Cheshire Freeze

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.

Actually, N Atlantic blocking as shown above is exactly what I want to see. There is a historic correlation between this blocking in September and N blocking during winter.

I think you're being very generous calling that convection. Shallow convection at best.

A lovely, fresh 17C here today. Miles better than the heat of yesterday. Roll on autumn proper!

Yeah... 'New data'? How much new data can you have after 33 years?

Unfortunately (and it's nothing but experience talking here), when long range modelling converges on a mild outlook, a mild outlook is what we tend to get. Models tend to do very well modelling zonal driven regimes and there is usually only small margins of error in the output. If there was large variability between the main long range forecasting tools and the opinions of the pros then you could argue that attempting to forecast the upcoming winter is futile...however there isn't and I think it's a fairly straight forward call this year sadly.

This is something that Gavin P has touched upon in one of his videos (last year I think it was). It was historically the case that N Atlantic/Greenland blocking during autumn is allied to a heightened chance of this repeating during the winter.

It's not solely about the conditions in September though per se. It's setting it in context to the mumblings I'm hearing from the pros and the likes of the GLOSEA and CFS output. When you assemble it all together it's grim looking.

Those two models are in complete and utter agreement...right down to the finer details of pressure placement. It really doesn't bode well at all IMO and they would both promote the chance of a record warm winter month occurring. I would be really quite happy to be proved wrong though!

Maybe so Kev, but it seems to me that from memory recent Septembers have featured a dry, settled spell at some point after a changeable summer. I really think we may see at least one month this winter break a temperature record (and not for the right reason).

Indeed, I think the winter is relatively straight forward to forecast this year...certainly no cold ramping from me! (see my post above).

To me, the charts are suggestive of it settling down, just in time for September. Happens almost every year and IMO doesn't bode well for the forthcoming winter as this is the same pattern we've been stuck in for the past few years.

Yep, had the same here

GFS was always keen

Hahahahaha oh how I've missed this

OMG bright flash and boom!!!! I'm out of NSC!!!