BleakMidwinter
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Posts posted by BleakMidwinter
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14 minutes ago, Scott Ingham said:
I like it! Siro! It sounds menacing!
I liked the *Ingham Singularity* but I can't remember who suggested it...
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1 hour ago, LRD said:
New Year's Eve 1978 KLAXON
And conveniently, here is a blow by blow description of that weather system
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I'm clueless when it comes to interpreting charts, but one thing I have become aware of, trying frantically to keep up reading, is just how many of the posters here whose knowledge I really respect have posted in the last day or so to say that they have never seen charts like this, never seen this kind of run for January, can't remember this or that in recent decades, etc.
It feels to me like, even if we end up with a short chilly phase and back to the Atlantic washing-machine's 'Rinse&Repeat' cycle, this has already been something dramatic and noteworthy.
Isn't all forecasting entirely reliant on previous modeling compared against actual weather outcomes? So the very fact that the models are converging onto such unusual and startling charts... isn't that already noteworthy, whether they do or don't turn out to be accurate predictions?
(Forgive me if I've got technical terms like 'charts' and 'converging' wrong... I really am reliant on those of you who explain your comments, and I tend generally to view the charts as pretty Rorschacht blobs...
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17 minutes ago, TEITS said:
I am sure some newcomers must be utterly confused by reading this thread this morning. So here is my assessment of what the models actually show rather than what may go wrong.
Firstly very good agreement it will turn colder this weekend. Probably not cold enough for snow showers but still uncertain as the mean is at -8C but the ensembles vary between -5 to -10C. Regardless of snow I think many will welcome this change in our weather pattern.
Note the increase in the upper temps for next week. This is the transitional phase before we see blocking develop over Greenland. Much of next week is likely to be settled, cold, frosty but locations such as Wales, W Midlands may struggle to reach much above zero during the day. Freezing fog could be a big issue.
Now onto my favourite part and that is the following weekend 12th Jan. The GEFS/ECM mean is fantastic with regards to blocking over Greenland. A SLP mean of 1030-1035mb in Iceland is incredible and is comparable to what we witnessed prior to the 2010 cold spell.
The error that some are making is by not viewing the models from a N Hemisphere perspective. The greenland high is as a result of what is happening to the PV and pressure increasing over the Arctic. The Greenland HP isn't because of our high pressure over the UK this weekend moving into Greenland.
I shall just add that in 2010 the models made a right drama over the Greenland high and a W based NAO. For many runs they had this too far W with the low sinking S in the Atlantic rather than the UK. Thankfully as we know this was corrected E.
Thankyou!!!!!!!
I have been following these discussions for over a dozen years now and have never had so much difficulty finding reliable information about the interpretation of data.
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1 hour ago, Mike Poole said:
There’s an awful lot going on at the moment, at different timescales and in different places. Here’s how I see things:
There is a high probability of a significant cold spell starting early in the new year. There is also a reasonable chance that it may last (with one or two wobbles) into the spring. But we have some hurdles to get over first.
So how have we got here and what’s in our favour? Take a step back from the UK for a moment, and this winter has one stand out feature, a weak polar vortex, in the troposphere that is one that can’t find its usual home, in the stratosphere, that is one that has already suffered a Canadian warming, is now under attack, and on the ropes. We have an easterly QBO, and we have El Niño, which favours cold in the second half of winter. We add to that (finally) a more amplified MJO in Phase 1, and rising AAM to put the atmosphere in tune with that El Niño.
There is a timetable as to how this is likely to unfold:
- Forget the next 9 days, there is nothing to see here!
- About 10 days from now, model runs indicate that high latitude blocking will take hold in the European sector. How exactly that happens depends on luck - where a ridge punches through, we’ve seen all the outcomes on the various op runs recently. Provided that happens, could be Greenland (more likely, think GFS 12z), could be Scandi, possibly with retrogression (less likely, think yesterdays pub run).
- At about the same time, a warming event in the stratosphere is taking place, it may or may not be a technical SSW, but it will ensure a weak vortex for the foreseeable. The models are backing off from a split SSW that looked to me a couple of days ago like it could lock in a -NAO until spring; this backing off may mean it happens later - perhaps when we need reinforcements, I’ll come back to that - or it could mean it is less powerful. There’s also the possibility that a less than convincing split leaves a remnant of the strat vortex near Greenland where we don’t want it. None of that is likely to markedly impact the next 3 weeks though, for good or bad.
- The AAM surge may continue, the MJO will move away from favourable phases in time, this might be the optimal time to benefit from a SSW, we can’t be choosers in this, but what I am highlighting here is the possibility that things might work constructively if we can get this winter evolution off the ground in the first place.
Finally, I leave you with the ECM extended clusters, at day 15 you have a choice of cold, cold, cold or cold:
Oh jings, thank you SO MUCH for this!
This kind of clear, reasoned, structured explanation is the reason I keep reading this discussion even though around 75% of the posts are almost meaningless to me even after 12 years on the forum...
Thankyou. It's appreciated!-
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12 minutes ago, GokouD said:
I got hammered by Cheshire gap showers in Dec 2017. Yes please!
Yeah, I was happily remembering that one too as I read the post!
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3 hours ago, Mike Poole said:
I must be losing it, it took me ages to see that!
I made the mistake of laughing aloud and showing my husband the chainsaw-wielding dolphin… oh dear…
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13 hours ago, Addicks Fan 1981 said:Absolutely and we also need @johnholmesto provide us with detailed analysis on the NOAA anomolies and upstream activity.
While we're at it with putting together the 'dream team' of people who post clear and well-written explanations so that those of us who are far from expert can understand, can I put in a word for @Man With Beard whose posts are often a relief from a whirling ocean of TLAs and obscure in-jokes!
And yes, @johnholmes is *always* really brilliant to read, even when you're only a very lowly amateur!
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1 hour ago, razorgrain said:
First truly autumnal night here so far. Crisp but not cold, very still, clear dusk skies, whatever that damp wood smell is that always turns up at this time of year.
We commented this morning about the smell of trees as we swam at the local quarry… different times of year you suddenly feel very aware of your surroundings, the trees or birds or changing light…
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Beautiful sunshine this morning as I swam at a local quarry - water temp 16ºC and air temp only 6ºC... warmed up later in the morning, but heavy rain off and on since midday.
Very autumnal!
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On 07/09/2023 at 20:50, Sunny76 said:
January 80 was a cold month, and I think the Trevor Harley site states it was mostly clear and sunny. December was very mild in the south during the first half, and February 80 was very mild.
79/80 wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but it probably felt very mild compared to the previous cold winter of 78/79.
If 79/80 was cold and snowy in Scotland, surely 81/82 was much better and 86/87?
Ah there's 'Scotland' and then there's 'Edinburgh'....
A micro-climate all of its own, sitting in a bowl with hills to south and west, the North Sea to the east and then the Forth to the north... in 35 years living there, it was incredible how often "the whole of the UK" would be bathed in baking sun or drowned in deluges or buried in snow, according to the news, and there we'd be, not having that weather...! Remember that famous satellite photo from a few years back, the 2009-10 winter iirc, with the entire country white? Yep, that was the year everyone remembers as the really snowy one but Edinburgh had not a bloomin' flake...
Then Nov 2010 it started snowing and basically snowed every day for six weeks and the online companies refused to deliver orders (thanks, Tesco and Amazon!) we needed the Army in February to help clear the 8 inches of ice on the pavements and many side-roads...!
There was quite a bit of snow in the 1980s, though - plenty of sledging after school most winters as I recall it. But not the gigantic drifts and the weeks on end of white streets and no cars that happened in 1979 and in 2010... -
Sitting watching tv in a room with window to the south, me sitting facing west, and for the last 15 minutes there's been a steady supply of gigantic strobe-flashes to the SW of Telford... extraordinarily odd, though - presumably because of the fog, the lightning is only lighting up one area of the sky, quite low down, like some weird stage-lighting effect. I did wonder if it was some kind of lighting or white-only fireworks or suchlike, but some of the flashes have included a very distinctive lightning-streak running near-horizontally (which is also odd!)....
Radar-map shows heavy lightning down by the South Shropshire hills, so 30-40 miles away - but what a light-show I'm getting! No sound of thunder yet...-
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1 hour ago, Sunny76 said:
Yeah, even in the 70s and 80s, we had very mild winter months. Even before the late 1987 warming period.
79/80 had some ridiculously mild temps in the first half of December and very high minima.
Ummm.... not everywhere. It was my first winter in Scotland, last year of primary school, and our weather project included taking the temperature outdoor at noon every schoolday for a fortnight, and it never went above freezing. The drifts were often above my knee-high socks, and not just in a few odd corners, I still remember the unfamiliar sensation of snow against the bare skin at the back of my knees! And I saw people skiing to the office, in pinstripe suits, trousers tucked into woolly socks, wearing woolly hats and a briefcase strapped to their backs... and suddenly the city was full of men wearing kilts because they are so much warmer than trousers...
It was my first Scottish winter and I was really pleased to discover that Edinburgh was exactly like books, all snowy...
...then I had to wait another three decades for another one like that, but the 78/79 one was apparently even snowier!-
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Apparently it rained lightly about 3:30am last night in Telford - our black car (which hasn't moved in three days...) now looks like we spent hours off-roading!
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2 hours ago, Mcconnor8 said:
Isn't mid August to mid September the peak in water temperatures during the year so should be the hottest it gets at the moment?
Good point - not sure about rivers, though... think they may change more than sea or deep still-water? I normally swim in a quarry which has been about 15-16ºC for a few weeks now, down from 19-20ºC in July... I know it changes very very slowly (last year's massive heatwave made no difference at all for almost three weeks and then only one or two degrees!) but think the river is more volatile...
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Some friends and I swam down Severn this evening at Ironbridge for a while- incredibly, the water temp was 20°C…!!! In September?!
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On 09/08/2023 at 22:35, damianslaw said:
Noticed quite a lot of blackberries out, seem early this year. I wonder if the early warmth this summer has brought on early ripening...
round here (Telford) the blackberries start being ripe enough to pick in the last few days of July most years. I usually try to get most of my picking done in the middle two weeks of August so I can have the blackberry jam/jelly done and out of the way before the rest of the foraging and preserving…
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Interesting to read the way people word their views on summer turning to autumn - clearly, some people mourn the loss of summer and wish it wasn't turning onwards into autumn... I've never been a heat-lover, and maybe that's part of why I feel pleased about the arrival of autumn - but also perhaps because for me it's a good thing? All those hedgerows to pick, the jam and jelly and pickles and syrups to make, that lovely feeling of knowing you can taste bright summer fruits and crisp young vegetables in midwinter, as you pour Hedgerow Syrup over pancakes, or slice pickled onions into a cheese sarnie...
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For years, my own personal calendar has had the start of autumn in early August - not so much determined by daylight-length or temperatures, as by what the plants are doing... so Feb/Mar/April are spring in my reckoning when everything wakes up, buds appear, green shoots emerge... May/Jun/Jul are summer when the flowering happens on the majority of native species.... August is the start of harvesting in hedgerow and field, on through Sept/Oct... then the growth dies back or goes dormant on the majority of native species for Nov/Dec/Jan for winter...
It upsets my sun-worshipping friends, of course, but I stubbornly stick to it - today is distinctly autumnal!-
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MIA, thankyou so much for doing these - I used to follow in the past when it was just charts posted and an occasional comment, but I am (slowly!) starting to understand more because of how clearly you explain it all.
Just wanted to say - your hard work is appreciated!!-
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A heavy dusting of snow in Telford today- quite wet ground so I think tonight’s freeze may make Monday morning interesting for many! I’ll be cycling a couple of miles to swim in a local bit of open water, my first try at keeping on swimming right through winter… water about 3 degrees today I’m told…
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Again, many thanks to those of you who type out your reasons for suggesting that X may happen or that Y is no longer as likely... it really really helps those of us eagerly following but with only a fraction of your knowledge and experience!
(Also, @Allseasons-si and @Eagle Eye, can I cluck round being all Mother Hen, and urge you to remember to look after yourselves in amongst Everything, make sure you eat and so on, if you can... Take care, and my very best wishes in your different sets of circs...)-
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52 minutes ago, Eagle Eye said:Going for 40 degrees by the bleak mid-Winter aren't we
Did someone call?
(I rarely post in here as I know so little about models so just lurk, but can I just grab the opportunity to thank all of you who explain why the splodge you've posted means an increased chance of X or Y - it really really helps those of us trying to learn )
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18 hours ago, Ed Stone said:
Well, what with heating costs going, literally, through the roof, a snow-free winter will do me fine!
Oh, I dunno - my parents live in a draughty great barn of an old house with minimal insulation possible (short of cladding the entire exterior of a stone0-built house) and the cheapest winter bills they had in 45+ years was the year when Edinburgh was buried under snow from late November til February - it's astonishing what good insulation 18 inches of snow on the slates provides!
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Snow and Ice Northern Hemisphere - Winter 23 /24
in Spring Weather Discussion
Posted
Midlands Ice Age
I found this very interesting - spraying seawater onto the surface of sea-ice to increase its thickness and resilience- only at initial stages of research testing on thin layers at present, and not considered a 'cure' but could at least help in some areas where loss of sea ice affects the area more widely...