johnholmes

The EC-GFS anomaly charts this morning would be a cold fans dream in mid winter, see link below. It does look as though they are leading NOAA this time, confirmation may come this evening from NOAA. If it differes then we are in 'sitting on the fence territory' from next Monday. http://mp1.met.psu.edu/~fxg1/ECMWF_0z/hgtcomp.html

Dry with a lot of upper cloud layers with some sunshine now and then, a low of 11.9C

So the weather is perfect for Glaciers to form over the Scottish mountains ,perhaps to recede in the Alps? We are certainly at a pivitol time I hardly think that first part is likely; the latter part has been occurring a lot longer than the 30 years I have been visiting the same area of the Jungfrau region.

As a result of a change in the NOAA 6-10 this evening the tilt towards a north of west 500mb flow developing in the 6-10 day period is increased somewhat. Still unclear really but it is unusual for NOAA outputs to swop and change in most circumstances so if tomorrow shows a similar pattern then the odds would really swing to that pattern. link http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/500mb.php

I think the comments alluding to modern perceptions on how to present weather forecasts is probably very valid. I'm way behind the times and maybe UK Met is also. Perhaps the smartphone app is a good part of why they appear to have lost the contract. As sk suggests re the app, neither am I all that keen on what it shows on my smartphone but then we have to move on, or so they say. Neither new nor old is necessarily better but someone has to make a choice and it appears old fogies like me and perhaps my ex colleagues are in that league. It is, other than the possible loss of work for staff, no great world changing issue. The core services I posted about will remain or I would suppose they will.

my view using the two main sets of anomaly charts=unclear from day 6 the precise pattern but not heat and Euro ridging would be my suggestion?

The coolest morning since Sunday 16th, low overnight of 11.7C, dry with almost total cloud cover, various thick middle level layers it looks like

A lot of speculation with much of it just that. I doubt with the exception of 2 maybe 3 on here have enough access into UK Met to really know what is going on or what the end result may be. (I don't include myself in those numbers-my knowledge is at least 8-10 years old as all my ex colleagues have mostly retired) On what we have been told by BBC and UK Met, or what I have heard and read it is a sad day but the BBC like the Met O is under a great deal of pressure to cut costs as it is the government via our taxes that covers much of the costs. Just one point the Met O was, probably still is, an Executive Agency. That roughly means parts of it are under MOD control and part is required to return a profit. The part under MOD control obviously covers for the service both actual and forecast in any war zone along with routine support for any British bases at home and abroad. It also includes the core computer areas including research or did the last time I got information from someone about 4-5 years ago. It may of course have changed by now. I am not sure where the Met O commitment to the WMO and its being one of only two major aviation centres fits in but would imagine that comes under core services.

Rain started here around 1700, briefly moderate but almost stopped at the moment. A high of 27.1C, this makes 19 days with highs of over 25C and about 6 very close, and 2 of over 31C. Two storm days so not a 'bad' summer for here, at least by my ideas.

As a matter of interest will UK Met still do the Shipping Forecast do you know Jo? Or is that also part of the loss of Met outputs? ta John ps will pm you about something totally different

sorry about that, done in a hurry but not meant that way. The risk of a storm, compared to this time yesterday is very slight in my view. Of course I could be wrong but I have looked at the relevant skew-t diagrams and checked the latest radar.

yep its called a band of rain, unlikely more than that

The person to ask for the most up to date on this is Jo. From my past inside knowledge, most, maybe not all, those who do weather forecasts on prime time BBC1 TV news slots and BBC News 24 are fully qualified Met forecasters. Usually entering with a science degree, sometimes, like Nick L a degree in meteorology. Then at least two forecasting course before going on to tv. Jo may have more up to date comments but that was how it was when I was a Met O forecaster. The first course was about 6 months long and the second around 2 months, very intensive. I believe the graphics currently used by UK Met on BBC tv are from that company.

I think it looks fairly clear, at any rate to me, using my set of anomaly charts, that 6 days from now the upper air pattern will essentially be a westerly across the Atlantic.

Sad but inevitable I suppose in a way. A headache for those staff involved in the many forecast services provided by UK Met so their union will be busy trying to lessen the fall out for them.I wonder where the raw data will come from, UK Met, GFS or ECMWF. The figures Gibby shows each morning on how accurate (or not) the 500mb northern hemisphere data is shows ECMWF is the leader almost every time scale and on a more or less daily basis.Never mind if you fly anywhere the data the airlines use when flying from the UK is always UK Met output.

The storms had cleared away by late evening, its not quite a clear blue sky with bits of Sc, Ac and Ci around, a low of 15.6C

how about putting where you are in your avatar please, helps make for enjoyment of everyone? thank you

storm centre just passimg west of me, fairly frequent thunder, the odd crack, some lightning flashes but fairly bright to east so not many really visible. Rainfall at about Moderate+_ on rain gauge but much heavier judging from noise in trees at end of garden!

all around but not overhead, type 9 Cb's

same here, I suspect T=28C may be the value, with Td 16+C that is the local starting point.

T=26.6C Td=17.7 with longish spells of sunshine, variable cloud types, chiefly Cu 1, tiny bits of Sc and some Ci

see my post above-its local not imported for your area today

The Doncaster Net Wx skew-t predict at06z is not far different from what I suggested using the Watnall 00z data, tops perhaps not quite as high. I would be pretty surprised if those parts that get to 25-27C or more with Td of 14C+ some as high as 17+C do not get storms developing. One other thing to look for, well more than one, are very local effects, so 1) pressure falling increasing rising air 2)wind variations, convergent winds, much as the model showed yesterday although not necessarily in the places it might occur today 3)areas of high ground giving increased risk of air rising pretty quickly enhancing storm probabilities.

an indication of what MAY happen over central and inland areas that reach 26-28C using the Watnall actual skew-t from 00z last night is shown below. Note how much area there is between the predicted line a parcel of air might take and the actual curve at midnight. Part of this is used to arrive at some of the exotic terms folk use! ignore the jet=put it in for something then found I could not take it out! Ac Cas also shown on the asbent approx 700-500mb, bit of an inversion then but it could go through that perhaps?

my notes below after spending time looking at the 3 main anomaly charts and synoptic outputs from EC and GFS over the past couple of days. Sat 22 aug Ec-gfs http://mp1.met.psu.edu/~fxg1/ECMWF_0z/hgtcomp.html Well today and they both show some indication of the ridging/+ve heights ec had yesterday, and to some extent they each had for a couple of days before. Both suggest a flow n of w into the uk as a result. Until noaa shows this I am not taking ec-gfs idea as the most likely solution. Their persistence, not consistent over several days with one another though, does lend some doubt as to what may happen Also to possibly back up ec-gfs charts is the fact that, using the 00z output, both ec and gfs synoptic models are pretty closely aligned with this idea out to 240h. That said though, neither of them at 12z Thursday showed a similar idea and not consistent prior to that either. So I sit on the fence at the moment tending towards the NOAA solutution until it changes, if it does. It would not be the first time since the GFS update last autumn (was it?) for the synoptics to lead the way ahead of the anomaly charts. Three times I think and in the previous 6 years of checks only 2 possibly 3. fine mate except for some reason the words are pretty small so I've taken the liberty of increasing the size?