kold weather

This winter already into the top 60 wettest ever across the EWP zone upto 11th, so several weeks left and whilst perhaps mot thar stormy looking, there are a few weak-moderate fronts looking baked into the next 10 days. Basically this winter has just been extended autumn, mild, borderline exceptionally wet, and at times windy, without being *really* windy for most..

In Absence of True Seasons Whats interesting about last summer is the best analogue we had was probably 1957 with regards to the development of the El Nino and that had a barnstorming June followed by a wet fart of a July/August, which isn't too far from how it evolved last year in the end. Of course the September hot spell was a nice little bonus. @damianslaw I'd imagine where you are yes February can never feel spring like. I'd argue close to the south coast though by the time your through mid month it absolutely can feel like Spring, albeit early of course! February 19 felt extremely spring like as probably the best example when I stayed on the south coast for that week.

SunSean probably because there are just a metric shedload more warm records than cold records, I think globally its currently running something like 10-12x more warm than cold so of course its going to seem like the warmer stuff is getting the attention because there just is more of it. Anyways hopefully February can be one of those split months because temperature wise its probably more akin to March than February for the first 7-10 days, though with probably a fair amount of cloud probably won't feel all that great even if the temperatures are well above normal.

Had a CET of 3.2c, though I do admit down here (i'm a similar location to the poster) it really was no great shakes, though the Jan 21 snow event performed ok locally, and indeed was the last meaningful snow to have fallen here, though we had quite a few slight dustings since. Regardless, this is another month to add to the above 61-90 bank, 24 out of 25 now, will probably be close to average but on the above side for the 91-20 average.

Very noticeable shift towards somewhat lighter evenings now, albeit one that has been briefly amplified by clear skies. With that being said even on cloudy days I'd imagine it will be more noticeable now compared to a month ago. Within a couple of weeks the mornigs will also start to improve quickly as well, though still a little ways to go before it will be light at getting up time.

Even in April you can have warm days but your still going to be subject to outright chilly nights still. I remember in 2007 having wonderfully warm days (probably the best we'd have that year, or close to it anyways!) but there still at times being a touch of frost very first thing. By about 10am though it was rapidly warming. A classic jumper to T-shirt type day. @raz.org.rain hate to say it but that was nearly the ideal set-up for the southern coastal part of the UK, it just needed the whole 50-100 miles further north and thats a 10-20cm event across the south. Who knows how long we will need to wait for another ideal evolution. I'm sure at some point we will scrape a decent fall from a less than ideal set-up. And yes, I'm aware some places did well in Dec 22, but locally its feeling increasingly likely this will be the third winter straight with nothing of note, though at least unlike the spell between 04-07 we do seem capable of getting sub zero CET days, that spell was painfully hard to even get for more than the odd day here and there.

Both Tuesday and Thursday at the moment are looking exceptionally mild days. The January daily record of 12.7c looks on the very top end of whats possible based on a fairly mobile atlantic shifting airmasses but I wouldn't be surprised if one of those days ends up in the top 10 ranking of all time. Beyond next Friday a signal is emerging for HP to lift up somewhat and may introduce a somewhat cooler flow, though it has to be said most are cooler, rather than cold for the last few days which probably limits the extent of any falls from that point, especially as we won't be super high to begin with.

Nothing, my mistake because SS said 3.6 to the 16th, but that figure is actually upto the 17th as you rightly say. Could well still get down about 3c though as you say. I suspect somewhere between 4.5-5.5c is looking like the eventual landing spot, towards the cooler end if we do see a bend back towards average or even a little below like the latest set of runs, or closer to 5.5c if we blow torch through to the end. Pretty likely still we end up with an above average 61-90 month, though a very cold end could run it close.

That really was an absurd period looking back at the stats. Coming during a period where summer temperatures were lower as a whole anyways makes it even more so. As impressive as the dry spells of 18 and 22 were, neither managed such a prolonged heatwave, even if 22 was able to go nuclear with that 40c in July and 18 be consistently good for a nearly absurd length of time.

This cold spell will 99% kill any chances of breaking a record for the warmest 2nd half of January, I will leave the tiny chance just because this a record warm world and you can't ever be certain of these things. With that being said to reach 2002 2nd half of Jan (which was exceptionally mild) would require the last 14 days of this month to now reach 8.8c as an average, and obviously the next two-three days will be dramatically below that, so the final figure will be north of 10c vs 2002. The warmest 2nd half I can see just through eye appears to be 1846, with a 16-31st coming in at 8.3c. That would require a 2 week mean of 9.5c from todays figure onward. By Sunday we'd require something like a top 5 all time Jan CET day level of warmth to match the 2nd half of 1846, 11 days is a row.... I agree though it does look very mild from Sun until at least Wed-Thurs, beyond that considerably more uncertainty. We may well be see a date record fall on Tuesday, though 1843 has an exceptionally high value of 11,6c to beat which won't be easy given that number is very high up the all time rankings.

Should be comfortably subzero today. Could well have a CET near 2.5c by 20th (probably between 2.5-3c) , which would require probably the most exceptional mild spell ever seen in January to get upto 6c+. With that being said, we are going to have some very mild days coming up so we should still end up comfortably above the 61-90 mean. The 91-20 mean will be tighter if the GFS is correct with a more average final few days,

I think that was the last one, so coming up to 6 years since we had one on the CET series.

2010 really was amazing. It was severely below the long term mean, probably similar level of severity vs the mean as the legendary months of the past (Feb 47, Jan 63, etc) given background warming since then and the fact it was in December, a month with a higher mean anyways) It was well over 5c below normal in the CET zone. Sadly we will probably never see a month so extreme vs the mean in winter in our lifetimes, even without climate change raising the baseline ever further up. So to expect another month even in the same league is asking for failure. For now, I'd just settle for one CET day to be record cold in some aspect, just feels like mission impossible these days. We came close in Dec 22, but ultimately coming close doesn't win the prize.

Pretty much bang on average over much of the south upto the 15th. Obviously will drop below over the next 4 days but the following 10 days really do look mild, at times maybe even exceptionally so. I've few doubts we will be much warmer than say Jan 2021 which ended up being a modestly cold month across much of the UK (actually colder than Dec 22, again due to Dec 22 having a similarly very mild spell to one upcoming.)

Really strong signal for something very mild coming up in the final 10 days, we can hope they are overextending it but thats about as strong a signal as your likely to get sadly. This synoptically screams record breaking over a 10 day period to me, though if we can get the core of the HP close enough to at least the south that may allow a drier airmass and possibly less cloud cover at night which will limit how high we could go. It probably will feel spring like outside of periods with higher winds, despite the low sun.

Whatever happens we roll onto yet another month above the 61-90 average, makes it 24 out of the last 25. Starting to become statistically quite striking.

Well after possible suggestions of a below 61-90 month, the models coming into pretty impressive agreement on a mild, probably very mild flow for a time which will probably push us above the 61-90 average again, perhaps comfortably so. The modern average will be a little closer unless we go very mild pretty much nonstop.

If you want to have a visual of the way I think we are going to move forward look no further than the control run GFS. Probably going to have a 7-10 day spell of very mild, maybe exceptionally so. Beyond that though I think we will see more and more high pressure building up through Europe and lift up. Hopefully we can shift the whole thing far enough to benefit from any retrograde opportunity that may present itself, even if the window isn't long.

I think the other thing that warrants it is there are ensemble members and the occasional operational model still making it into at least parts of the south. Interestingly the ARPEGE ensembles have swung northwards considerably in its most recent run. Its a classic low chance but high impact scenario, and I'm willing to bet the met office already have a yellow/amber warning ready made should things seem to be north of where currently expectations are. Lets just say I wouldn't be surprised if there is a small line of 5-10cms on the ground by the end of Wednesday. I also wouldn't be surprised if the front never leaves the French coastline. Both and everything inbetween is still on the table.

Man that front is close to the south coast, or even on the south coast on Wednesday on the 12z runs. Honestly its well within the margin of error still. I recall a similar rain event which progged to only brush the south coast but ended up producing a pretty signifncant rain event back in December. Thats not to say I think its the likely outcome, I think its not. But its still close enough call that it will need very close watching right through to Wednesday, we are talking literally 10-20 miles making the difference between basically nothing and 3-5cms into southern coastal counties.

Go back even further and the warmest May's typically come from that little age period as well. Does make you wonder whether there are climatic shifts that occur every now and then that predispose the UK to a shift in favourable synoptics for warmth?

I mean thats purely bad luck really, more things have had to go wrong than right to end up there but thats exactly what happened. With that being said, its an amazingly hard set-up to land even historically, and in the last 20 years its basically gone extinct bar maybe one instance in 2013.

I think what has caught some out is just how strong the very mild signal has become, especially when some had convinced themselves that it was still possible for the cold to win out, and instead the models show a top 10 warmest Jan week coming up, albeit with the same caveat that came with the cold spell, that its still too far out to be that confident. Warmer than average, probably significantly so though does seem probable now next week.

Summer of 2007 and 2012 were really dreadful as you say, bar perhaps the odd week (Olympics week in 12 for example). As for 08 and 11, personally any summer that has all three months below average, above normal rainfall and below average sunshine like 2011 does cannot IMO go down as anything other than below par, and 2008 was really very wet (August was utterly atrocious). Only 2010 as you say probably is at par, or maybe a little above as it did have a pretty good June from what I remember, but very little stands out from that summer. The whole period from 07-12 just is a blank for good summer weather, I'm sure there were good weeks but overall compared to what we've seen in other years its a whole load of meh to me bookended by probably 2 of the worst summers in the last 25 years.

Ensembles from all models continue to suggest that the south do need to keep a watching brief over the midweek frontal zone. Broadly seems to.be about 20% on most suites, with maybe another 20% very close or just touching the south coast. Itsenough odds that it needs to be watched still because there are some very high impact scenarios on there (some go to 20cms for example).