Moans, ramps and banter

[I remember Atlantic 252]

Joe, yes certainly noticed warmth in sun on 3rd, sure today as well there were summer style cumulus, certainly signs of Spring, still not much improvement in morning light levels, pitch dark still at 6.30am

[lassie23]

 raz.org.rain i will stick my neck out and say prepare for a clobbering lol

[stainesbloke]

 Atleastitwillbemild Completely agree. The UK climate used to be known for its changeable nature, now it’s just months of damp, windy gloom interspersed with a few dry weeks here and there. It might have become a bit warmer but the awful general lack of sunshine is just as bad as ever.

[raz.org.rain]

 lassie23 I'm going for an early spring personally!

[lassie23]

 raz.org.rain you've convinced me, i'll be planting my tomatoes next week lol

[Chasbrown]

 raz.org.rain Seconded! Winter is kaput!

[raz.org.rain]

 Chasbrown hopefully summer doesn't go the same way El Niño to La Niña transitions historically haven't been good for summers, but El Niño should have given us a cold and blocked winter... but we got near record mild instead. I'm still getting the impression that this summer could be a hot one.

[Dark Horse]

 stainesbloke yeah and if we cannot get any more snow then I'd like some warmth now. Where you can sit outside without shivering or needing a jacket whilst having a drink or two. Hopefully a few days like that will arrive in April. In the grand scheme of things that's not that far away thankfully.

[WYorksWeather]

Just don't see where any cold is going to come from. Still seeing people talk about 2018 and the SSW, so I had a look. This year's SSW, if it happens, would be two weeks later, and the NH cold pool is already giving up the ghost, so it's not even clear where any cold could come from. Post is on the MAD thread, not going to turn this into a long post here.

Probably the worst case scenario is a late SSW just gives us a delayed spring, with wet, and miserable conditions continuing well into March. Probably not anything overly cold since there's not much cold to work with, so no snow, just cold rain.

As far as I'm concerned I'll take either extreme outcome. I either want one of the mildest late February and March spells we've ever seen, with day after day of warm sunshine and temperatures into the mid to high teens, or we need to somehow get a late season cold spell with significant snow out of nowhere.

Given our luck recently in getting useable weather, we'll probably get the middle ground, which is 6C, 30mph winds, and raining sideways.

[Chasbrown]

 raz.org.rain we live in hope but to be fair the weather on our miserable little island never fails to disappoint. The met office outlook has been worded to downgrade anything remotely snowy whilst trying to look like they haven't downgraded it! Their long range forecast has been woeful this winter. At least that's the way I see it without resorting to swearing..

[raz.org.rain]

 WYorksWeather someone was saying yesterday that two years in a row with a cold March is unlikely. When you follow the patterns that the outputs have been toying with, it's looking more likely that any cold incursions will miss us. You can see a pretty well defined Atlantic/iberian influence building in the outputs, I like to think they're picking up on a potential warm spell.

[cheese]

 stainesbloke In reality I don’t think the UK climate has ever been particularly changeable. Oceanic climates are probably the most boring climates on earth. By definition they are characterised by stable temperatures, low sunshine and a general lack of extremes. This was just as true 30 or 40 years ago as it is now. Snow has undeniably become less common but it’s important to remember that snow in lowland UK was never particularly common to begin with, which is why actual snowy winters like 1963, 1979, 1987 and 1991 really stand out. 

I grew up in the 90s and the weather I remember back then is largely the same as it is now, just warmer across the board. Winters are as grey and miserable as they ever were. Summer heatwaves are definitely more extreme though - and I would argue that summers now are much better than the 60s, 70s or 80s. If we got some of those 80s summers today this forum would be in meltdown mode, and understandably so. 

Edited February 7 by cheese

[cheeky_monkey]

 raz.org.rain only Modki ElNino favour cold block pattern.. basin wide events which is what we have had all winter favour wet and mild to prevail which is what has happened but do they do favour colder wetter springs see 1998 for example cold miserable April  

[WYorksWeather]

 cheese Yep, I did some checking recently. Previously, it was commonly thought that a day somewhere reaching 90F/32C in the UK was the mark of a better than average summer. It also wasn't uncommon for a poor summer to fail to even reach 30C.

Taking the last 10 years as an average, the equivalents are now roughly 35C and 32C. A better than average summer temperature wise reaches at least 35C, and it's a notably poor one if it fails to reach 32C.

One of the most remarkable stats on heatwaves is that there have been six years that reached over 36C this century so far (2003, 2006, 2015, 2019, 2020 and 2022). That is twice as many the entire 20th century (1911, 1932, 1990), in less than a quarter of the time.

I would say anything in the 36C and up range is the signifier for extreme heat in this country - events that were previously exceptionally rare. Once in a generation type stuff. Based on the stats we've seen in recent years, then fairly conservatively, the chance of such occurrences now is about ten times more likely than it was for most of the 20th century. Quite extraordinary really the impacts we see at the extremes.

[Don]

1 hour ago, WYorksWeather said:

Probably the worst case scenario is a late SSW just gives us a delayed spring, with wet, and miserable conditions continuing well into March. Probably not anything overly cold since there's not much cold to work with, so no snow, just cold rain.

Some areas did see some snow March 9th-11th last year though, although nothing particularly out of the ordinary.  However, I'm not sure there was much of a cold pool this time last year either? 

BTW the snow event for my location tomorrow has gone from many hours of heavy snow forecast this morning to an hour of sleet now!  I give up!! 

Edited February 7 by Don

[raz.org.rain]

The model thread is a rather frustrating read tonight. Really getting the impression that some will ignore the data if it doesn't show what they want to see, so they pursue a fantasy scenario that's very unlikely to verify.

[WYorksWeather]

 Don Well, we can't compare to last March directly since this March hasn't happened yet, but if we compare today to the exact same ECM at T+0 from a year ago:

Far more deep blues around last year.

To be fair, I think the same will be true for almost any comparator year - the NH hemisphere is at its warmest ever, and comparing end of Jan this year to end of Jan last year (the latest available), it's about 0.7C warmer.

I

[Don]

4 minutes ago, WYorksWeather said:

Well, we can't compare to last March directly since this March hasn't happened yet, but if we compare today to the exact same ECM at T+0 from a year ago:

I know we can't, but I was referring to this time last year as a starting point in terms of NH cold.  So even a repeat similar to last March looks unlikely?  Things really are bad (for cold seekers that is)! 

Edited February 7 by Don

[raz.org.rain]

25 minutes ago, WYorksWeather said:

Taking the last 10 years as an average, the equivalents are now roughly 35C and 32C. A better than average summer temperature wise reaches at least 35C, and it's a notably poor one if it fails to reach 32C.

 

I'm probably fairly young in comparison to others here, an average summer to me would have at least a few 30°c days. I generally expect that +35°c will be a given for any summer these days. And when that doesn't happen, such as in 2023, we can still expect periods of heat such as June and September. Looking at those stats, I've grown up with the better summers!

 

edit to say: I'd consider it a pretty abysmal year if 30° wasn't reached at all, but that doesn't seem fathomable these days given how easily temperatures can climb.

Edited February 7 by raz.org.rain

[WYorksWeather]

 Don Yep, it's a seriously grim macro-scale outlook. You can have charts that bring wind directions normally supportive of cold, but if the usual cold sources aren't cold, well, there's not much more to say.

[WYorksWeather]

 raz.org.rain Same here - I'm in my early 20s, so I am only able to look at it from a statistical lens. As you say it 'feels' relatively normal to reach 35C  most summers, but historically it wasn't that common, and 36C or more was once in a generation type stuff.

[Don]

7 minutes ago, WYorksWeather said:

Yep, it's a seriously grim macro-scale outlook. You can have charts that bring wind directions normally supportive of cold, but if the usual cold sources aren't cold, well, there's not much more to say.

I wonder if the next few years will be similar, or is 2024 an anomaly?

I had been hoping to see a few hours of snow and a slushy covering tomorrow morning, but even that appears to have gone the way of a pear!

Edited February 7 by Don

[WYorksWeather]

 Don Probably best not to discuss CC outside of its area - the subject can be dynamite on these forums and it kicked off on this thread only a day or two ago. I'm heading off for the night now, but if you reply in one of the CC threads and mention me I'll happily have a chat about it tomorrow evening.

[Don]

 WYorksWeather I'm a fair bit older than you and I remember tabloids with '28C heatwave' on the front pages!  Wouldn't even get a mention now!!

[raz.org.rain]

 Don I have a feeling that *if* we end up with the right synoptics to deliver a cold March on the back of a SSW, it'll amount to nothing more than a bog standard spring cold spell. There really isn't a lot of cold available in the northern hemisphere right now, certainly not in any locations where it'd need to be to significantly impact our weather. Iberian heights have proven their worth, as has the Atlantic. If we do get a cold spell, I can't imagine it'll hang around for long before the mild blasts it back out.