kev238

Without wanting to cause offence, there is something known as free speech in this country. Posts in other threads I have made recently (past few days) have been in support of the Met Office and their long range forecasts (6-15 days and 16-30 days) and the accuracy of these. On this occasion, I believe criticism is warranted and therefore should be allowed on a forum discussing the severe winds last night, the impacts of these and the warnings or lack of.

But a warning of some description does help local authorities with making preperations for the aftermath. Obviously a blob on a map is not going to make any difference to the behaviour of most, but it does show that the Met Office are actually taking account of what is going on on the ground and the impacts that it is having on the safety of people. No warning suggests no impacts and yet there are very widespread impacts today with no warnings whatsoever. Gusts of sixty plus miles per hour in the Midlands/ East Anglia are noteworthy and very rare for the area, probably a once every three to four years type of thing

If you have look at the travel news section of bbc website for Norfolk and Suffolk then you will see chaos on roads. Multiple closures for tree falls/ fallen cables/ concrete blocks on roads yet nothing warning wise. The Met Office clearly need to be more reactive when issuing warnings sometimes using more real time data! http://www.bbc.co.uk/travelnews/suffolk

Last night was an unbelievably windy night. I live on the top floor of an apartment block in centric Nottingham. The wind was roaring the whole night. I think the warnings last night were shambles; it appears widespread gusts were over seventy miles an hour, higher in some areas that did not even have an amber alert. Do the met office not have people who can react to these kinds of things in real time? The red warning is Scotland was issued after the worst winds had hit scotland, ESP the Glasgow area, and then hours of severe and worst gusts, were recorded, yet nothing changed to their forecasts online or on tv. You only have to look at the BBC travel website to see how widespread the fallen trees are this morning, over turned lorries, fallen cables etc

Yes very odd that there is not a wind warning out at all for large parts of the north west of england.the yellow warning for most of that area is for rain rather than wind when you look at the map. Gusts of seventy miles an hour are severe. Meanwhile in nottm the wind is howling.

I guess if these winds had occurred during daylight hours then they may have used the amber warning for some areas.

I live in central Nottingham on 6 th floor of an apartment block exposed to the westerly wind. It is blowing far far more violently than it was yesterday!!

Well 2 evenings in a row, ECM has produced interesting charts around 216-240. Will be interesting to see if they Move forwards towards the 168 range. So, definitely signs a change could happen around mid month but no guarantees as yet!

The gfs has been showing this for ages, but there has been a persistence of this pattern for a long time now, high pressure to the south and low pressure to the north. 2nd mildest autumn on record 2nd mildest November on record Mildest October to December on record Very mild 2nd half to December The only period where this pattern was broken was at the start of December Therefore the gfs can't be criticised for showing the same pattern for run after run when broadly speaking it has been correct with the pattern of high to the south and low to the north

I guess there are more signs of a change in around ten days time, than there have been, as there have been a few more interesting charts in the range around 240 hrs. However, these interesting charts are still very inconsistent so nothing can really be pinned on them. I'll be interested in what the cet will be in a weeks time.. It could be a particularly mild first ten days of the year as the cet after three days is at 7.8 which is way above average ( caveat that anomalies are exaggerated during first period of a month)

Well of course they do, but then again they were caught out with wind speeds of this system by about twenty miles per hour when they were forecasting seventy to eighty for Scotland and got ninety to a hundred. I was actually more thinking about my understanding of the strong winds of today.

I think it was quite lucky that it was a bank holiday so schools werent open in Scotland. A few weeks ago the Met Office issued a red warning and schools were shut for the day, or closed at lunchtime, and gusts across the really populated areas were a lot lower than today. Today, the red warning came out as the event was happening as the Met Office realised gusts were widespread above 90mph. It is just as well, that the school run was not happening as the consequences could have been far worse! Normally I am a big supporter of the Met Office but I think they were a bit slow of the mark with todays event, also not having at least yellow alerts for the whole of England, as trees were downed across large areas of the country that were not under any warnings. This is especially true as a few people on here were warning that winds could be much higher than the models were showing due to the sting jet phenomenon. It goes to show that tightness of isobars is not the only thing when forecasting winds; deepening of pressure systems as well as interaction with the jet are important factors that are less clear cut. It makes me wonder how bad the mega storm that never happened would have been if it had hit our shores as modelled 5 days in advance. However, at least this Winter is giving some interest with regards to high winds and this miust be linked to the strength of the Polar Vortex

This mid month change is still not really showing up in the models. Yes, a cooling trend towards average is likely to occur (which will feel cooler when the CET for 2nd half of December was 6.8 degrees C courtesy of Philip Eden's excellent site) but there is a background of low heights to the North, a strong vortex and persistent high pressure to the South; much as we have had for a while now. To me, people are searching for signs to validate forecasts made by high profile people on the site and that seems like trying to force square pegs into round holes.

Well done to the posters who expected this to the big one! It does not look as bad on some of the charts as some of the past low pressures to hit Scotland, but the fact it is rapidly deepening has led to very widespread damaging gusts. The red warning seems to be a little late from the met office, ESP when they were so prompt with issuing one a few weeks ago; perhaps they underestimated this system a little!

Well I think there is a slow change to the overall pattern, in terms of things settling down from the end of the week, and probably cooling off towards some frosts. However, I can't see any signs of any snow for lowland England and wales in the next two weeks at least! Infact, the weather might become a bit dull after thisvstormy period this week!

Probably the best charts of the winter produced by the 6 z g f s.... A much less intense polar vortex and signs of northern blocking though the main cold plunge misses us to the east! However, more encouraging for a colder second half of January!

Well the charts show a continuation of the unsettled zonal theme of recent weeks with a mixture of very mild days and cooler days. Tuesday looks like a very blowy day for all of the uk although the worst conditions as ever over scotland. The polar vortex looks as much of a beast as ever on the g f s this morning whilst the other models paint much the same picture in the period up to day ten.

Up to about day 10 it is more of the same. Mild zonal interspersed with cooler zonal periods. Due to a lack of frosty nights, temperatures overall will be above average although it will feel cool in strong winds. There is potentially a stormy spell of weather on Tuesday, though precise locations of the worst areas to be hit are open to debate at the moment. After day 10, then perhaps a small change, more settled perhaps... However it does seem we are a long, long way from anything approaching even a sniff of lowland snow in England and wales.

Yes, a change in the text from the met office.. Mentioning a return to temperatures close to average or slightly below by the end of the forecast period ( pretty much end of January). Reading between the lines, as stated above, high pressure close by to the uk.

Meanwhile there looks like there could be another storm approaching for Tuesday. Hopefully, this one will produce some interesting weather; the potential is there for it to cause high winds across a wider area but the tracks of these storms can be difficult to predict until the last minute!

Polar low- I don't know why you describe it as a tired old script... They are producing the same extended outlook as there is no real sign of a pattern change. I think their forecasts have been great in the extended range recently.. Very consistent and accurate... And the conditions on the ground have been reflected in their forecasts as they have been very average and what is generally to be expected in a uk winter. They keep on producing the same forecasts as all the models point in that direction. Also, someone has just posted about the ECM 32 day run pointing to mild and then just above average which further backs up their ideas.

The models paint a very consistent picture this morning. It is very zonal and IAn Brown is right to call it that way, and to state that it is very difficult to get out of such a pattern. I would suggest the cet for the first half of january will be well above average. Although the weather has been unsettled this month, I don't think there has been anywhere near enough rainfall to alleviate potential drought problems next summer, especially as we are due a half decent summer soon!!

I think the most telling thing for me this winter is the complete lack of eye candy in the later reaches of models. Even in milder winters gfs can be relied on for some stella charts in the post 300 output, yet I can't recall seeing an operational with anything like dream synoptics! For me, I can't see a quick way to cold. Maybe the last ten days of January will deliver something, but we have an awful lots of changes that need to happen to make this possible, and these changes dnt happen quickly in my opinion!

One reason for a big spread on the ensembles could be simply due to being in different cycles of a zonal flow.. Either in the middle of a warm sector or post cold front. It does not always mean a modelmis struggling!

Completely agree with JH... The broad pattern of westerly winds is clearly set for next two weeks at least. And the met office obviously have no clear signs of any huge change mid January due to the very average updates they are issuing for mid January onwards. The idea they they lag behind is daft! The one consistent thing this winter has been the absolute lack of interesting charts on view offering cold solutions, or cold updates from the Met. We have not even seen good northerly blasts modelled... Everything looks very average... We are due a mild boring winter after the past three.. Maybe this will be the winter that occurs