lorenzo

If anyone would oblige what I am interested in now is how the MJO and GWO have influenced the Jet over the last decade and whether over the last two decades the last 3 years are seen as blips in the regular pattern. Is this a La Nina irregularity as far as winter patterns are concerned or are we due a rest to ' pure La Nina' conditions. It feels as if the models are nuancing towards the irregular. I still want to know what forced, continually reinforced the blocking heights in December looking historically at this winter before moving into January and Feb ! http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/mjo.shtml NOAA times out then loads on re-load , excuse the pun, on occasion.

The outlooks for AO are tanking negative for at least a couple of runs.Sudden Stratospheric Warming - am I correct?

In all honesty am delighted that with my limited knowledge of weather that looking at QBO stats and thinking of sunspots in my drunken muse was actually written up in existing papers. Only briefly read the first link I found but this is science in its infancy only 65 years of data and 3 sun cycles..

Thanks for the links - loads of papers in there to delve through.

Looking at this year vs last Sunspot activity has heralded a new age on our weather - I have no idea about verifying this.Is this accurate? Looking at some random posts on other sites the Gulf Stream has placed us on a par with Moscow hence the cold -NAO some credence yet empirically is this the root cause of cold weather? Latterly do we have or are we on the borders of de cellinization>? Looking at the cycles of weather, ozone abuse has depleted - we are leaving greenhouse years and now the cold returns from our CFC Winters- how long wil this last? Looking at our daily models ECM - wobbled, NCEP - GFS, predictions from Far FI., Its amazing role reversal from the consistent and reliable to erratic trend spotter. Couple of things still remain... Northern Blocking - why did this return so quickly? what caused it? was it expected? what caused the polar jet to meander?QBO? Stratospheric 'Perfect' Synopsis? Atlantic influence NAO - when did it trend negative, where is gulf stream, why did this 'flip occur', where are we vs La Nina conditions. I hope these questions reverberate with some on here - this simply is against the norm.. Apologies for posting in model thread - got bombed out of there - I did want however our real time expert views - I am not one please let me know if I am off the mark or if this summary of questioning is relevant. For me in limited understanding I believe that 1 Stratospheric Influence is underplayed on models, OLR Rossby Waves and GAM is also underplayed perhaps not by ECm but by GFS, there are faults in 06z runs unquantified, this period of time has literally blown apart climate change xperts without reference to unquantifiable. As I said i am new her but I do see the expert discussino of Chiono and GP providing with the 8-15 mb Noaa work as better guidance than GFS, NAEFS, ECM, NOGAPS<BOM ever can- they simply verify. Anyone wishing to reply appreciated... I am sure this will resonate with folks not only interested in what the odd shortwave does to our wee island ...

QBO charts from ECMWF - first highlights October and the second is from 1957 to date - if anything this illustrates how far a deviation from the past 2 decades this winter has been.

With the last summary you gave and cooling it certainly looks like the reinforced blocking may ebb. January looking messier. I was looking for a correlation between QBO and Volcanic Activity and found one paper released last year. Sorry lost link. I guess there is no lead time for analysis into the impact of Iceland - although if not Iceland, then Solar Impact must be one of the contributing factors to increased blocking. Other TC's are throwing up signals out of the norm also. AO vs La Nina Thanks for the response, this is certainly a thread I will monitor as looking retrospectively I think right now your on the button for longer range

Chiono - thank you for this thread - fantastic summaries. Am trying to get to the bottom of why blocking seemingly wants to establish again and again on the models and there is plenty to read in here to help me unravel this, summaries of the plots are superb. This December so far seems to challenge your opening post excerpt below, having limited knowledge of the mechanics of the QBO - do you think this has influenced the blocked pattern ? This year the QBO is in a westerly phase. The westerly phase flows in the same direction as the polar vortex circulation which does nothing to inhibit the flow, and the BDC is also reduced in a westerly phase. Therefore this year the polar vortex is likely to be stronger than last and as a result high latitude blocking is less likely. Now got some reading to do - http://www.agci.org/dB/PDFs/10S1_LGray_SolarInfluencesCLimate.pdf

Jua a quick edit - whats your own take on the models and how they are coping with the extra blocking signals GP, the above seems to temper SM post regarding decellinization. Looking at MJO the convection signals from Indian Ocean last year for me had a 4-5 day lag effect into where we are and subsequently influenced the charts - tell me if am wrong this is a novices observation - OLR seems to me to have been heavy recently and without the other factors I am not expert in i.e torques / Angular Momentum it still seems that the blocking pattern wants to reinforce. What in your opinion looking longer term has created this repeat GH blocking?

http://www.picresize.com/

High pressure abound, crystal clear blue skies this morning and some fine sunshine. Still very chilly though, not spring yet..

Steady snowfall for over an hour here now - brief moments of it getting quite heavy then easing off again. Passing South West by the look of radar -should be some decent falls for the Borders within the hour.

Headline events in terms of intensity, interest and model watching blue army - not a long term prediction. Am not citing a breakdown here just venturing that it seems to be where the majority of the energy is kicking up, agreed not Atlantic driven.

BBC News just now - Scottish ski centres have had more snow this week than the venues for the Winter Olympics in Canada.

AO projected to go positive for the first time in a while within the fortnight, blink and you'll miss it. NAO still in a negative position but only just, weakening as March begins. MJO Firmly in stage 7. A good animation of the 500mb preceeding our current position -giving no indication of any blocking establishing? Next fortnight seems pretty unsettled, I reckon Atlantic Lows may be the headline events..

Rain on it's way out now as the DAM line sinks south, snow beginning to fall here and winds pushing from all directions it seems. Looks like the next 24 hours will see even more. Brrr.. The Low in the North sea seems to be steadily moving north up the east coast of the country and it's outer edges moving onshore overnight, westward action as it meets the cold air flow from Scandi. Some storm in the English channel over the next 48 hours - glad am not getting a ferry anywhere anytime soon! That low pressure system keeps it's energy all the way onto landfall and keeps on churning until about t96 over St Petersburg. The Atlantic definitely picking up activity now. The North South divide in upper temps keeping us in among the cold stuff for a while yet - an Icelandic high projected for the start of next week hopefully keeping the remnants of that storm at bay and a couple of crystal clear blue sky winter days.

It is a truly disgusting grey morning, back garden is flooded, freezing rain and lots of it. No fun at all.. North East in for another spectacular pasting today too. Definitive winter for Scotland.

Just looking at radar and at the infamous lamp post out the back of the house - plenty of breeze and the first sporadic flakes beginning to fall as the northern edge of the front arrives. Think it's going to be picture postcard stuff in the morning.

This is a forecast I can trust - take note GFS you charlatan... :lol: Tulloch Bridge showing -15 for 6 am this morning. Come on PPN you know you want to arrive...