Cheshire Freeze

Hi SQ. In Belfast at the minute

I'm not going to complain about having an extra day off work if it transpires

I'm flying back to Manchester at 9ish pm and fully expect the flight to be cancelled due to the winds and the small size of the plane used. City airport only has one runway. I don't think taking off or landing in 70 mph crosswinds will be an option.

To be fair, if you're going to forecast average-mild then you're going to be correct 80% of the time. A no brainer really. I'll be more impressed when he singles out a cold winter.

Ahhhh ok wrong area then! Yeah my Grandad always used to mention to me about the old cattle market that used to be there, as you say, right across the road from Crewe Alex stadium. I think it has been gone for some time!

Which part of Cheshire, c? My grandparents owned a large farm on S Cheshire border and I know local farmers all tend to know each other!

Well that certainly isn't a pattern we want to see repeating as we head into winter!

The GLOSEA is a very good model. I'd be surprised, if after consistently calling for a late autumn/winter +NAO, if the opposite of what it is showing occurs. I just can't see it. This winter, I'm pinning my hopes on NW'ly polar maritime incursions in the lee of depressions. Not seen a proper Cheshire gap streamer for years!

I read something about this last week. Are we facing another E QBO that fails to establish?

Actually, you are not far off with assessment. I believe that there has been research done on this very topic and I think the main consensus was that the high pressure belt is expanding northwards.

So, given this, what do you expect early doors this year then? I can only see anything more than a moderate nina being detrimental to our winter chances.

I think what we don't want to see is no Pacific forcing at all. Last winter we saw such a sluggish mid latitude HP scenario and I'm guessing that was, in part, caused by ENSO neutral. I also believe that a strong ENSO event is of detriment to UK winter chances. Weak to moderate events seem to be the most conducive to our winter chances. I think it's also readily accepted by the pros that 2010-2011 could have been a record cold winter for the UK had La Nina not been so strong as it overwhelmed the background blocking signal throughout January and February. Without, I think 2010/2011 could have rivalled '62/'63. I can remember John Hammond doing a piece on the BBC news saying the atmosphere was in a blocked state and they expected it to stay that way so I think it was clear the strong La Nina affected the general NH state during the last half/two thirds of winter.

I wonder if what we are seeing unfold strat wise is the reason for the rapid flipping of the CFS from a consistent zonal winter forecast to a more blocked one? Will be intriguing to see what the next updates of the GLOSEA and EC seasonal show.

To put it simply I think it's all down to airmass. Warmer sourced air on Sunday which has more potential to hold water vapour- this together with trough not too far to the west would account for what you're seeing in the output. The flow would have to back slightly more continental to have a drying effect on the airmass. I would also think the shallow troughing over mainland Europe would have some effect.

Without wanting to veer too far away from all things strat, the long rangers are actually improving ever so slightly in as much as they are incrementally inching mean troughing further S&E with a better polar height profile. I've gone from write off territory to 'oh we may see a couple of N'ly topplers' Will be more interesting if the trend can gain traction over the next 6-8 weeks.

Last winter, in terms of the UK, none of the models covered themselves in glory. In fact from memory, the GFS was ahead of the ECM (and it's longer range modelling) many times....anyone remember the phantom Euro troughing that never materialised? So whilst the ECM may be the best globally, it's less clear cut for the UK.

It came on all of a sudden here. Getting the odd buffeting every now and then which seems to rattle the house.

You should start to see winds pick up in next half hour or so

Wind is howling here now, seemingly out of nowhere.

It has been a year or two since I last posted it on the forum so what the hell...

Time to bring out this gem

@lassie23 they've chosen to use your name I now pronounce you famous. All hail storm Larry

Would certainly put the kibosh on proceedings. Is the sun about to fool everyone again?

Looks to me like the -QBO is descending at a faster rate than any of those years, with 1993 perhaps being the closest match. Also, wasn't '78 a +QBO winter? According to this it was https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/qbo.data

Perhaps the forecasts RE solar activity have all been wrong and we're heading into a new cycle which is already starting to ramp up? IIRC someone did say a few months back they weren't sure whether or not the polarity had already been reversed and what we were seeing were new cycle sunspots. Then again I know very little about these things.