Gavin P
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Posts posted by Gavin P
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The latest questioning was "will we ever see a cold April again?" Well thats a no brainer.
How about;
"Will we ever have a hot summer again?"
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About the poll above. By "first snowfall" we are talking about over the Scottish Mountains yes? Not in the middle of London or Birmingham?
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Yep, the predicted warm spell from tomorrow to Tuesday is looking increasingly medicore. Afterwards it seems cool and unsettled. Could easily see it sub 16 now.
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I think it will be an unusually unsettled month (than we've been used to since 2000) Of course in Piers world this means floods of biblical preportions, wind storms to rival hurricanes and tornados spinning across the nation.
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With downward corrections, I don't think we can entirely rule out finishing sub 16. It will depend on the final week.
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Broadly;
The wettest September since 2000 and quite a cool month as well, with cyclonic winds coming from the north or north-west much more frequently than normal. Settled periods may occur in the opening few days and again towards the end of the month, though transient ridges of a couple of day duration are possible at any point.
October, also unsettled and cool - Probably the wettest October since 2004, with mainly cyclonic winds coming from the north with more frequency than normal. Frost will feature more than would be typically expected.
November, I'm not sure about yet.
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Has anyone seen the latest Roeder's charts? I have lost the link assuming they are still producing long range anomaly charts.
This is the last active link I have for Roeder;
http://www.climaprog.de/website1001001.htm
Unfortunatey it no longer works. If/When he returns it will be with a link similar to this, so probably worth keeping it.
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What's the betting once again September delivers much more in the way of prolonged settled weather than we saw at any stage during the summer. Recent Septembers in the main have been preety good on the sunhine and settled weather stakes, with some stunners like 2005, 2006. The first half of Sept on average delivers very benign weather.
Whilst I slowly move into autumn mode from mid august onwards, I always say autumn doesn't truly get going until the autumn equinox with conditions prior to then on average often warmer than a fair portion of June especially during the day.
CFS seems to be painting an unsettled picture quite consistently for September. Of course, we know CFS is unreliable and experimental, as all long range models are, but if its got the pattern right, the most unsettled September for a long time (perhaps 2000?) awaits most of us.
Re solar actiivity, you are getting it wrong. We are approaching maxima BUT the maxima is so weak it is unlikely to have a big warming effect, if any.
Re the jetstream, whether its woken or not, for this time of year it is a fair way south of where it should be and any natural seasonal southward shift from its current position would not induce mild conditions.
At present the early indications are that a cold winter with an extreme month is on the cards again. La Nina did control the latter half of winter...if it doesn't materialise this winter......it will be interesting.
BFTP
This is the point most people don't understand about solar activity. A lot of people think solar maxima = zonal, solar minima = blocked. It really isn't as linear as that however. Whats most important is how active these maximas and minimas are. A very weak maxima in effect is hardly any differant than a minima. By contrast a very intense maxima followed by a weak minima would probably mean the effect of the minima is very much negated. Its the stregnth of the cycles that matters most and the culmuative effect.
Regarding La Nina, it very much looks to me as though we're heading into weak La Nina winter territory. Weak La Nina is historically the most favourable state to be in if your looking for a cold winter. Though obviously there are no gurantees.
Not surprising theres a beyond summer thread as really it has been unmemorable this summer.
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Its really has been a very dreary summer it must be said.
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What's affecting/causing these weired weather patterns that we are having in the UK?
There are all sorts of theories, but my own would be a combination of the Oceans moving into a cooler phase (Pacific really, though the Atlantic will follow) and the extended, exceptionally weak solar cycle, which appears to have an especially pronounced effect on Europe in the form of blocking.
However, none of this guarantees we won't move back into our more traditional weather patterns at any point.
On summer, keep in mind the UK's summers have always been poor to middling. Good summers are very much the exception here, sadly. I don't know how old you are, but if you can only remember as far back as the 1990's that will have given you a skewered view on what a UK summer should be like. The 1990s and early 00's were very much the exception to the norm. The summers we've been experiancing since 2007 are much more like what a traditional UK summer should be like. On average I believe we get a good summer, once, maybe twice a decade - In the 1990s we had five or six.
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John, this has the CET back to 1900;
http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/centralengav_temperat.htm
And this is the entire CET series;
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
Put both links in your favourites, because they are a great source if information.
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and sometimes he is right and sometimes he is wrong using that system, thus more or less proving the point PT was making?
I wouldn't think anybody would use it as the single deciding factor for a coming season. Its just one of the things to throw into the pot, ultimately.
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I'm sure that if there was then forecasters would have been able to exploit it, by now. Which, to me at least, suggests the absence of any such pattern?
Joe B'astardi uses the strength of the hurricane season to forecast the likely patter for the following winter.
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Most active Atlantic hurricane seasons since 1851 (in terms of tropical storms formed):
2005
1995
1887
2010
1969
2008
2000
All these years were followed by quite cold winters.
There is suuposedly a connection to active hurricane seasons and cold winters - The idea is that hurricanes take warmth into the arctic which promotes cold air being displaced southwards into the mid latitudes, presumably through SSW.
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A ton of salt needed as it's such a long way off, but some mighty cold and dry charts for February on today's long range CFS update:
Bit of a february 1956/1986 feel to those charts Paul.
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I would say a warm opening week, but otherwise quite cool with high pressure continuing to sit the west feeding in north-westerly or northerly air flows.
15.3 (I would go sub 15, but for the expected warmth of week one, I may revise this in a few days)
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Hadley is confirmed as 13.8C after adjustments:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
That makes it the coolest since 1991 despite being only marginally below the 1971-2000 mean.
In the last few months we've had the coldest November since 1993, the coldest December since 1890, the warmest April since records began in 1659 and the coolest June since 1991.
Weird weather.
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Last night was quite cool especially in the north and today's maxima have been quite low so we may see a slight fall to 14 degrees. With expected 0.2 downward correction a finishing mark of 13.8 or 13.9 degrees is most likely, meaning either the coolest since 1999 or 1991. It has been a very average month indeed with two very shortlived warm/hot spells at the beginning and near the end(25-27th), a forgettable month in many respects.
Yeah, very forgettable. As a matter affact, I think its going to be a forgettable summer, with July coming out very much "average" also.
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2007 was very close to not achieving it but it got to 30.1C
Wasn't there quite a bit of controversy over that one? I seem to remember Trevor Harley having a sub 30'c temperature down as the hottest day for quite a few months, then suddenly the Met Office seemed to accept an unofficial temperature/station?
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To answer mushy re his comment.
I think the tc's are less clear as to what we may THINK the weather may do in summer than in winter. Perhaps those with a deeper understanding than me might also comment but one item oft mentioned in winter is the 30mb temperature. To my knowledge its effect in summer is pretty unknown. The ENSO effect obviously has an effect winter or summer or any other season, QBO, MJO also although I'm unsure just how much. Down to the AO and NAO and they too have an effect although again I suspect the 'links' are not so clear largely because in the northern summer the temperature differentials between equator and pole are far less marked.
Thanks John,
Yes, thats very much what I was getting at.
The NAO/AO is a good example. Their effects on our weather in winter are very clear and well understood. Their effects in summer are not so obvious.
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what i find frustrating with this forum is the lack of information by the more knowlegable being relayed here.... in winter theres hoards of experts discussing the 'what ifs'and 'the indications are' etc regarding the development of a cold snowy prospect.
will they PLEASE post something that doesnt leave the rest of us less knowlegable guessing what will happen, or is likely to happen?...
I think generally the weather is much harder to pin down in summer than it is in winter. The nature of the telennections and how they relate to the synoptics is far more diverse in summer than in winter, which makes summer a harder season to predict beyond 5-7 days.
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Before we get to winter we've autumn to concentrate on. CFS suggests the chance of an unsettled September and a very wet October;
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/glbz700Mon.gif
Think we're going to make up some rainfall this autumn.
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Thanks Jethro.
There is quite a bit of research going on into solar activity and its regional/global effects. The consesnsus definately does seem to be that it promotes blocking in the northern hemisphere and specifically around northern Europe, by moving the jet streams slightly.
I believe Lockwood is due to publish another paper on all this in the next few weeks?
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I get the impression that many people on here think a period of below average temperatures like 'the little ice age' means there will only be year after year of icy cold winters and such like.
I looked at some written records and it does seem like there were some very mild winters in that period too, in fact sometimes 3 back to back!
So whilst it would inevitably mean cooler winters, it wouldn't mean a cold winter every year I'm sure.
Some of those detailed summers are pretty hot too!
Indeed. Low solar actvity actually seems to make the weather more prone to extremes. Thats not just extreme cold, but at times extreme warmth as well as droughts and floods.
It also doesn't negate all the other short term influences we know can have an effect on our weather, such as ENSO, the NAO state, the PDO state, etc...
So whilst we would be one of the most prone places on earth to seeing changed weather patterns from low solar activity, it clearly wouldn't always mean cold weather, nor would it mean the weather is constantly blocked with no extended periods of zonal normality.
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Just looked at the Solar Cycle 24 website and it looks like there will be a hibernation, but no ice age.
That is almost certainly the most likely scenario. Regional effects of an extended period of quiet solar activity (such as cooling, possibly quite dramatic cooling at that, for north-west Europe) will occur, but for the Earth itself an actual ice age is probably very unlikely especially with all the C02 we've pumped into the atmosphere.
Though the truth is, nobody really knows for sure.
Christmas Weather 2011 - A White One Or Not?
in Spring Weather Discussion
Posted
Worth pointing out that although we have had two Christmas's with much of the country covered with snow, we still haven't had a Christmas Day with widespread, heavy, falling snow on the big day itself (thinking 1927 for instance) So, theres still something to ask Santa for.