Midlands Ice Age

Yes please and thanks for the ones above, MIA

For Roger.. I found your data for January end of month rises very interesting. After seeing the CET graphic above for January, i wondered whether you could possibly do the same for the January warmest last 10 days for the period since 1679.? Also a graphic of the CET for the 30 year periods showing how they have changed with time. If too much time taken in producing them then thanks for all the data anyway. MIA

Thanks RS... Lots of interest in there.. Including how mild second half of January's have always been a regular event, and in many cases they were 'warmer' than current. To me of the most interest is that the years 1967,68,69 were 13th, 13th, and 16th highest. Most people think that period was cold, but in reality it was very changeable.,. I haven't checked back to see what followed in February!!!!! MIA

Minimum of -8.0C last night at 6.30 this morning. DP just reached minus double digits. Golf - had a miss this morning, but will go for walk this afternoon. MIA

4 Days since my last review... Snow has made a rapid increase with both Europe and North America covering quickly. Having this effect upon Rutgers anomalies for today. . Suddenly we are above average. Ice on the other hand has had more of a delay, with a total of 14,054K Km2 after changes of -104K, -_9K, +53K and today +54K. Although no increase for 6 days it is still top for the last 16 years at least, with increases in the SOO and Barents leading the way recently. They both look to put on further increases in the next 2 or 3 days. Finally we have an update from the DMI temperature above 80 degrees. This is pretty much as expected with a rise in the new year as the cold was pushed out of the Arctic into the USA and Europe. Followed in the last 2-3 days by dropping temperatures as the vortex starts to reform. As we are forecast to warm up in Europe in the next few days, it will be an interesting watch for the temperatures and higher pressure of the polar regions, that many believe will happen. MIA

Seriously the NW Radar is continuing to 'light up', with recently more showers developing off Belfast and moving towards our area. The whole of the Irish sea is now showing precipitation (some rain) , and I think we will see some action, but not certain just yet. I think the backing of the winds before the trough moving across Northern England tomorrow seems to be the trigger. Probably the north west midlands most likely, but changes are happening at short notice. https://max.nwstatic.co.uk/tiles2/20240115/2235/6/15/10p.png oh well it shows the precipitation just not the map.... We are good at imagining things thou in the midlands.. We have to be!!! The link should be better. Oh well that failed, so try a sceen copy instead. Yeah that worked. and latest Latest shows it moving south eastwards thru the gap, and with light snow breaking out more generally in N Ireland now. MIA

I believe it to be the remnants of the cold front which has become stationary over southern England having moved down from the north. The addition of humidity into the atmosphere from the south. although not enough for snowfall in its own right , may just be enough to trigger snowfall from the decaying front. It is a type of streamer from the east as the winds swing around in front of the low passing to the south. Only a couple of models show this feature, but it is possible, MIA

I share your theory, Could we call it the StodgeM theory? Not sure of the warming in Siberia its just the weakness of the vortex overall IMO, with the 'touchdowns' of the warming from above occurring pretty randomly. MIA

Latest radar shows that streamers are setting up over the top of N Ireland and thru towards the Isle of Man, then heading straight towards the central Midlands for a typical Cheshire gap streamer. Temp now at -3.2c already and rapidly going lower. Wil we see these streamers reach the central Midlands? MIA Also snow showers breaking out around Wales and particularly North Wales in the last 30 mins.

It looks like where the old 'extinct' cold front from the north has come to rest. Perhaps the models are picking up the moisture there.

Yep thats an old saying. Interestingly the same could have been said about the last 3 cold out breaks. On each of them a very cold pool of dry Arctic air has moved down and settled over us at the base of the trough. Currently this air is extremely dry aloft (3000m and above), with little daily warming to shuffle the pack. It picks up some moisture from the sea for favoured spots, but the rest of us get the beautiful clear blue skies, which we yearned for a couple of weeks ago. As nicked from Metwatch in the MIdlands thread (Chester soundings - no sign yet of a Cheshire gap streamer setting up. MIA

Seriously though things are still interesting. Since Tamara and the other experts called this week broadly correct, (with the slight exception of the cold air further south for enough time to cool it down enough for a long term cold period for most of us), I am looking into the forecasts with a view for their predicted forecast of cold to return quite soon. Still a possibility. Currently looks a bust, baswd upon the last 2 or 3 days.. However experience teaches me that many a cold spell has developed on the back of a rapidly deepening low moving across the southern half of the UK. This now seems pretty certain for the weekend. With cold air still over Scotland and the north, this air will get dragged southwards again early next week. as higher pressure will start to develop on its western side in response. This could take us back to a much colder outlook again. If it does it would fit the pattern exactly described by our experts that they expect to happen, as the higher pressure would push and would slow the Atlantic down again, hence giving it a chance to move to our north again in their classic 'eddy' descriptions of atmospheric events... Let us see what happens. MIA. Original post: https://community.netweather.tv/topic/99760-model-output-discussion-colder-but-how-cold-and-for-how-long/?do=findComment&comment=5012883

Glad to see that some in the north west of our patch got a cm. Solihull (here) woke up to a fine layer of grapel, which had drifted down the rooves into gutters, but was still 'laying' on the sheltered rubbish bins, etc. As people above have reported this Arctic air is brilliant to look at. A few flakes in it would be perfection. MIA

But not if it actually moves up the channel.......

Seriously though things are still interesting. Since Tamara and the other experts called this week broadly correct, (with the slight exception of the cold air further south for enough time to cool it down enough for a long term cold period for most of us), I am looking into the forecasts with a view for their predicted forecast of cold to return quite soon. Still a possibility. Currently looks a bust, baswd upon the last 2 or 3 days.. However experience teaches me that many a cold spell has developed on the back of a rapidly deepening low moving across the southern half of the UK. This now seems pretty certain for the weekend. With cold air still over Scotland and the north, this air will get dragged southwards again early next week. as higher pressure will start to develop on its western side in response. This could take us back to a much colder outlook again. If it does it would fit the pattern exactly described by our experts that they expect to happen, as the higher pressure would push and would slow the Atlantic down again, hence giving it a chance to move to our north again in their classic 'eddy' descriptions of atmospheric events... Let us see what happens. MIA.

Yep... My thoughts too.. It looks as if its going south. Anyone calling the weekend storm further south as well yet????? MIA

IMO ... These gif's show the impact of the development of the Bering high. If one looks at the NH graphicals, the development and inclination of this high is key to what happens to the total northern hemisphere. Get it slightly different and everything will change by the 'pushing' process. MIA

Can I make this clear.. this is not quite the intended gist of my post. They do not automatically increase just 'errors'. They increase the total amount of data (Including errors), this has the result that it increases the volatility of the output data (a larger envelope if you like). The overall effect will be more of a more chaotic output. We are already seeing this with the models overreacting to some sorts of signals, particularly in a 'stuck' pattern where a small difference here and there can produce a totally opposite outcome. We also see overblown lows very frequently....... My gut 'feeling' is that this will happen more frequently if we just add in more computing power. We will at the moment benefit more by sorting out the software glitches, than by spending many millions on hardware. Its the balance really which is important moving forward. Midlands Ice Age ( i don't only post at midnight?)

Claret047 (Dave) I hadn't forgot your query above, but waited until it was quieter to respond. In general more data is good news. However, if you have more data (assuming a normal distribution) you also introduce more 'out of range' data. Generally models use various techniques for handling the threat. Within the models you can check the data against other data for the immediate locality. (If there is one - could be difficult to apply in the Arctic or Antarctic), and this generally is quite effective. Another method that was employed a few years back was by using a pre-edit stage. This will check for data being within certain ranges. It was employed by BOM and led to complaints that some data had been omitted. It is quite difficult to use ranges in the world models as they have ranges of from -80c to +60c, and the same goes for pressure, rainfall, etc. I do not know what method is adopted for each model. Perhaps some else can help? These days most data is produced automatically and normally will not have errors. When something goes wrong it is fairly easy to see. MIA

Yet another large increase for the Masie extent with a 145K Km2 increase to 14,053K KM2. - with a normal average of about 45K Km2 for this time of year. Also unusually most of the running was taken up by Barents (+58K) , Greenland (+43K) and Chukchi (+10K). within the basin, The SOO (+28K), and Bering (+4K) also (as suggested) now move forward/upward again. Also of interest is the freeze up in the Southern Baltic (see 1 below) , the ice has now reached Jan Mayen Isle (2nd photo - which shows ice attached to the island (zoom)), and Bear Isle (between Svalbard and the Norwegian coast (3rd photo). Bear Isle was only encircled at the end of last year's season, but was iced about this same time in 2021. Before that we had to go back 5 years - which is when there was concerns for them. and now Bear Isle Wow things get better and better. MIA

This could be the further movement of the low towards the channel, on here most of the precipitation is centred over the French coast... Watch it over the next few days, as (yet another reason!) the push to the east reduces over the next couple of days. MIA

The mean position continues to move northwards on the mean above. Why? A new reason (original was the low to the north) was the appearance of higher heights to the East and north east. Remember we are still 3 days away , and if in the meantime we see heights setting up it would push the channel low a bit further north as it travels to the east. Good news for the SE, not so good for Pembrokeshire.

This post is a pretty accurate summary of where we sit today with the models. Also the last couple of hours are basically bemoaning that the Greenland high has not survived and that this caused the collapse of our bitter weather beyond next week. As mentioned last week in relation to 850's and surface temps (CET) I have 'a quickfire' database ready made for a bit of analysis, (that I produced in 2018), which contains my overall 'reason' for the cold outbreak. (I was looking at the 2018 outbreak in relation to cold winters past. Well guys ... It seems as though from the records that I produced from my reanalysis going back to 1870 that in the spells reviewed (about 100), that the Greenland high was the major contributor in only 3 of them. The most notable was clearly 2010 and then the previous really biggy was 125 years previous. Certainly they have been around, but only helping the atmospheric conditions to serve up as easterlies/highs over Europe which are nearly 50%, and northerlies around 40%. (These may have been helped by the Greenland high, but in the main followed a deep depression in the Eastern Atlantic somewhere, and hence were cyclonically initiated in my view). So , could it be that us expecting the Greenland high to pump bitter cold each year is the unrealistic diagnostic??. I realise that the 'models' have been leading us up this path... So are they also over-estimating the strength of this blocking? It is very apparent to me that what has caused the breakdown of the high (if it happens), is the formation of a huge 'Pacific' high which is forcing the very cold airmass down into the Central USA. This cold outbreak then has sufficient momentum to push into the Atlantic, and it seems to have been happening regularly over the last 10 years (IMO), but I have no data to prove my suspicions. As KW is showing NA does seem to have missed a lot of the global warming in winter, and new records might well be set again this week - so I understand from USA forecasts. If this is true then one has to ask why the Pacific high seems to have so much energy these days... is it cyclic or the result of a warming world, or has it always been so? There are papers out there about the regularity of the pacific high in relation to the last 1 - 2000 years. It could be a useful read. Finally mods - if you think that reviewing the situation is not on for this thread I understand, but whilst it is quiet I thought it would be OK. But it could be that it might just lower some people's expectations, and will hit the sales of Prosac (sorry Nick). Greenland highs are very difficult to sustain. I would love this to be another case of a recorded hit for a 'Greenie' but somehow I feel the odds are against it. MIA Original post: https://community.netweather.tv/topic/99760-model-output-discussion-colder-but-how-cold-and-for-how-long/?do=findComment&comment=5010085

This post is a pretty accurate summary of where we sit today with the models. Also the last couple of hours are basically bemoaning that the Greenland high has not survived and that this caused the collapse of our bitter weather beyond next week. As mentioned last week in relation to 850's and surface temps (CET) I have 'a quickfire' database ready made for a bit of analysis, (that I produced in 2018), which contains my overall 'reason' for the cold outbreak. (I was looking at the 2018 outbreak in relation to cold winters past. Well guys ... It seems as though from the records that I produced from my reanalysis going back to 1870 that in the spells reviewed (about 100), that the Greenland high was the major contributor in only 3 of them. The most notable was clearly 2010 and then the previous really biggy was 125 years previous. Certainly they have been around, but only helping the atmospheric conditions to serve up as easterlies/highs over Europe which are nearly 50%, and northerlies around 40%. (These may have been helped by the Greenland high, but in the main followed a deep depression in the Eastern Atlantic somewhere, and hence were cyclonically initiated in my view). So , could it be that us expecting the Greenland high to pump bitter cold each year is the unrealistic diagnostic??. I realise that the 'models' have been leading us up this path... So are they also over-estimating the strength of this blocking? It is very apparent to me that what has caused the breakdown of the high (if it happens), is the formation of a huge 'Pacific' high which is forcing the very cold airmass down into the Central USA. This cold outbreak then has sufficient momentum to push into the Atlantic, and it seems to have been happening regularly over the last 10 years (IMO), but I have no data to prove my suspicions. As KW is showing NA does seem to have missed a lot of the global warming in winter, and new records might well be set again this week - so I understand from USA forecasts. If this is true then one has to ask why the Pacific high seems to have so much energy these days... is it cyclic or the result of a warming world, or has it always been so? There are papers out there about the regularity of the pacific high in relation to the last 1 - 2000 years. It could be a useful read. Finally mods - if you think that reviewing the situation is not on for this thread I understand, but whilst it is quiet I thought it would be OK. But it could be that it might just lower some people's expectations, and will hit the sales of Prosac (sorry Nick). Greenland highs are very difficult to sustain. I would love this to be another case of a recorded hit for a 'Greenie' but somehow I feel the odds are against it. MIA

@summer blizzard ... Thanks SB for your reply above to the question/discussion. As I previously mentioned in here .... the expectation based upon theory was warming for the first 12 -18 months as the extra water vapor 'rained' out of the troposphere, with the H2O in the stratosphere (thought to be 25% of the normal amount up there) will take quite a bit longer. As regards this thread - I am not certain of impacts upon the world sea ice has been discussed/investigated so far, in any released paper, but one would expect a drop as the temp rises, followed by an increase as the temp falls. This assumes that the temperature is the major control knob of the sea ice. However it is possible, that clouds and stratospheric level water vapor. ozone impacts, impurities, etc, could have some/ more impact and perhaps cause changes to the albedo of the Arctic, The truth is not known as yet, but over the next couple of years it will be ubderstood if not resolved, i am sure,.... It will also give us some sort of clue as to whether the global atmospheric models are correct. Anyway we must measure events in the Arctic (and Antarctic) in order to verify - which gives me a nice lead in, ...........................so here goes with my latest update... Snow extents have (as suggested) been increasing over the last 4 days and now are not far from normals. Rutgers rapidly catching up - As for ice extents, well they have finally reduced the very rapid increases in the outer sea areas. I suppose that the rate could not go indefinitely at the rates of 10 - 20 percent increase each month. Masie has reached 14.0M Km2 (rounded) on Tuesday at an all time record by about a week (last 17 years) with increases of (+53K), (+17k), followed since by losses of (-13K) and today (-2K), over the last few days. It is still first in its highest charts going back to 2006. The overall increase is more clearly seen in the Jaxa charts - (thanks to the ASIF) where the increase to the '2000' line is shown. (leaving the 2010 trailing well below). The 2000's has not happened since the late 2000's and shows the impact of the sea ice refreeze in the outer areas. As it so happens, the same effect seems to be occurring in the southern hemisphere at the same time (although from a lower base). I believe that the next few days will see increases in both snow (in Europe and the USA) , and ice in most outer areas including Bering and Barents this time, as well as the other outer areas. Certainly much to keep the interest going. MIA