Kentish Kiwi

25C only breached in mid-July? Wouldn't that be some kind of record? (I don't have any idea, just seems like it would be remarkable/depressing)

Have been following this intently since news came through. A truely horrible event and quite possibly New Zealand worst ever natural disaster... Thoughts go out to all those in Christchurch, particularly those who have lost loved ones.

I dont think it would go out to Autumn yet would it?

+24C?! That really is an insane 850hPa anomaly, gut instinct would tell me its an error... Imagine if we had that in the UK much of a difference in the UK during the winter - an average of around 0C, we'd be looking at -24C if negative and +24C if positive?! Or am I misreading the charts? And is North America really that much above average at the moment? (ie widely +8 and up to +20 in parts?)

I would have said the opposite and that it shows severe cold weather in the winter is harder to get than notable heat in the summer, and this is therefore reflected in the averages...?

Cheers for this J07, appreciate your continued inputs on this forum. Thought I might just add my post from your NZ weather thread (hadn't seen this thread): Record heat (for a specific location) in New Zealand yesterday, with Timaru hitting 40.3C after hovering around 39C for most of the day (remarkably only two degrees below the 42C that Sydney recorded yesterday), beating its previous record of 39.7C from February 1973. All this is associated with the same heat that's been hitting Sydney and NSW, which mirrors the heatwave of 1973 almost to the day and with similar conditions. Sydney saw its hottest night on record at 27.6C which beats it previous record (also from 1973) by over a degree (26.6C). The 40.3C isn't the hottest NZ nationwide has ever seen though, that goes to Rangiora & North Canterbury in the aforementioned 1973 heatwave, where temperatures climbed to a sizzling 42.4C. So possibly the hottest temperature recorded in New Zealand for almost 40 years... Temperatures around, or just below, 30 were widespread in the upper North Island (significant due to the coastal proximity and high humidity), with mid to upper 30's relatively common along the east coasts of both islands. What was also particularly notable was that morning temperatures where significant - mid 30's by 10am in some locations according to unofficial stations - but conditions that unfolded throughout the day such as stubborn high cloud limited the ultimate high for the day. A few news articles about the heat: http://www.weatherwa...ks-record-books http://www.nzherald....jectid=10704525 http://www.stuff.co....grees-in-Timaru Unofficial reports: http://www.weatherwa...t-where-you-are Official daily highs across New Zealand: http://www.weatherwa...-national-highs In regards to the associated heat across Sydney: http://www.weatherwa...d-long-heatwave

Record heat (for a specific location) in New Zealand yesterday, with Timaru hitting 40.3C after hovering around 39C for most of the day (remarkably only two degrees below the 42C that Sydney recorded yesterday), beating its previous record of 39.7C from February 1973. All this is associated with the same heat that's been hitting Sydney and NSW, which mirrors the heatwave of 1973 almost to the day and with similar conditions. Sydney saw its hottest night on record at 27.6C which beats it previous record (also from 1973) by over a degree (26.6C). The 40.3C isn't the hottest NZ nationwide has ever seen though, that goes to Rangiora & North Canterbury in the aforementioned 1973 heatwave, where temperatures climbed to a sizzling 42.4C. Temperatures around, or just below, 30 were widespread in the upper North Island (significant due to the coastal proximity and high humidity), with mid to upper 30's relatively common along the east coasts of both islands. What was also particularly notable was that morning temperatures where significant - mid 30's by 10am in some locations according to unofficial stations - but conditions that unfolded throughout the day such as stubborn high cloud limited the ultimate high for the day. A few news articles about the heat: http://www.weatherwa...ks-record-books http://www.nzherald....jectid=10704525 http://www.stuff.co....grees-in-Timaru Unofficial reports: http://www.weatherwa...t-where-you-are Official daily highs across New Zealand: http://www.weatherwa...-national-highs In regards to the associated heat across Sydney: http://www.weatherwa...d-long-heatwave

And the jet-stream?

Are those mean wind speeds? (ie 90mph+ for Shetland, with some significantly higher gusts?)

Certainly looks very nasty, although I am finding the following of it very exciting/awe-inspiring. Still, not good to see some of the worst flooding in living memory followed up by possibly the worst cyclone to make landfall in Queensland for several generations or more. Going to give huge amounts of ammunition to global warming campaigners (whether deserved or not), but to argue against that I suppose you've got to expect extreme weather when an almost 'record breakingly' strong La Nina occurs at the height of the summer/wet season in the southern hemisphere (and for extreme snow events such as that which is occurring in the US when it coincides with the height of the continental winter). One query I have though is, is this cyclone actually going to be making a direct hit on those places that faced the worst of the flooding last month? Or was the core of those floods further south, i.e. more towards Brisbane? If the floods where indeed just as bad further north towards Cairns and Townsville then the flooding is surely going to be catastrophic around coastal areas...

A mean of 25C is pretty impressive, would be interesting to see what the NZ equivalent record of that is, I'd be pretty confident it would be higher of course but I doubt there would be something that could be fairly compared with the CET (ie the central core of New Zealand), or something with such an extent of historical data. Yeah, I experienced an overnight low of 29C in the south of Portugal last summer after a high at the top of the 30's, without air conditioning. Was pretty nasty, but you'd be surprised at how much of a difference a prolonged cold shower straight before bed, followed by two fans pointing directly at your body can help...

Would I be right in my thinking that the Polar Vortex has hit/is forecast to hit a level of strength and organisation that hasn't been seen since pre-2008/2009?

Light soft hail/graupel shower here at the moment, the kind that bounces slightly when it hits the ground. Seems to be a little bit of convection building through the Thames Estuary?

Seems to me that there needs to be a pretty huge swing in the models in a relatively short space of time to see anything close to what MB predicted...

Some amazing photo's on Weatherwatch, NZ Herald and Stuff today. Looks like a genuine (although relatively small-scale) storm surge went through. Can't remember seeing anything like that along the Waterfront or North-Western Motorway for the 12 years I lived in St Heliers. Although granted I probably only have memory from about 5 of those years... Quotes from my cousin on Facebook who lives at Eastern beach, says its the first time they've seen it like that: "So the motorway was closed because the waves were breaking on it. Huh, well it's a king tide tonight (extra high high tide) so a walk to the beach might be in order. Also, I have a photo on my phone of eastern beach showing how the waves have eroded the bank and almost took on of the chairs (and the cement block it is bolted to) into the ocean with it." "Well, it's chaos down there, the whole grass bank is f****d, most of the trees will have fallen by morning [not so sure that's entirely true] and there's at least 4 benches in the ocean on concrete slabs. The council will not be happy." Insane rainfall warnings from the MetService two days ago, probably would have been looking at a record had it been the UK? - "The state owned forecaster says Auckland can now expect between 150 and 250mm across much of the region. Earlier today they predicted 100 to 200mm. Rainfall predictions for Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty are up to between 350 and 400mm." Thankfully they were downgraded considerably, although I believe recordings of around 100mm was still relatively common? That amount of rainfall is incredible (400mm is significant anywhere in the world) and flooding surely would have been far worse and not just restricted to windward coastal areas if it had verified. A few of articles about the event (with loads of photos): http://weatherwatch.co.nz/content/photos-7-your-storm-photos http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10701630 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4572485/Wet-wet-wet-but-worst-weather-over A few of photos: Pretty nice one of the storm surge and the ocean lapping across the road: Normally a road: KK.

I posted this on the 1st of the month and it doesn't seem too far off at all. A couple of degrees more - 4.3 - seems a pretty solid guess at this stage I would have thought? Events in the stratosphere have gone the opposite of what I had hoped, so from that moment on my guess was effectively bust.

Quite a few reports on facebook about snow in Tunbridge Wells, havent seen any at my location though.

I think the point is that synoptically MB's forecast could verify absolutely perfectly and yet the forecast wind speeds could still be off the mark. A question for MB, just to clear things up, what do you actually mean when you refer to 'Gradient wind speeds'? How do these differ from actual surface wind speeds and gusts (if at all)?

Well, to be honest it seems pretty obvious he cares what others think. If he didn't and he was simply testing out his methods entirely for his own means, he wouldn't post it on various forums and welcome feedback, but rather keep such things to himself before it enters a more refined stage that he could be completely confident in and not label 'experimental'. It's fair enough that he wants to hear others opinions on the matter, and it also allows him to take credit if his forecast turns out to be significantly accurate. If he didn't post the forecast somewhere prior to the event and instead posted his results and accuracy after the forecast period had past, many would be extremely skeptical of how truthful/believable it was. This way, if he nails the forecast, no-one will be able to call him up on it, in terms of his integrity. Just to clear up, this is no way an attack against MurcieBoy or what he is doing. (Just a disclaimer before someone misunderstands the point I'm trying to put across and jumps on me for it.)

LS, isn't the GFS 12z operational for the 31st, as posted further up the page, closer to MB's forecast than any of the permutations you've just posted? Woahhh, excuse me? No need for that kind of hostility, maybe you need to look in the mirror before saying some people take things too seriously... I wasn't even saying I particularly agree with RJS, just trying to clear up that I didn't think his comments were intended to be offensive, from my point of view it was positive gesture to go through the effort of offering to perform an independent verification, based on an arguably unbiased 'scoring system', for MB's forecast. Obviously, MurcieBoy is well within his rights to do whatever he wants to in regards to his methods of how he presents, tests and validates his forecast, and I for one am very excited to see the results which are hopefully more conclusive than his Christmas day attempt. However, I agree with others that the projected wind speeds are probably unrealistic and this may count against the overall accuracy of his forecast and what people perceive of it, although if the synoptic pattern turned out to be very similar and the storm itself of a very severe nature, I'm sure people wont care too much about how accurate the exact wind speeds were. On the other hand if such wind speeds as MB has predicted were to verify (an extremely rare occurrence) it really would be a remarkable piece of forecasting, and will almost completely remove any claims of 'luck' being a factor in his (potential) accuracy. The next step would be consistency. Anyway, a lot of this bickering is very tiresome and is in my opinion derailing MB's thread. Surely it will be far more productive to flesh out some of these discussions after the actual time/event in question has come.

Exactly what I was thinking. Its remarkable how far south the snow is over the USA. It's not just the gulf stream though is it, another probably rather significant factor is the predominant south-westerlies NWern Europe experiences due to the Jet Stream. I get the feeling that even if the oceans to our west were that bit cooler, we would probably still be mild for our latitude.

Rather breezy out today...

To be fair MurcieBoy, I don't think RJS's comment really deserved such a hostile retort. When I read it I didn't notice any particular malice at all, I get the feeling you might be a little too jumpy/over-defensive after what people have said on other forums. Such a state shouldn't really be neccessary on this board, especially given the relatively warm reception you've received on here. If anything RJS was just showing concern for you and your forecast in that if it fails significantly, although you'll see it as an oppourtunity to see where you went wrong and improve upon your method, many others won't be quite so accepting/patient to say the least. Which is why he just thought it might have been a SAFER idea to pre-test your forecasting method before putting it on offer to the public on this forum. (Not saying I neccessarily agree with him but I can't really see any negative intent in what he wrote.)

Possibly, but the vast majority of precipitation I received before the post-Christmas thaw was convective. Its just that the convection was as a result of an extended Thames streamer that set-up and at least in my location it produced prolonged spells of convective precipitation (genuinely 72 hours non-stop) and copious amounts of cloud cover, with very little in the way of 'sunshine and showers' as you might expect from such a set-up (from what I can vaguely remember at least). On reflection though I'd be inclined to agree with your summary of 'mainly frontal' precip/cloud in the south as a general explanation, I certainly can't think of any other reason behind what seems to be quite a significant correlation, at least on the surface.

Central pressure of 1075 mb... That's not that far off the highest ever recorded (equivalent) sea level of 1085.6 mb which was recorded in Mongolia during December 2001. Incredible to see such extreme high pressure almost exactly where we would want to see it (for cold in the UK).