jules216

jellybaby1969 what is the longevity of Snow cover in Late February from your experience if you take away the 2018? Lets say part 20 years? I Can name lots of winters with Snow cover lasting in december here but Late February is always a few day event, only exeption being 2018,2006 or 2005. But I Can name nearly every other year in december where Snow cover gets preserved with either Inversion,short sun, etc. But Late February needs sustained very cold t850hPa while december doesnt. Maybe in UK you have different climate then here in Slovakia and late February Snow just doesnt melt quickly under stronger/longer sunshine. Or maybe you desire just seing snowfall while I on other hand value quality - longevity of Snow cover and usability - skying etc.

offerman yes, this tíme of year is all about maximalising depth of cold. Its not december anymore and anything around or after 20.02 requires expectional synoptics to deliver = deep troughing from east. These Atlantic undercuts will be useless unless you desire cold rain or 12h wet Snow muck. Its sometimes hard to accept reality and that IS why there are often unrealistic comments here. Ultimately by the end of the season you Can take the whole budget and see if these so called optimistic runs delivered anything. They probably didnt and I am finding no output in there that would deliver anything appart from Scandinavia or very high ground in Európe. You might as Well this tíme of the year chase high pressure and mild sun, it would be múch more pleasant then half hearted attempt resulting in 5°C muck.

I said it before watch the high pressure south western Russia and very little cold pooling available. This is reflected now ať later stages of EC46d with only really Scandinavia below average. It only really benefits Alps and Higher elevation in Europe. How many times we were here in recent winters.

Going back to how this winter panned out so far the best analog is 2015/16.

All of the sudden EC weekly Has dropped the idea of below average temperature week 3 outside Scandinavia and GFS mean now not showing much lower heights in central Europe as other runs. Steady as we go in to mildest month of the winter,just as I said weeks ago and amazing correlation of cold Scandinavia= mild central Europe.

What is most bemusing we Can have 2 major stratospheric warmings this winter yet surface outcome overall with about +2/+3 anomally this winter is as mild as some previous winters with no SSW and record strong vortex. We are talking here of possible cold snap after 10.2 with "maybe" a day or two of T850hPa approaching -6/-8 after about 3 weeks of no winter synoptics. I wonder did anyone actually realize how little effect the relatively weak vortex this winter had on troposferic outcome. If I take my location there is 0 difference between this winter and some of the most recent mildest winters.

After seing this i am quite confident of the cold March.

The last chance saloon I believe is the "possible" Wave breaking outcome behind the low Pressure systems from the west at days 8-9. They initially advect a veru mind air in to central Europe later 4-5 days the cold miraculously switchwes to North/Central Európe. How this happens is if it ever does is one of the most difficult things in forecasts to Guess. It could easily turn in to dry cold scenario in central Europe and dry and frosty UK under high Pressure. But looking at spinning lows in Western Europe days 6-10 its becoming difficult to imagine a sudden shift of overal contitions.

January analogs vs reality performed quite well. Ever since spring 2020 the methodology has a very good success.

The most steady forecast in the seasonal models was that February was supposed to hold biggest prospects of cold/blocked regime(Cansip,UKMO,ECMWF) now All of the sudden new Cansip has given up the ghost. I am saying this for a while that cold Scandinavia has correlated increddibly well with mild rest of the Europe - south/central ever since June 2023 turnaround and long term demise of Scandi high pressure. I wonder if any experts out there dare to find a reason why Scandinavia is like forever under trough despite any variability/teleconnection out there.

To sum up models next week(waiting fór Atlantic low to clear east) I present you this very scientific method. I am pretty convinced what it will have no problem clearing in to cold spell in March.

Following on the previous post dare I look at T850hPa outcome and its quite shocking about +7°C anomally before *if that trough clears. Taking it to extreme about that time of year for settled Snow I need here about -9 uppers and they are going wrong way to start with. How on earth would that trough suddenly pickup about 14°C colder uppers if it manages to be a cut off feature oscilating somewhere west/central Europe. This is more then enough evidence to throw in the towel if one doesnt wear a huge "rose glasses" and doesnt accept reality/most likely outcome. There very little alternative available to be even 10% optimistic.

A lot of GEFS develop that trough west of UK and stal IT long enough to throw a small wedge of.Euro high basically eroding All the cold air potentialy available, Once it clears east there is so little cold pooling available that it even deters me to open a T850hPa graf as it would be quite tragic to see

Its just shocking again. High pressure to the west of Russia increasing in prominence just in time with other cyclonic Wave breaking event in the Atlantic. The Euro low has no real source of cold air to tap in to from resulting in average surface outcome or at best marginally below average resulting in very limited snowfall potential below 800m in Europe considering we are talking about Late February which needs -2/3 anomally at least for something interesting to occur. But on the other hand a lot of cold rain with very small amplitutes.

ECMWF control which generally supports main run well is showing what has been an increasing trend of slowly raising the heights in far SE Európe or south Russia in line with a cyclonic Wave breaking atempt in the Atlantic that will/Can result in February having a very good probability now to be the mildest of 3 winter months here. The clusters are also showing growing support. If the lows break to the west of us then hopefully central Europe will continue having dry and sunny weather as the last thing I want is the low pressure to break through from the west as they only bring mild wet weather with Zero amplitutes and sun, much rather Euro high and sun knowing that anyway there is close to 0 probability of cold enough pattern fór widespread Snow. If it didnt come in 11 weeks of winter I dont want it now to even try risking being on wrong side of low Pressure systems.

ECMWF - Winter stays at week 3 as in 90% of the time. Its always wise to look at some past analogs to give you an idea about validity of some long range forecasts. I was quite certain that any cold if it arrives is most likely going to come in March and February was never really showing anything of interest in our analog package appart from 2004/05 which was also almost most interesting here very late in February and March.

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The ensembles of ECMWF are still very underwhwelming for my location. What is still clear and this has been a robust correlation since June 2023 that strong Scandi trough signál/anomally has correlated with no deep cold down here and its again there as a strong signal after 10th February. We are getting a taste in Euope of some kind a strong boundary layer between cold north and warm south Europe like we see in north Atlantic many times in winter between Greenland low and Azores high. This has never managed to shift despite many different teleconnections at play - stratospheric warming,cooling, MJO in various phases, Nina phases early then GWO Nino phases Late. All this kitchen sink thrown did nothing to reshuffle European circullation which is there in situ 90% of tíme since july 2023. So its one to think about why nothing does shift this pattern. i am sure with GWO/MJO plots re-analysis you would find a Phase that in past had Higher Scandinavia heights, but it did not occur. My garden snow cover of 3cm is proving resilient as there is frost every night in January, at least it looks seasonal outside.

@daz_4 yes, I must say despite running 19 station in Slovakian frost hollows and invested 1000s of € its the second winter in a row not one clear night happened under snow cover at my favorite station for second winter in a row! Taking all the pluses and minuses of recent winters and summers since 2017 I must admit personally I am slowly also transforming in to one that prefers summers but a warm dry ones and I am happen to live in the region of most thundery occurence in central Europe in Slovak Karst national park which is like a ticking bômb when hot air from Hungary meets first high mountains of Slovakia and you get this sudden wind shear and boom. So its actually spring and autumn stable +27°C which i like the most.

I am throwing the towel in with this winter already. Actually I ve been quite convinced about it for good few weeks and posted here before that February would be very much different then the donkey carrot seasonal models. I am trying to mentaly get ready for these stupid northerlies that will by no doubt again arrive in spring and ruin my fruit crops at bloom like it does every spring since 2019. Its the same thing all over again actually. If I think back that any reasonable okay winters since 2014 came after not so hot but changeable summers -2016,2020. So a writing was on the wall after hot summer 2023. The seasonal models like ECMWF and UKMO for february are just a joke. Meteogram this morning for my location is like late March

Its getting quite ridiculous how Scandi trough never managed this winter to correlate with anything meaningful down below. Its been on and of cold Up north with very little revenue down south. This is appearing again during this period for which some would say "hopefull switch to something colder" while Iam looking at Meteogram and its showing double digits here In general i am now very confident that this winter will end up quite difficult to distinguish from past two. The odd week here and there of coolish weather and thats about it.

@nick sussex yes, there is always something isnt it? The change is being pushed back and back until the sun is so strong IT will have exeptional synoptics late February. Its just Been a slice of luck that we had a rather good spell of winter here in Slovakia since 8.1 but even that it has been pure luck that mild westerlies did not break through the Carpathian ARCH and we kept a quasi inversion cold with uppers of -2 suffient enough to bring 5cm of Snow Yesterday but even that has Been melting like crazy today under Sunny north westerly with -4 uppers. The highlight of this January Has probably occured Yesterday morning and quite shockingly I have to admit it has Been the best January here since 2018! Its that Bad how shocking the recent Januaries have been.

I somehow don't know what the problem is in UK and seemingly UKMO with getting things wrong. Often we were making jokes with other friends here that also do regular seasonal analysis like example being well advertised UK warmth in July 2023 which we just never saw in our analysis at the time to last. Also past 3 years we are laughing when UKMO bring their spring seasonal maps out in February which bring +3 anomalies yet we knew that in May we will have -7C and devastating frost with better snow chances at Easter then Christmas. The most peculiar thing is that when I attempted to make jokes about this on twitter there were actual profesionals that jumped on me defending those UKMO maps saying its a "microscale diference" well yes the blocking is 2000km to north west and from +3 is -1 anomaly etc.

I agree that most of what was seen at the time as a forecaster tool was very useful. I name a few. 1. Falling GLAAM/AAM that enduced cold snap n.1 was well advertised as the low pressure systems started to fall deep on southern track in to central Europe. 2. A longish unfavorable pattern in December after MJO failed to reach phases 7-8-1 with enough amplitude. Again an attempt of cold air to be established at the turn of the year like in 2007 and 2015 that lasted about a week to 10 days for then the unfavorable pattern to re-emerge based on the SSW type. If you want a cold outcome post SSW you need Ural blocking like 2020/21 for long lasting cold impacts. Also the pattern at onset was wrong this year. Like Sebastian wrote well its better to have European Blocking then Greenland blocking at onset. We had the reversed and now we are seing what it means. Its up to anybody to try and learn more from all kind of resources - outcomes not just focus on desired outcome. I ve learned that many years ago.

It is a bit of "excuse finding" when saying about bad UK microscale luck if things are turning mild for most of Europe not just UK and for a very long duration. Its not a micro scale error in my view, just look at T2m shading on the whole Europe map next two weeks. The analogs of this winter we were using - 2004/05, 2006/07 and 2014/05 out of 3 winters 2 had a SSW or near SSW that correlated with date in which a very promising cold snap was in place and after SSW everything collapsed, its a very very good match of overall what is happening now.