Stravaiger

On the subject of Euro heights (and apologies mods if this is inappropriate for this thread, it's just a good way to access some of the most experienced members of the forum) can anyone explain to me why they have become so much more persistent and prominent in the winter months of late? 4 slow starts to the season in the Alps due to strong areas of high pressure that refuse to budge...why? Is it climate change? What is consistently forcing this new pattern to emerge and so consistently. Any answers or suggestions welcome. Cheers!

To my untrained eye, the end of the 0Z ECM isn't as bad as the output has been for much of the winter. Yes, we still have heights over Europe, but with a low in the eastern Med. and some lower heights heading towards the Azores the situation has some more promise to it. Certainly if you advect the situation on by 12 hours then a shot of Pm air would be bringing snow to fairly low levels in NW parts of the UK and Scotland esp.

Thanks Steve, fascinating stuff...wouldn't mind a similar winter to 2009 though, ironically, that would mean a back-loaded rather than front-loaded one this year. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out, esp. wrt stratospheric/troposheric (de)coupling this year. Cheers!

Hi Steve, Thanks for a highly informative and interesting post, just out of curiosity...has the mean zonal wind speed at 10hPa increased over the time frames of the ERA40 and Interim ERA? As in, are we likely to see higher W'ly wind speeds (on average) during winter than we were say 30 - 40 years ago, when the good old winters of yesteryear still brought frequent frost, snow and HLBing events? I'm just wondering if climate change has affected the stratospheric wind patterns at all. I know that the surprising wQBO this year was unprecedented, for example, with most (if not all) experts believing the switch to an eQBO was a foregone conclusion. Also with the forecast increase in 10hPa zonal wind speeds, would you expect the polar vortex's coherence to increase and its segments to unify? Cheers!