Kentish Kiwi

I've got a pinky looking sky here and frost under cloud but no sign of snow...

Have to say this has been a welcome lightener to my mood. Hopefully we'll see Steve Murr in here later to give us a localised run down on what to expect once the 18z has come through... He did say he would be active on this sub-forum from Sunday night onwards, but maybe the downgrades through today have rather dampened those sentiments!

Seems like the writings on the wall for this cold spell from +96h onwards. High too far east, no undercut and northern arm of the jet sinks everything and heartbreaking leaves us in south-westerlies. Things could well change overnight but I personally feel I've had enough false hope... It's becoming too tiring and realistically there's only one way things are trending. If anyone here is reading the model thread and wondering who to put faith in, I'd say Kold Weather is calling things most sensibly and has been for the last few days: Still, we get a decent enough ESE/E/ENE flow before everything completely sinks, so there's a possibility we may get some reasonable convective snow showers off the North Sea later in the week. The positive thing is that it any precipitation past Wednesday is unlikely to be marginal, even on the coastline.

12z's have made me feel a little sick. There was always still a long way to go to get a proper easterly but we may well be looking down the barrel of one of the biggest downgrades in Netweather's history. Need to see a complete U-turn in the trend from the the ECM 12z and GFS 18z to save things in my opinion. Considering how the winter's been so far, a few cold, dry days just wouldn't cut it for me.

If the ECM was to verify exactly (obviously this is unlikely) then things the cold will be extreme and certainly a major health-risk to the elderly etc. A long way to go till that point though and things aren't even certain past +72h yet.

Not entirely sure what you are asking there... But the cold spell is most definitely still on, a way to go yet but with two of the major models in relative agreement at +120h things are looking about as good as you could hope. The only fly in the ointment is that easterlies from Russian/Scandinavian highs retrogressing westwards are notoriously difficult to model and there are many obstacles that could completely derail the cold on it's journey towards the UK. Still far from 'in the bag' but certainly a positive outlook at this time.

I think it's quite obvious it would be cooler if it were moved further south in latitude but I'm not sure it would be a 'hell of a lot colder'. The maritime climate limits the potential for extremes in temperatures and as such I don't think Auckland (wedged between a large sea and the largest ocean in the world) would be that cold or that much colder. It would certainly be milder in the winter than the SE of England due to the lack of a relatively nearby continental influence, more comparable to the south-west coast of Ireland and possibly milder still. As TWS explained, the longer sunlight hours in the winter is not a viable explanation for the difference between NZ and the UK. I'm certainly not an expert on this and I'm just employing my general knowledge of the New Zealand's climate, but I don't think it does spend a relatively high amount of time under polar maritime airmasses. I may be wrong but I would have thought a direct westerly (as you say, the prevailing wind direction) would be far more Tm than Pm, given the latitude, particularly when you move into the top of the North Island. I would also say NWerlies are somewhat more common than SWerlies (particularly in the SI), so possibly WNW is a more apt description of the prevailing wind. Although it's worth noting that the majority of my experiences are from Auckland which has a borderline sub-tropical climate and thus may be rather unrepresentative. Precipitation in the summer certainly does seem to come from a higher proportion of convective rainfall, over frontal, in comparison to where I live in the SE now, but I'm inclined to think this is a result of warmer sea temperatures and a much more powerful sun, rather than the air-mass being 'bright showery polar maritime', even in the winter. The summers particularly can be very stagnant, humid and sultry, giving rise to convection. It's also worth noting that this convective summer rainfall season lasts significantly longer than it does in the UK, which I would have thought is significant in that convective rainfall = more sunlight hours than frontal rainfall. The clear high pressures in the summer are possibly a big factor. In Northern New Zealand in the summer you can usually rely on the sun to burn off any residual cloud under high pressures, particularly in the east and inland, and this is noticeable right through to the end of April, which I believe must be a result of the much stronger sun. The 'burning off' of cloud is definitely far less noticeable and reliable in the UK in my experience, although less noticeable in Auckland than many other areas of NZ.

I'm not really sure how it's particularly relevant to this thread but continuing that theme; Nelson (or Blenheim), at the top of the South Island in New Zealand records similar, often over 2,500 hours a year. Locations along the East Coast of the North Island can also occassionally take the top spot with over 2,500 hours and in 2008 Whakatane recorded a highly contentious 2,700 (although many believe this is due to faulty equipment). Even Auckland averages 2,100 hours a year, which is rather surprising given that the locals regularly complain about how cloudy it is...

That high looks absolutely massive. I mean it stretches from Scandinavia, down to the Mediterranean and right around through Eurasia to Alaska, although the middle section may only be a surface high with low geopotential heights... Nevertheless, high pressure basically covers the entire Eurasian supercontinent. Is such a feature common at this time of year? It certainly looks imposing enough to impact on our weather.

There was an SSW in February 2010??

Maybe you missed it?

Well that was certainly something! A proper squall. Very good storm for this area.

That must have been the gust mentioned on Breakfast. Pretty incredible, I was struggling while walking to work early this morning and gusts would have only been around 45mph!

Just heard on BBC Breakfast that gusts at Edinburgh Airport have topped 102mph??

The effects of a potent, and what I've been lead to believe is a double-wave, La Nina?

I guess you'll probably find it wasn't the second warmest year going by Scottish records, especially given that January and December were notably cooler in Scotland than England, and, as you say, the September/October heat wasn't felt properly that far North.

What about late September/October?

If you don't think that chart shows some cold potential and is therefore encouraging for those looking for cold, you are kidding yourself. Here an attachment of the chart for future reference: I think it's mainly because a few well-respected forecasters (such as GP and Chiono) have been looking at mid-January onwards as a time period for cold to set in for a while now and also possibly because of the time lag effect of the stratosphere, which has shown signs of warming recently...

3.5C please. Slightly above average first third/half cancelled out by a cold end to the month...

I'd appreciate it if you stopped saying 'we' call it the deep fried sprouts. I don't. You're really only one of the few that champion it... It's potentially quite misleading. Cheers.

Thought I may as well add this just as another example (even though it's not going to eventuate).

What kind of weather patterns can we expect to experience in the UK with height rises over Canada?

Good to see him back into it... Hopefully he's enjoying it and finding a change in the local climatic peculiarities interesting. I wonder how he's being received by the NZ public?

I think you're misunderstanding the direction of the flow Robbie? The Jet wouldn't travel south and then south-west on the western side of the high, it would travel NE and then E across the Atlantic. The Jet at the very bottom of the chart is actually returning on the southern side of the high, traveling back west over the Atlantic... Or have I misunderstood the point of your post...?

But I thought C had said the 2009 warming was a downwelling event? Didn't that SSW impact the troposphere almost immediately?