Winter 2023/24 - A Post Mortem

[mountain shadow]

 rwtwm More human input needs to be given to the model output.  For starters, any predicted decrease in the Iberian Desert High should be amended to increase it instead.

[Snowyowl9]

 mountain shadow

Yes very scary if this can happen frozen solid that quickly..

Today, temperatures in Xinjiang, China dropped 45 almost instantly to a low of -52? (-61.6?), kiIIing hundreds of waterfowl. 

[LetItSnow!]

On 19/02/2024 at 21:49, CryoraptorA303 said:

Warmest year on record looks guarenteed now

We're only in February so I would suspend any thoughts of guarantees where we end up for the year, regardless of the global situation, though I would find a "cool" year unlikely in the christmas pudding, 1998 and 2007 are good examples of a year flipping to less anomalously warm conditions and that could happen. Warm will always have the upper hand in the christmas pudding but less warm periods like early 2018, the second half of 2020/first half of 2021, December 2022 etc - they're the exception rather than the rule, but I don't think that every year will now be 11+C, but I also in no way want to downplay the severity of that having occured.

Our warmest yearly C.E.T. outside of a calendar year IIRC is still May 2006-April 2007 with a 12 month rolling average of 11.6C. Scary that now we "hunt" for what will be the first 11.5C or even 12C annual year. 

Back to basics though, I think if 2024 is another 11C year then that is just horrifiying, but I don't see it set in stone. I ignore long range model output at this point. It's suited me well.  I still believe in years like 2010 and 2012 occuring, even 2015 (which would have been a very unexceptional year if not for Nov/Dec).

[raz.org.rain]

4 hours ago, Snowyowl9 said:

Today, temperatures in Xinjiang, China dropped 45 almost instantly to a low of -52? (-61.6?), kiIIing hundreds of waterfowl. 

The climate of Central Asia is notoriously harsh due to a strong continentality factor and its high elevation. The Himalayan plateau will inevitably cause drastic swings in temperature extremes, particularly if a Siberian anticyclone is in the equation. In Mongolia, they call it a "zud", an extreme weather event that destroys livestock. It's not unheard of there.

[Snowyowl9]

 raz.org.rain

This a new phenomenon? Frozen on the spot it seems.

The day after tomorrow was my first thoughts was that movie..

Stronger spike jet vertical to normal,earth wobble extreme..

A 64 year record broken..

 

 

[MP-R]

 Snowyowl9 cold records don't happen these days...!

[raz.org.rain]

 Snowyowl9 needless to say, The Day After Tomorrow is about as accurate as 2012 was. One of the hallmarks of climate change is the erratic instability. In this case, I believe they had a very mild spell of weather that rapidly broke down into a much colder spell. Such drastic swings in temperature are common in Central Asia... although granted, not usually on such an extreme scale. A strong continentality factor means that temperatures can easily drop below freezing on a short time scale.

[Metwatch]

13 minutes ago, raz.org.rain said:

The Day After Tomorrow is about as accurate as 2012 was.

19 minutes ago, Snowyowl9 said:

The day after tomorrow was my first thoughts was that movie.

It's actually interesting to rewatch meteorological disaster films like the day after tomorrow or something like Geostorm, but now with a much better understanding of meteorology, you can see how unrealistic they were

[Met4Cast]

26 minutes ago, MP-R said:

cold records don't happen these days...!

I don't think you'll find a single climate scientist that's made this claim. Cold records however are much less frequent and pale in comparison to heat records by a ratio of about 10:1.

[raz.org.rain]

 Metwatch that movie was part of the reason I got into reading more academic publications on the AMOC subject, I was somewhat surprised to learn about the vast array of discrepancies and the various other theories than never get mentioned.

[Wold Topper]

 Snowyowl9

[Wold Topper]

Just purchased a tinfoil hat, just incase the loons are correct!

[Snowyowl9]

 MP-R

Well I ve had plenty of cold records since 2007 and I ve been recording temps since 1990..

As it just been snowing outside a squal came in sleet in NW hail/snow an 2.9c currently..

Climate change my backside they always use that phrase..

 

[Methuselah]

@Snowyowl9: Not that pathetic argument: It's snowing today so all the evidence for AGW (it's actually incontrovertible) is rubbish? Oh dear, some folks simply cannot apprehend the problem! 

[SqueakheartLW]

For what seems like a big flop and fail of the long range models and the what looks certain to be a top 10 mildest winter on record I have still managed to see settling snow in all 3 winter months.

Dec 2nd into 3rd 2023

Jan 18th 2024

Feb 8th 2024

Can March also deliver at least 1 covering to keep this up I wonder?

 

Yet colder winters I have not always achieved this

In 2005/06 I got no snow in the Jan of 2006

In 2010/11 I saw no snow in the Feb of 2011

In 2008/09 Jan 2009 was devoid of any snow but was cold

[CryoraptorA303]

 SqueakheartLW

11 minutes ago, SqueakheartLW said:

For what seems like a big flop and fail of the long range models and the what looks certain to be a top 10 mildest winter on record I have still managed to see settling snow in all 3 winter months.

Dec 2nd into 3rd 2023

Jan 18th 2024

Feb 8th 2024

Probably just a byproduct of how humid this winter has been, the South East has seen virtually no snow all winter.

11 minutes ago, SqueakheartLW said:

Can March also deliver at least 1 covering to keep this up I wonder?

It's doubtful, March is so far looking to be very warm.

12 minutes ago, SqueakheartLW said:

Yet colder winters I have not always achieved this

In 2005/06 I got no snow in the Jan of 2006

January 2006 saw no significant snowfall in the South East either.

13 minutes ago, SqueakheartLW said:

In 2010/11 I saw no snow in the Feb of 2011

2010/11 was possibly the most La Nina winter ever seen and December was by far the coldest month. By February it was very mild and I remember walking around Greenwich in late February 2011 in a t-shirt as it was so warm.

14 minutes ago, SqueakheartLW said:

In 2008/09 Jan 2009 was devoid of any snow but was cold

January was very drycold and saw a prolonged cold spell in the South East (east London at the time for me as with 2011) but was very dry with endless crisp, sunny days and no precip in sight. The snow started falling on exactly February 1st.

[LetItSnow!]

2 minutes ago, CryoraptorA303 said:

South East has seen virtually no snow all winter.

Indeed, though it has a one up on the winter of 2021/2022 which saw no snow at all. I saw some miserable snow grains on 8/1/2024 that didn't even settle. IIRC parts of the southeast like Kent and such fared better than here in London though.

[CryoraptorA303]

 Summer8906 Ok, fair enough, but the majority of summer days in Hampshire were almost certainly reaching 21°C in the last 15 years. July 2023, June and July 2012, July 2009 and perhaps parts of the 2007 and 2008 summers are where this might not have been the case.

 LetItSnow! Here we saw an extremely brief snow covering in mid-January, it melted within 30 minutes though. The coldest daily maxima we saw was in early December which speaks volumes for an El Nino winter.

[Catacol]

Probably says a lot. 

I think I’m swinging back to the perspective that without a favourable SSW to force a dramatic crash in the AO our cold winters are now at an end bar a very long odds development. Cold snaps of a few days will continue, cold months overall will not. Oceans too warm, +NAO too dominant. Only a major SSW can shake it up. We reached a global tipping point a few years ago. Nino probably a bit too strong this year when aligned with such ocean warmth. Next year probably Nina and wQBO. Need that Nina to be weak to give us a chance of a major SSW.
 

Enjoy Spring and Summer everyone. See you all in the autumn. 

Edited February 24 by Catacol

[John S2]

I am not convinced that a significantly cold winter month is now 'long odds', even though the odds will have changed. There is a counter argument that we may see a colder winter at a similar point of the double sunspot cycle that 08/09, 09/10, and the famous Dec 2010 occurred. This would presumably be around 2030 ? Also it doesn't matter how warm the Atlantic is if the wind is blowing from the NE. Nevertheless, a warmer Atlantic and northward displacement of Azores high may help reduce the frequency of winter blocking in locations which bring cold conditions to the UK so it will be interesting to see if solar factors can outweigh this.

I would remind members that there was a school of thought about 'modern winters' back around 2005, but only a few years later we had the above mentioned trio.

[Arch Stanton]

 Catacol

I read somewhere that the Nordstream explosion released an unprecedented volume of Methane into the atmosphere - I wonder if anyone is doing any research into the effects of that explosion and the dynamics of the atmosphere since it happened? 

[kold weather]

 LetItSnow!  Its a little bit concerning should we get a 3rd year in the 11c ballpark. We seemed to shift up into the 10.x in the 00s and basically never looked back barring 2010, I'm beginning to think we maybe starting to see a similar kick upwards into the 10.8-11.4c range where we basically won't deviate far from that bar the odd freak cold month relative to the mean that might still happen at times (see Dec 10, or to a lesser extent Mar 13).

2007 does prove though that these patterns can flip, but a very mild month within the winter set certainly helps to increase the likelyhood of a 11c year again.

[Don]

1 hour ago, kold weather said:

I'm beginning to think we maybe starting to see a similar kick upwards into the 10.8-11.4c range where we basically won't deviate far from that bar the odd freak cold month relative to the mean that might still happen at times (see Dec 10, or to a lesser extent Mar 13).

I think that's probably very realistic.

[TillyS]

Chemmy Alcott did a good piece for Ski Sunday about how climate change is threatening the whole industry in the French Alps. 

How climate change is affecting French glaciers and skiing

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

---

Ski Sunday presenter Chemmy Alcott returns to Chamonix, France to witness glacial retreat firsthand.

 

So it’s not just the UK facing this issue.

I am seriously beginning to wonder if we may have to abandon using the word “winter”. What does it mean anymore for the UK? Very little in terms of traditional winter weather.

There’s a period of shorter days between November and January. But in terms of winter weather it feels like, bar the odd colder snap, that those days are passing.

[Continental Climate]

I am of the opinion that the only teleconnection that really matters nowadays is AGW. We have the odd die hard in the mad thread that thinks there is no AGW and it's all a con but thankfully they are in the extreme minority now and sound increasingly ridiculous. No cold signal can override oceans that are so ridiculously warm now as to be totally terrifying. I really have no idea where we will be in 30 years time but if things keep going as they are, well we are in serious trouble.