Blessed Weather

Hi Julian. IMHO I think the animated charts are a great feature and better than having to post lots of daily charts to paint the picture of the week ahead. However, I think a bit of experimentation is probably called for to get the right combination of chart intervals, frames per second and 'time of pause' at the end. Also, I would like to see each animation with a fuller description of what the time sequence is showing. So for example.... Synoptic Pattern (7 day sequence Monday 4th to Monday 11th December) For the above animation I used 12 hour chart intervals, 2 frames per second, and pause of 3000 ms at the end. Snowfall Accumulation (72 hour sequence Sunday 3rd to Wednesday 6th December) In the sequence above I used 4 hour chart intervals, 2 frames per second, and pause of 3000 ms at the end. And interestingly, the sequence shows some melt at lower levels following the earlier snowfall accumulation in the sequence. Hope that's of some benefit Julian. Whatever you choose, once again thanks for the time and effort you put into the weekly updates. P.S. High winds and snow is the forecast for here in the Yukon tomorrow!

Great to have the weekly updates back @J10. Yesterday I spent a fantastic day skiing Mt. Sima, here in the Yukon Territory, Northern Canada. And one thing they don't have to worry about here is a mild spell spoiling the pistes! In fact, their problem is the cold and they have to close the mountain when the temp falls below -25C due to frostbite risk. I liked the disclaimer on their piste map that said "Dates and hours of operation may vary due to the whims of Mother Nature"!! But yesterday it was a mere -18C and the only problem I had was my jacket froze to the back of the chairlift, which made disembarking at the top rather disconcerting the first time it happened! Oh, and my hands were freezing, although in fairness, constantly taking them out of my gloves to take photos didn't help. But at least the incredibly friendly and helpful folk here at the mountain have installed a 'warm-up hut' at the top station where you can go and sit in front of a wood-burning stove and do what it says on the tin - warm up! Here's some pics from my day - the views were stunning and I hope the photos do the mountain justice.

According to this evening's Arpege it's meant to head SE into France with rain not getting further east than the IoW. However it's likely to introduce some cloud and lift temps a little after midnight. At 20.30 my thermometer is showing -1.5C in my back garden and my lawn is turning ever more white.

Obviously a long way to go, but if tonight's (24 Nov) ECM 12z NH 500hPa profile for 4th Dec verifies anything like the forecast, from an old study that undertook research into the Jan/Feb 1979 SSW, the combination of anomalous high pressure in both Atlantic and Pacific is not without interest?? Extract from the paper "How Well do we Understand the Dynamics of Stratospheric Warmings" by Michael E. McIntyre (page 56): In the northern hemisphere winter the parts of the troposphere over the north Atlantic and Pacific act as separate resonant cavities, which can be excited independently of each other and of the stratosphere...... The stratosphere still responds as to a given forcing from below, and the stratospheric response (for a given state, of the stratosphere) will tend to be strongest in wave 1 when the Atlantic and Pacific anomalies happen to have opposite signs, and strongest in wave 2 when they happen to have the same sign..... If this version is a good approximation to the truth then there should be some tendency for the "strong wave 1" and "strong wave 2" conditions in the stratosphere to be mutually exclusive, especially at times when the magnitudes of the Atlantic and Pacific anomalies are at their largest..... Such behaviour is indeed observed, and has often been remarked upon. Tonight's ECM output: 500 hPa Anomaly https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jmsj1965/60/1/60_1_37/_pdf

It's a lovely day in Glencoe!

A dusting of snow up on Fleet Moss, North Yorkshire today (24th Nov):

A tweet about this coming weekend's weather.... but I'm also encouraged that the extended outlook from GFS and ECM continues to show promise for the Alps with regular incursions of cold air and precipitation. Say it quietly, but it's starting to look promising that conditions might be rather good as increasing numbers of resorts open. NCEP European Temp Outlook to 10th Dec: I'm off to the Yukon Territories in Northern Canada tomorrow for a two week holiday staying with my daughter who's emigrated over there. I'll be doing some skiing with her at Mt. Sima whilst there and will try and post some pics. The weather over there today is light snow, a temp of -23C and a windchill of -30C.

Regarding my post above - when I originally posted that tweet it contained 3 diagrams and appeared as such. I don't know what's happened now, but if you wish to see the diagrams click on the #energy pic.twitter.com/K56HfXHsR9 link above.

I have to agree with the tweet..... that is one fabulous view!!

I think this is the first time I've seen this view - the main building and chairlifts at the bottom of the Glenshee ski area. Looks good! Edit: I've just seen the official temps on the Scottish mountains today: Latest temperature observations on the summits: Cairngorm -5.6C; Cairnwell -4.0C; Bealach na Ba -2.7C.

Lovely snowy pics this morning (Thur 23 Nov) from Loch Morlich looking towards the Cairngorm and up on the mountain from the balcony of the Scottish Ski Club Hut:

Sorry to hear about your cold Daniel - hope it clears soon. What we need is some extremely cold weather to kill all these damn bugs off!!

Great day here! Almost unbroken sunshine and temp up to 15.3C. OK, it's a tad breezy - had a gust of 39mph at 11.02 - but I don't mind that, it made this morning's walk more interesting with trees swaying and leaves flying about. Invigorating!! 11.30

Certainly some interesting strat forecasts being produced by both ECM and GFS at the moment. Hopefully they will edge nearer the reliable over the coming days. I believe the tweet below from Dr. Cohen is based on this morning's GFS 06z run:

What a bore fest the last 48 hours have been! Grey skies and the temp not moving by day or night, stuck between 11.3C and 11.9C. So personally I'm looking forward to a bit of variety over the coming days. Starting tomorrow with strong winds arriving, and hopefully a surprise flake or two of snow over the weekend. (The weekend will be getting into the range of the high res models soon, starting with the Arpege 12z this evening). Here's the wind gusts around the Region for the early hours of Thurs:

Dr. Judah Cohen’s latest weekly blog (20th Nov) has just been published and he discusses the forecast increased WAFz/poleward heat transport impact on the stratospheric PV: Troposphere-stratosphere coupling has been relatively quiet, allowing for the stratospheric polar vortex to strengthen. However predicted uptick in energy transfer from the troposphere to the stratosphere is predicted to dislodge the PV centre from the Pole towards Eurasia. The displacement of the PV centre towards Eurasia opens up the stratospheric PV to subsequent disruptions and could eventually result in a more significant disruption of the stratospheric PV in the coming weeks or later. http://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation

Dr. Cohen going for the same message - a disrupted vortex being pushed towards Eurasia and an increased chance of more significant disruptions going forward. He should be updating his weekly blog later today, so hopefully more thoughts then.

I'd be grateful for comments from bluearmy and @Interitus (and other experts) but to my eye, when comparing the Berlin Geopotential & Temp charts for Day 10 (29th Nov) at 10, 50, 150 and 500 hPa, there appears to be a good pattern match developing between trop and strat vortex - so a connect? And the reversal of zonal mean zonal winds appears to be moving upwards from the trop? Thanks in advance.

Fascinating to view the 850hPa temp anomalies from the last 20 GFS runs - it highlights how much the forecasts are flipping and flopping!

Rather him than me!! Yesterday, somewhere on the Cairngorms......

Another beautiful day here after a good ground frost (getting very close to an air frost). Wonderful satellite image this morning showing our Region in sunshine, cumulus streaming down the North Sea but staying out to sea and not clipping our east coast, and the swirl of Low Pressure off the NW of Scotland: And for info, here's last night's overnight lows for EA:

Fabulous example of mammatus clouds over Athens, but I doubt whether the folk of the city appreciated it.

Dear oh dear, Greece is getting a real battering this last few days.

Nice Saturday morning here. Not as cold last night with a min of 1.6C. But I think the windchill will make it feel different today as there's already a good breeze here blowing the frost-weakened leaves off my trees.