mcweather

Merry Christmas s4lancia, could be some nice belated xmas pressies if this keeps up. Greetings from Braodmayne where we've had hail and sleet in the showers. so technically a white xmas. lol

Well we have now moved from the wrist slashingly poor output ( for coldies ans snowies) of the euro high induced mild to more normal fare for winter especially here in the south west, namely endless low pressures whizzing across on the jet stream. But before we have any more winter is over posts. It would probably do us good to remember that from a snow lovers point of view. Some of our greatest snow events have occurred in other wise mainly westerly driven winters. We do not need a 63 or 47 scenario to have a decent spell of biting cold and extreme snowfall. Take the winter of 77/78 for instance, December and the first three weeks of January were dominated by by a mainly westerly flow and even a southerly at times with nothing much more than the odd toppler yet the last week of January and first two weeks of feb produced the great highland Blizzard then a spell of severe cold with widespread snowfalls finishing down here in my part of the world with the great southwest Blizzard of 78 on the 18th Feb with drifts up to 30 feet high, and all this from a winter that wasn't even in the top twenty coldest of the 20th century!! My message to coldies is keep the faith. Those of us who have been around a fair old while like myself know that it is often a waiting game with the British winter especially down south.

Thanks Fergie. Interesting to note that despite being the minority solution that UKMO are not discounting it as a possible outcome.

Indeed Ian and all those that thought that at the time were COMPLETELY WRONG as is your remark about the ECM ensembles.

Yes Ian but unlike some I could mention. The rest of us didn't fall into the trap of thinking those nearly every year events meant harsh winter weather would never return to lowland England.

Great effort Phil and and a pretty feasible outcome. Thanks for showing your methodology too always enable a forecast to be taken far more seriously. I wouldn't complain at something along the lines you suggest.

Hi Ian bonfire night 1980 was white in some places here in the south and the channel islands.

Hi Crewe Cold. The interesting thing with the bitter January that the CFS is showing a lot is that the pressure anomaly it shows is very very similar each time. There are a number of ways a January could be very cold but CFS is basically sticking to one scenario. So not only some consistency in its very cold forecast for January but also some consistency in its cause as well. Interesting stuff

http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/researchhighlights/SSW/ Superb article on last Januarys strat warming. Well worth a read.

The daddy of them all for my corner of Dorset. or how about this one for a real christmas snowstorm

Just for a bit of fun I have been looking at the CFS daily 9 months runs over the last over the last couple of weeks. A consistent pattern of a cold and snowy spell developing around christmas /new year has been showing. It may interest members to know that when I was doing the same last august and september the most consistent pattern that came up was for very cold weather in March 2013

I am a Thatcher by trade so summer creates enough problems in not being able to get out of the sun because I am up on a roof. Secondly doing hard physical work in humid conditions is just foul. Thats why I hate humid conditions. I take your point about the evenings being warmer if its a bit more humid but then of course you find you can't sleep because its too sticky, Overall Summer is my least favourite season. From an aesthetic point of view the light is better in the other three seasons. Even though I've had to wrap up to keep warm these past few weeks at work, I'd rather have that than hot and humid anyday. You can work hard to get or keep warm but you can't work hard to keep cool.

Indeed Mushy Looking at the ECM ENS diagrammes for 168hrs there are really not many that go for the change you would be hoping for indeed a good number retain very staunch blocking and a fair number of those that don't, actually bring the scandi trough much more into play.

A dryish summer with low humidty and temps topping out at about 22c. A 22C shade temperature is more than enough to give warm days. Anthing above that is just tiresome. The problem with much of the UK is once temps clim much higher than 22c it then becomes humid and that is the worst weather ever in my book. Very occasionally like 1976 the wind direction and dryness of the air will make temps well above 22C feel reasonably comfortable but those sors of conditions are rarer than rocking horse droppings.

12Z makes more play of precipitation over the southern half of England next thurs/fri as well.

Yes Gavin they're all the way up to minus 6 to minus 8 on April 1st. Positively tropical. lol

Some possible snow interest for southerners next week on todays 00z ECM run. A cold pool moving west with instablitiy evident over northern France. Looks reasonably ripe for some sort of feature to develop and move westwards down the English channel. Not saying its definite , just a possiblty.

Looking at this mornings ECM run there is certainly some possible interest for us snow wise later next week with a cold pool moving in on the easterly airflow and increasing instability over northern France. Wouldn't be at all surprised to see a small westward moving trough or discrete low forming and moving down channel. Which might make the cold spell worthwhile after all in this part of the world.

All the very best Stewart. I have been convinced for sometime now that your non numerical way of longer range forecasting was the way forward and it is interesting to note that a large corporation has seen the value of this as well. You will I know be sadly missed here on Netweather by those with any decent level of meteorological understanding. I have followed your forecasts avidly over your time here and they have proved the most reliable I have come across. The very best of luck for the future.

I remember the darks times in the 1990's and earlier in the current century when it was the cold and snow lovers who were praying for charts at 240 to verify. They rarely ever did lol

To be honest even though I love winter weather, in my backyard the current spell is just becoming a pain. The only slightly remarkable thing are the low daytime maxes. The overnight minima are barely noteworthy. There is no real likelyhood of any significant snowfall to make the cold weather worth having. Normally I,d be quite excited to see the number of potential channel lows lining up to our southwest but sadly the block is too strong and they are all going to give the french a snowfest instead.

mcweather, on 25 March 2013 - 20:14 , said: I see that the channel low forecast of just 24 hours ago on the Meto office based Countryfile forecast has now been downgraded. Ah well it was good while it lasted. Rely from Fergie Erm, OK - I think caution needed here - and also on some other elements of detail later this week: Let's consider the broader evolution towards late working week. We have a slack upper trough, extending west essentially from the Baltic, which will ultimately become cut-off into a vortex over the north of the British Isles. In turn, it then slips away south, later to interact with an upper front over southern parts of the country. In doing so, it becomes fundamentally important... it's very likely to play a cornerstone role in what remains (despite what latest NWP deterministic output might outwardly suggest) a very delicate balance, between current dominance of the blocked cold air from north, versus Atlantic system(s) trying to move-up from the SW. Given a third of MOGREPS members succeed in this push - at least some to the Midlands by Fri-Saturday - it remains foolhardly to assume this particular story is already a 'busted flush'. It needs careful monitoring and remains very much on a knife-edge. Meanwhile, the FAX at T+72 holds potential for some disruptive snow into SE/E Anglia areas. Why? Well, we have upper forcing strongly signalled in the UKMO-GM for that timeframe (in 2 successive runs now, with now good 12z EC support but none - again - from GFS) as the aformentioned cut-off vortex merges with a vorticity strip... as the resultant trough then sharpens quite markedly, it deepens the boundary layer convection and indeed EURO4 now offers potential for a few cm's of snow, e.g., across the South Downs; E parts of Kent, Suffolk & Nortfolk which could (stress *could*) prove somewhat disruptive in places, albeit the threat is low. The key thing here is that nothing can be taken for granted later this week, despite what might outwardly appear a rather tedious pattern on face-value of the charts. The fine balance I stressed earlier in this post is just that, and could literally tip either way. Many thanks to Fergie for his in depth reply to my post:

Thing is George I was hoping a foot of snow from that rather than a foot of potential!!

I see that the channel low forecast of just 24 hours ago on the Meto office based Countryfile forecast has now been downgraded. Ah well it was good while it lasted.