beng

http://www.weatherbell.com/ Have a listen to today's video blog on the right hand side of the page - a good explanation of why winter conditions under one el nino may be quite different to conditions under another. Some major differences in SSTs between 1997/98 and now - which should mean a quite different winter time synoptic pattern across the US and Atlantic.

Joe Bxstardi certainly doesn't forecast cold or even brutal cold for NW Europe every year - I challenge anyone to post links supporting that claim. Joe does openly admit to being more interested in climate extremes. I wish people would get their facts correct without potentially libeling someone - this guy is not James Madden.

Might be somehow connected to the state of the AMO, if we do move into a new negative cycle over the next 5 years then it'll be interesting to see what impact that has in February.

I just think it's the naturally occurring gradual switch over of the AMO cycle to cold which should be expected to occur over the next 5 years or so.

" Most likely not, but I do not yet get why cooler than normal SSTS would relate to lower than average heights. What I thought is that cooler than normal surface temperatures are related to descending motions, and as a result more high pressure activity. Any explanation would be greatly appreciated!" I think what you say about lower SSTs being associated with higher pressure will hold true in the tropics where the weather is convective in nature. Of course across the North Atlantic, the weather is dominated by mid latitude depressions created by a mixing of warm and cold air masses. If you have a large body of water with less energy than normal, then I would expect the warm sectors in depressions to be less strong due to the lack of energy in the ocean - meaning the depressions won't drive so far north as they develop. I think that could translate to more southerly jet - keeping the low pressure zones a bit further south - and creating the below average pressure anomaly. It's chicken and the egg though isn't it - did the SSTs cause the pressure anomaly - or the other way around?! Would be great if one of the active or retired professional meteorologists could comment as I'd like to know if I'm barking up the right tree or not and either way they'll explain it better than me.

Found this comment from Thomas Shafernaker - http://www.techtimes.com/articles/84723/20150915/strong-el-ni%C3%B1o-could-bring-another-big-freeze-winter-to-the-u-k.htm - which no doubt some of the press have subsequently put 2+2=5 - deciding that just because el nino might have helped intensify the winter of 2009/10 (i.e. by increasing moisture levels in the atmosphere & the southern branch of the jet) - then every el nino must obviously mean a repeat of 1962 etc - despite the fact that atlantic sea temps and other factors have a greater bearing on what matters here - i.e. northern blocking. Poor journalism - but that's symptomatic of almost everything output by the MSM these days - IMHO anyway. "This time round El Niño could be the strongest in decades," says Met Office meteorologist Thomas Shafernaker. "In Europe sometimes winters end up much colder and drier and last much into spring" with a strong El Niño, he explains. "In 2010, the El Niño played a part in bringing huge amounts of snow to the U.K."

Not just the tabloids - wonder who's feeding them this nonsense about El Nino? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/weather/11864067/Britain-braced-for-long-snowy-winter-as-strongest-El-Nino-since-1950-expected.html

I agree that the UKMO model is not screaming 1947 or 1963 - I'm not sure any of these models would ever pick up an event like that ahead of time though? Anyone got any thoughts on that as I've always found it quite interesting wondering whether the models of today could pick up on a winter like that ahead of time. On the face of it looking at 2m and 850 temps, it's not even saying cold - more average with a bias to cold just west of the UK. The surface pressure charts do hint at higher than normal pressure around Iceland though and there are a few similarities in the Atlantic SST anomalies to 2009 (also some differences too). Other factors like the QBO (not checked this to be certain) and solar activity are likely quite different and the winter El Nino may be stronger this year - perhaps more east based too. Plenty more of this to come over the next few months as we build up to the winter season - we've still got the OPI to reel out in due course (which failed miserably last year). I've tried to follow the seasonal models in the past, but it's become clear with a bit of experience that they are really pretty useless. Basically no one has a clue at this stage and for the UK at least - predicting the winter coming is probably impossible. Bastxrdi has analogue years (probably based more on the pacific) of 1958,2003,2009 - which if you put into the NCEP composites shows a strong bias for much colder than normal to our East - with the UK slightly below average. The problem is, even if those composites turn out close to the mark, if the Atlantic energy is just slightly stronger than previous years, we'd end up quite mild - alternatively if it's a bit weaker we could be noticeably cold. Sometimes, I'm glad I'm not a professional forecaster as the UK weather is always on such a knife edge. The Express which is pushing the Madden nonsense has done this for the last 3 years consecutively predicting a severe winter. I suppose if they keep at it, even a stuck clock is right twice a day.

Here's another interesting tweet showing output from the latest Jamstec https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/644065289483735040 "Europe also cold now on JAMSTEC! Following UKMET lead. SST shades of 09 in N Atl...more important than nino there" http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2015/anomnight.9.14.2015.gif http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2009/anomnight.9.14.2009.gif Similar in some aspects, different in others. In terms of the N Atlantic, there's a lot more warmth in the tropics than in 2009 - maybe aid the Southern part of jet stream through winter. More energy off the US East Coast though this year which create more cyclogenisis there.

AMO cycle beginning to switch into its negative phase. The really interesting thing will be to watch to see what impact this has on summer ice in the arctic over say the next 5-10 years. Of course the last time it switched into the prolonged cold phase we had a very severe winter in W Europe around the time of the switch over (give or take a few years); that may have been complete coincidence though! I do wonder though whether the current El Nino will, down the line, result in a warming Atlantic again within the next 12 months - so we're probably not quite at the real switch yet.

Bit unfair as you've not shown the N Hemispheric view so no sure way to get a handle on the vortex positioning and what it might be up to. Cold at the surface in the UK - most notably in the North at this stage as the developing block looks newish meaning the cold possibly hadn't pushed all the way south at least at the surface. Going forward - it looks like a dig SE of the jet under the high is developing - so I'll go for high pressure from UK to Greenland with SE winds across the UK and a front straddling parts of the UK giving a decent snowfall.

Interesting fax chart http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ukmo2.php?ech=72&carte=2000 Possibly snow/wintry mix for Ireland, Wales, Southern England, S Midlands as early as Saturday?

So is the MJO one of the main reasons some of the forecasts have gone awry, or are there other more important factors that have made the vortex hard to split this winter, e.g solar factors ( solar max conditions are not helpful given the who state I believe)? Would be good to try and understand the learning points so we can take them onboard for future seasons. Just to be clear, I'm not having a dig as I know written text can get misconstrued sometimes - I'm genuinely interested in what we can learn here because these threads are terrific and have moved things forwards so much over the last few years. On the MJO, I'd think the warm SSTs around Australia are not helping since these are no doubt helping prevent the atmosphere from coupling with the weakfish El Niño SST pattern off S America. The other thing (although I don't understand the mechanism) that may not be helping is the current warm PDO pattern. I can't think of any cold Uk winters off the top of my head that occurred with both a warm PDO and warm AMO; there may be the odd exception, but certainly these patterns don't seem to have favoured us in the past. Just on the warm PDO that we're in, the same thing happened in the late 50s with a short lived warm blip in the long term cold cycle. This occurred just prior to the flip in the Atlantic cycle so it's possible we're seeing indications that the AMO will go negative over the next 4-5 years.

ECM sweeps mild SWs into Scandinavia by t168, which just 48 hours earlier was in the middle of a brutal freeze. I'm 99% certain that this is complete nonsense (based on seeing the model do this numerous times incorrectly on previous occasions). Basically ignore anything after around 72 hours in this kind of scenario as it will probably change.

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gefs_cartes.php?ech=138&code=5&mode=1&carte=1 I'll take ensemble 5.

Just to add, Southern North Sea Temps are very warm for the time of year, any 850s <-8 should create a contrast that's enough to trigger significant convection; it seems to me that this might actually help lower heights on the southern side of the developing high and help it nudge that bit further north than currently modelled. None of this apart from the lowering of 850s is currently modelled though - so we'll have to wait and see whether they shift as the low level detail firms up.

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/naefs_cartes.php?code=0&ech=240&mode=0&map=1&runpara= http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/naefs_cartes.php?code=0&ech=384&mode=0&map=1&runpara= Just having a look at the NAEFs ensembles to look ahead, no sign at all of our block to the East going anywhere anytime soon - that's a noticeable anomaly at this range still. Suggestion is that winds will begin to come more Easterly than Southerly as we get into early Dec so probably cooler at the surface and drier too at that point. edit: Nick (BA) I must have read your mind!

Yep as normal it does - very annoying. Hopefully the control run will be similar out to t180 and provide a better overview afterwards. I can only assume that fixing the models to deal with this problem must be extremely complicated as the issue has been very apparent really since 2009 when the winters began to turn noticeably colder (last year the exception obviously). Anyway - until there's any consistency earlier on from run to run and between model to model, it's hard to take anything seriously in terms of the longer term.

Perhaps, with the split vortex it will be less favourable to the strong jet going over the top of the block. My thinking is if we had a solid well formed vortex then we'd see the jet less prone to splits. With that vortex segment where it is now though, it ought to send lows spinning NE, just glancing the block (perhaps with a small amount of energy going underneath), rather than powering over the top. That in itself may help build the block further with the WAA that will result. If the vortex segment comes too far west, then no doubt the block will be under more pressure. Would be nice to at least get a decent high nearby even if it's only to dry out the air. I can't take much more of this damp crud! :-)

Mushy - not sure I totally agree (although I might have mis-interpreted what you're saying?) - it's really only after t144 that we see the atlantic come in - at least on the GFS. From Sat until then it's fairly cool and dank on all the models. After that point - we may get a surge of atlantic air but it's not certain IMHO - not from the latest UKMO and GEM anyway. http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/geme_cartes.php?&ech=192&mode=0&carte=1 I agree that any easterly flow in the interim is not going to be especially cold though. Worth adding that GFS is notorious for being over progressive with the a split vortex and pushing the Canadian part eastwards too soon from my experience. The strat model output this morning was interesting - so even if the atlantic does sweep in after day 6, we might get away with a fairly short lived zonal spell - and not the dross we had last year.

Yes, you're right about them going for Scandi blocking having read it in more detail. I don't think you could get a scandi high dominated winter, combined with a notable negative AO that didn't result in a below average winter here - I'd be interested though if someone can post an example winter where that happened. It would have to have been a bit unlucky from a cold lovers perspective.

The accuweather forecast is not consistent with a notable negative AO, I guess we'll see, but to me anyway the AO state this winter looks odds on to be negative so I'd be dubious that their forecast will verify.

John - I make the CET figures for Dec-Feb (2012/2013): 4.8, 3.5, 3.2 which is lower than you've quoted (looks like you quoted Jan/Feb 2014 instead of 2013). The most notable thing about that winter was the March value of course being 2.7

Yes I was thinking exactly the same thing - or perhaps down the line they could issue both - a 5 day which would be more reliable and then the 10 day as well for the masochists.

To be fair to Riccardo - he has said that they will be publishing a paper in due course - so in a way we're lucky to be able to see some of this in advance. I guess, it's no worse than in the middle of winter, following the ECM or GFS to see them predict blizzards at day 8, only for the following days runs to collapse the block and sweep in a warm South Westerly. The good news is that we can now start this emotional roller coaster a couple of months early