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len

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Posts posted by len

  1. Eh? If the sun enhances land convection then it must also enhance sea convection... both involve exactly the same mechanism, except that the sea has a lot more water so it produces a lot more activity.

    Similarly, if the sun is strong enough, as some people are suggesting, to make a difference to daytime temps by heating the ground more, then it cannot NOT have effects in other areas... that just doesn't make sense. It's certainly true, though, that cold uppers are vital to decent convection which is why I suspect there won't be that much around before midweek. In fact, the upper profile doesn't look brilliant, all things taken into account - the core of the cold pool is now trending further S into Germany with more S and E areas still seeing some really decent 850 temps - still subject to upgrades/downgrades.

    The sun enhances land convection only because it rapidly raises the temperature of surfaces.

    This effect is much, much less over water, and even more reduced over open, moving wind-mixed water

  2. There is lots of talk about longer days and a stronger sun which is certainly true, but we ought to remember that this also increases convection potential. A stronger sun than in Jan, shining over a comparatively cold N Sea should result in a lot of beefy snow showers - the question is will these make it far inland. The flow isn't great if we're honest, but it's better than a lot we've had where snow showers have formed in many areas, so I think it would be fair to say that some places could see a good amount of snow even this week - particularly parts of East Anglia and the SE from Wednesday onwards - the risk zone being a bit further N prior to this.

    Several have commented on the now very cold North Sea helping to reduce warming modification.

    But it also reduces the convective potential by reducing moisture & energy transfer into the air mass.

    But convection is also driven by cold uppers of course which don't look too terrible although not Snowmaggedon.

    But as several have pointed out, my own experience is that a lot of snowfalls come from minor developments that occur at short notice, whereas many potential blizzards disappear after agonising waits.

  3. Yep, can't really add much to whats been said above, the GFS has finally been dragged kicking and screaming in-line with the Met and ECM. Goes to show the UKMO isn't that dodgy at +144 after all.

    Any block is well and truly blown away from the UK and were back at +300 for anything remotely wintry after a possible short transitional snow event on Wednesday.

    Don't understand this & other similar posts.

    I've been watching quietly every day. It was ECM who had everyone going ape the other day with its absolutely mythic Easterlies. And when GFS did(patchily)show an Easterly, ECM usually had a better one. GFS was reluctant then hesitant about it; Only UKMO has held consistent.

    Remember, the mild run is usually the right run.

  4. The NAO/AO is a good tool for following where the models might go though, I find they pretty much follow the NAO/AO trend. 3 days ago the NAO/AO trend was followed by a GFS runs showing fairly deep cold and an easterly, since the NAO/AO has shown a neutral turn which the ECM may have picked up on. I'm not 100% sure how it works but it might have some bearing on the models runs, not necessarily the actual outcome.

    I suppose it helps if the NAO/AO settles on a stable pattern.

    Perhaps one of our more expert contributors could clarify something that was touched on a year or so ago?

    I understood then, that the AO / NAO charts were just extractions from the models. They did not represent different sources/data/inputs. They are just a different way of looking at the same model outputs/data, but with reference to specific pressure distributions (Arctic/Iceland/Azores).

    Many on here talk of them as if they are something separate, that might show something as yet hidden from the models.

    Can someone qualified please clarify?

    Len

  5. i don't wish to make direct comparisons between this year and 1962/3 but I know from reading up about it that a high pressure with an centre of above 1050mb collapsed just before Christmas which then led to the developments that led to such an outstanding winter.

    Of course no guarantee would come with the collapse of the current high pressure system in terms of what cold weather it might bring, but since it dominates a lot of the thinking on here, could I ask a few questions...

    1) how common is it for such systems to collapse within a day or two as I believe happened in 1962?

    2) are the models in place complex enough to forecast such collapses and, if so, do any of them forecast the collapse of the current Siberian one?

    Many thanks

    I've looked at this many times

    http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsreaeur.html

    Between the 20th Dec & Boxing Day 1962. There was a very deep vortex over Baffin which split and sent a centre over to NW Russia. This allowed the rapidly developing East-Euro High to duck under the Eastward travelling vortex and transfer quickly to Greenland, they passed like two slippery blobs.It makes interesting watching.

    While this kind of this is possible, that does not mean it will, or even can, happen on any occasion. I rely on GP, Brickfielder, Chionomaniac et al to tell me if it could or should happen. Presumably in the final days of 62 there were compelling physical forces and/or teleconnections that made it happen

  6. Must say I don't get all this excitement about a Siberian High. It's called a "Siberian" High because that's where it lives.

    It's there virtually all of most winters (and people are always pinning hopes on them).

    But there is always cold to our North in the Arctic (and it gets here a lot quicker when it decides to come).

    And yes the Siberian pressure is very often over 1050.

    The looming situation is worrying because it is all to threatening of a very familiar , and very stable, pattern. Large Siberian High + South Greenland PV.

    (It's not quite the usual yet)

    Perhaps there will be an Easterly, but the ones that limp here over weeks usually land up very lame affairs and just because it's there, don't mean squat that it's headed this way.

    Same goes for the split jet. Personally I believe we've had these very rare oldtime synoptics of late precisely because at last we had a Southerly unitary jet.

    Bifurcated jets to our West have plagued us with dreary raw faux cold & returning TM air in recent winters and to our East they send winter into Greece and the Levant with tastes of faux cold for us

  7. The GFS has taken an awful lot of stick from many members on here recently for its tendency to be too progressive, but it was the first to pick up on the breakdown when all other models showed the block holding firm over the UK, and despite the straw clutching of many in terms of reloads/beast from the east, there is no evidence that this will happen in the reliable, or even at all.

    Yes indeed. The ECM has completely flipped to follow the GFS suit this morning;..... just as it did last week when the GFS was the first to show the Atlantic spoiling things.

    Len

  8. In the breakdown situations that are beginning to show in the models (Now that ECM has caught up with GFS)we always have lots of posts about how the "embedded" cold with resist (and perhaps even shrug off) these attacks.

    Of course there is some obvious truth in this phenomenom, but I don't think it should be overated or become a straw to clutch at.

    Have you ever thought that, if cold is so difficult to shift, we would never successfully get those WAA southerlies into Greenland that cause the height rises that create Greenie Highs.

    You can't have it both ways, when we get an Arctic blast it's because the cold is being booted out somewhere else.

    When the Jet (or the bigger synoptic picture) says shift, the cold shifts.

    It may take 24 or 48 hours longer than computers say, but don't create false hopes.

    Len

  9. models suggesting that it might all be over later next week :p

    Indeed GFS was showing an Atlantic attack yesterday,....which brought the usual derision, because ECM showed no such thing.

    But today, lo & behold, ECM has moved towards this idea of GFS's. I've a feeling I've been here before. My personal memory is that in these situations GFS is first to pick up the idea & ECM follows suit.

    But GFS seems to be the model people love to hate?

    But I've seen nothing from GP, Brickfielder, Chionomaniac,et al. in recent days?

    Are they out sledging?

    I would love to hear what their views are on GFS's idea???

    Len

  10. Question for anyone more technical.

    There is a quarant of the UK, SE of a line from The Wash to Leicester to Southampton which the precipitation seems unable to cross without dying.

    Anyone know why?

    And, as I live just East of this "snowshield" , is it going to change?

    Len

  11. Craigers said on last page of locked thread.............

    "GEM is my dream of a chart! which would be amazing for Yorkshire full stop! and with Europe being so cold already, it will deliver with more of a punch than of past years!!!"

    Trouble is the deep cold has been shunted out of most of Europe.... http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/winfos/euisoTTPPWW.gif

    6:00 am shows most of Europe marginal with barely a frost.

    Any dry cold to help snow Tues/Wed has to come from the North or from Scandi

    Len

  12. Can any on help with this.

    Saturday nights event, for south wales is forecast to be rain!

    ACccording to models 2m temps near 0, 850s near -5, 528 dam is beyond. I know its the warm sector but can not see why rain and not snow.

    With all that in place would the dew point be above zero and if so what would be needed to drop dew points.

    Can someone with model experience explain the reasons for forecast and about dew points (and where on models are dew points shown )

    Arn't you confusing "dew points" with "wet bulbs". Snow requires a wet bulb of zero not a dew point of zero. With higher humidities in warm sectors wet bulbs are higher...hence more marginal for snow

    Len

  13. Unsuprisingly he acknowledged the possible event, but stated this is "the best event in the christmas pudding" or some rubbish like that. Check the last page of the previous model thread.

    If we had an ice age he would still stick by his theory until the bitter end.

    Seems totally reasonable to me? Why the jibe?

    It certainly looks the best event (on the models at least & if it pans out) in the post '87 period of warmer winters.

    Can't remember when I saw such High latitude blocking, Jet undercutting, Heights over Greenland ...IN DECEMBER except for 62 of course.

    And I've been watching the weather since 1958.

    Don't tell me there's no "christmas pudding" of warmer winters. It is my direct experience.

    You can convince anybody to anything if it is remote from there experience, but it is a shame that so many can be so often convinced of what is contrary to their experience. Not me though!

    And if we experience a cooling off, or even an Ice Age, let's see who will be first to acknowledge it

    (It is definitely not here yet) instead of prejudging peoples reactions to hypothetical scenarios. What is the motive for that?

    Len

  14. Personally, and you probably think I would say this but I don't think it's unreasonable that win98 is no longer supported by some web applications, if you consider than when it was created internet forums were in their extreme infancy, broadband was something only the very few had or had heard of and web video hadn't been touched. So, it's hard to expect the newer technologies, to work properly on that system as it wasn't created with that sort of use in mind at all.

    There's not been a concious decision to move the site beyond the likes of win98, but the forum software creators have pushed things forward at their end and the video format we use is pretty new, so unfortunately it has resulted in some items not being available to users with that or older systems.

    What I would say though is costwise it's not so expensive to pick up a legal copy of windows XP which is a very good os - I've seen it going for around £30 on ebay..

    Paul I don't have Win98, I have Win98SE which was only first released in May 1999.

    Microsoft ended support less than 7 years from first intro in July 2006. If you think that is reasonable I would have to disagree.

    ME is only Win98SE messed-up and does not count. I daresay any ME users may be experiencing the difficulties I am.

    The premature ending of support of Win98SE, and the botch of ME, was part of the arm-twisting to buy XP.

    There are 3 XP pro machine in this house, and two more of my employers, all of which I maintain.....and I don't like it at all. I much prefer 98SE.

    Now it is theoretically possible some new Web Applications might require XP (or IE7), but should this site require it? That is the question.

    I suspect that many such new applications just require XP because it's there and that's what the software -designers use.

    How many such applications would be impossible without XP were it not there? Not many I would guess myself?

    Anyway Paul, you did answer the question I had posed above about whether pre-XP-OS-system users were knowingly excluded. Apparently not.

    I wonder, if you had realised, would you have gone back to the software vendors and asked them if the site could be more inclusive?

    But in fact I did raise this on the thread discussing these changes before the event and I was informed that only minor bells and whistles would be beyond the capacity of users such as myself.

    Now I find I cannot post from my machine, page navigation is slow and sticky, and it freezes IE(6)regularly.

    Perhaps the vendors should be contacted as this is not operating as intended???

    Len

  15. It's definitely not running slower, so it may be worth you clearing out your cache and cookies as that is often the cause of slow downs on sites.

    Definitely not ignoring you Paul!

    When I replied that I "maintained my PC meticulously" I meant that I did those clean-outs (and much more) regularly.

    I understand your point about the (seeming) inevitability of technological change. But it's a question of pace. What is reasonable? What is its purpose? Who gains?

    I think the digital switchover analogy poor because it can be remedied by a very cheap box. (I still think it's a fraud in quality....bandwidth sacrificed from resolution to more shopping channels)

    The advance of PC hardware seems to be driven by gaming enthusiasts, but, like many PC users, PC games leave me cold.

    The frequency of new OS's from MS seems to be a cynical abuse by a quasi-monopoly to extort.

    My PC is not yet nine years old. It was bought with win98SE which many experts still claim to be in a sense "the best OS from MS". (Even the vendors warned me off the ME system then extant).

    I personally think it a bad thing to send my PC to landfill because of microsoft's need to maximise profits with monopoly abuse. But for the complicity of third-party Websites with MS, I and many other simple-surfers, could use their PCs for many years.

    But I know I may be in a minority feeling this way. That does not make me wrong.

    I will be forced to buy a new PC. I have 4 here and parts from several others. I could make them work perfectly adequately but for the OS issue.

    But I will not buy Vista, with Windows 7 imminent.

    I dont know if your 0.29% figure for Win98 users includes Win98SE & ME users. But even if we made up one per cent I guess that's pretty unimportant compared to the new features?

    Len (Posted from wife's XP machine)

  16. Look, take this as an example…………….

    I couldn’t view John Holmes’s video forecast, because, as the site boasts, “It uses the latest technology”. This means it requires the latest Adobe Flash Player, which in turn demands XP/Vista.

    However the player opens and I can watch the Bank-of-Santander ad that runs before John Holmes!!!

    Now obviously commercial users don’t want to exclude pre-XP web-surfers, even though they have huge resources to use afford the “latest technology”. It would be foolish of any advertiser to exclude viewers.

    What I can’t work out is why Netweather needed to add “functions” that that excludes viewers? Why doesn’t Netweather want as wide a public as a commercial Website?

    I would love to know if those choosing the new Website system consciously knew in advance that the new website would be restrictive/exclusive in this way?

    Or did they not ask the right questions of the Vendors?

    If it was deliberate, what marvelous “functions” were worth losing viewers/contributors. I never missed any such functions before.

    I am a weather-geek perhaps. That does not also make me a Computer-geek.

    We shouldn’t have to be both to use the site fully.

    I understand that those with XP/Vista just arn't bothered by this. But if MS stop support for XP/Vista next year, will you feel like giving MS a fortune to buy Windows 3 or whatever it will be? We shouldn't be supporting this scam.

    Len (Posted from my wife's XP machine)

  17. Hi

    I have had no other probs with other sites and my PC is meticulously maintained. But I think I may have found the cause.

    IT WOULD APPEAR THIS SITE NOW DEMANDS XP/Vista!!!!!!

    I am posting this from my wife's PC, as indeed I had to post the starter post (She has an XP PC).

    From my Win98SE machine I can only navigate the new site (stickily), but not post.

    I think this is really poor. I even queried this on the new-site discussion thread and was told that only certain new bells and whistles would be exclusive to XP/Vista users.

    It's a real shame; I have to virtually give up this site, or give Microsoft a small fortune to buy a newer buggy system?

    No other website I have encountered requires XP just to navigate and post.

    Why reserve this site for those who can afford new operating systems?

    Len

  18. A few years ago I used to post questions as to why the jet was always bifucated over the N. atlantic. (so that we never got to be North of it). I never did get an answer.

    Now we have our third Summer of a unitary and Southerly-running Jet.

    Suddenly we seem to be able to reside North of the complete jet (in Summer at least!)

    And the models show this miserable scenario continuing.

    Does anyone know why?

    Why has the formerly quasi-permanent Atlantic-bifurcation disappeared?

    Why is the Jet so far South?

    Len

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