cold weather hits Mediterranean and cyclogenesis explodes moving slowly eastwards hopefully   

[Griff]

32 minutes ago, jules216 said:

What us the verification record of Meteo France seasonal forecast anomalies? That is a huge signal for -NAO  for Nov and Dec - only a month or two lead time as well. One of the models that doesn't see a strong Nina by the way. Mean northerly winds in UK for December   This anomaly is good for me in central Europe if cold weather hits Mediterranean and cyclogenesis explodes moving slowly eastwards hopefully   

That's a thing of beauty, can't possibly be right?  

[northwestsnow]

1 hour ago, jules216 said:

What us the verification record of Meteo France seasonal forecast anomalies? That is a huge signal for -NAO  for Nov and Dec - only a month or two lead time as well. One of the models that doesn't see a strong Nina by the way. Mean northerly winds in UK for December   This anomaly is good for me in central Europe if cold weather hits Mediterranean and cyclogenesis explodes moving slowly eastwards hopefully   

Lovely.

Without Glosea on board though ...

[Cheshire Freeze]

Pretty much everything points towards cold early doors...