Autumn And Winter

[Stratos Ferric]

This pattern change hasn't actually changed the 'on the ground' results, as yet.

Don't know quite how fair that is. The stats of preference I'd look at (and it is a personal preference) would be snow days.

We did have an interesting discussion on here last year about a winter index. You could construct this a number of ways but what it would do would provide a better match of measured outcomes and perception, though this would depend on the constituents and how they are / were weighted. Even then, it would produce some anomalies against some other frame of reference (e.g. as TWS often reminds us, it can be cold and not snowy, conversely winters like 1978/9 are simultaneously much snowier than the average temperature for the witer might suggest likely, and at the same time snowy in some locations and not in others).

Personally, I think the typical recall of winter (hence my point to Noggin about perception) is biased by snow events. CET as a measure (not that it's intended to be a measure of wintriness, but all sorts of things are attached to it simply because of its relative enormity as a robust data set) concerns temperature, and points to coldness, and this should also be a factor, but I would also add, specifically, occurrence of frosts, and freezing days, and days' snow lying. I wuld also NOT place seasonal bounds, as another interesting measure would be the period from the first scoring event to the last (this would typically, I guess, be the first and last frost, but need not be).

Once you have an index it's possible to go backwards through time and proivide a general frame of reference, and with a carefully structured index you could actually produce separate indicators of, say, cold, snowiness, and duration.

[moses]

Hi Tamara,

Thanks for a good interesting post.

Unfortunately the GFS 06z has spoiled the good looks of the 0z and the intense cold pooling has been modified somewhat, I am sure it will be back.

Yes hopefully if this somewhat rare burst of Atlantic activity burns its self out for December, we should get a good shot at winter.

Regarding the jet, as Steve mentioned it has been unusually digging much further south very early this year and as you say it looks like a good indicator for it to take a gradual more southerly course as winter draws ever nearer, what we need is the Jet to take a nice holiday in north Africa and the Mediterranean this winter, as it did during 1962 / 63

I just love looking at those mouth-watering charts.

My thoughts are now leaning towards the positive for this coming winter, we do seem to have several good indicators in our favour suggesting things could potentially give us a good shot at winter, 1, the early cold pooling, 2, as Brickfielder has mentioned, the lack of Hurricane activity, so less very warm air being forced over northern latitudes, and 3, the Jet seems to want to take a much more southerly course very early this year, we will see.

Paul

Very interesting mate

The question I would ask is - are some of these Fantasy Island predictions?

Are there any opposing factors - SSTs off eastern seaboard?

Are we kidding ourselves a bit or do you genuinely feel these are more unusual for this time of year

Cheers

Guy

[moses]

I'd agree with all of this.

I think in terms of long range you can currently get some of the goodies you need but not all. For example, its possible to see what sort of cold pooling exists and what kind of pattern the various oscillations are on. From this you can tinker with probabilities. Lets say there is a huge amount of cold pooling around Greenland or Siberia in November. From that its no great shakes to conclude that the chances of a colder than average December/Jan etc are higher than were they not there, it falls from there to the right conditions/blocks etc to allow the cold air to advect to our shores. I remember Dawlish used to play the 70/20/10 card for predictions - ok, thats probably not a bad call on the past 20 years evidence but it needs tailoring to whats going on at point of guesstimate. Generalisations can be made with probabilities of them being correct increasing the nearer the mark you get. Further than that it really is pinning the block on the landmass.

Instincts are fair enough, if I see birds flying south in mild conditions earlier than they usually would I would still plump for colder conditions on their way despite LRFs to the contrary!

I saw 6 blackbirds on the lawn this morning -5 males 1 female

Records suggest this is a 1 in 5 chance of a colder than average winter................

[Anti-Mild]

I saw 6 blackbirds on the lawn this morning -5 males 1 female

Records suggest this is a 1 in 5 chance of a colder than average winter................

How can you tell if a blackbird is male or female? Also, what bearing does an avian demographic have on the coming winter?

[Rollo]

How can you tell if a blackbird is male or female? Also, what bearing does an avian demographic have on the coming winter?

We have had our first pheasant in the garden this morning-it hung around for about an hour-this obviously means something but what?

[Hiya]

a male is black and has an orange beak, a female is brown.

Everyone knows female blackbirds know when a cold winter is coming and migrate to Ethiopia.

[bigboblee]

I saw 6 blackbirds on the lawn this morning -5 males 1 female

Records suggest this is a 1 in 5 chance of a colder than average winter................

Oh Now come on people NOW we are REALLY entering into the Funny Farm!

What the heck does birds on the lawn in September have to do with the coming Autumn/Winter? I JUST think we are all getting bogged down here in Fantasy Land,YES I know that the charts are not always reliabe and have fooled us all before on whats coming in terms of Weather Action(credit to Sian Lloyd for that phrase!)but still it must be more reliable than staring at our lawns and seeing what birds are out there and how many.

I personally go with the retired weatherman Ron Lobecks philosophy of its safe to look at forecasts 10 days in advance,further than that is dodgy at best,yes it may give you an idea of trends(i.e:cooling or warming,dry or wet)BUT as for the real detail of how dry or wet and how warm or cool that kind of specific detail is impossible to tell.

ANYONE who tells you THIS early exactly what the coming Winter weather will be is arrogant/foolish beyond belief,no matter what there source is,scientific or old wifes tails and of course their opinion is tailored by their own personal preference and it seems from what i have read here on this site in peoples ideas of 1963 stlye weather or even a return to the cold of the 16th century for gods sake that that influence is based on their status as a cold ramper.

Sorry if my post appears as a rant but after last years doom laden winter forecasts I honestly cannot believe we are going through it all over again and the UKMO's experimental forecast is NOWHERE near as favourable to cold as last years!(YET!!)

As a Doctor in the NHS i am STILL steaming over our beloved health secetaryies comments of "we did well considering we have come through the coldest winter in 40 years!"WHAT A LIE!!!!!!!!

Anyway please folks take a deep breath now and lets calm down ok?

[Snowyowl9]

It`s like the old saying there`s alot of berries on the trees this year which there is especially the rowan.

I`ve never gone by it.

S9.

[Rustynailer]

We have had our first pheasant in the garden this morning-it hung around for about an hour-this obviously means something but what?

pheasants often go for cover when the weather is going to be unpleasant, generally they are out in the fields in good summer weather, but towards winter they head for the woods, in bad weather if they are caught out they are easy pray for foxes and other hunters, so they go for as dense a cover that they can find, round here that’s usually Hazel coppice or hedge rows, gardens are similar.

Russ

[Nick F]

It`s like the old saying there`s alot of berries on the trees this year which there is especially the rowan.

I`ve never gone by it.

S9.

Trees/bushes groaning with berries/fruit just suggests a good growing season rather than a harbinger of nature preparing for a cold winter ahead.

We can look as hard as we can at nature's signs, pattern matching, etc, but at the end of the day it's all a bit futile. What maybe more beneficial towards looking at what the coming months may hold, is to look at teleconnections and SSTs. Currently regarding SSTs, autumn looks like it maybe fairly zonal IMO, what with the current high SSTs in the North Atlantic and North pacific:

https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/products/NCODA/U...wxg.NCODA.glb...

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif

Edited September 2, 2006 by Nick F

[Snowyowl9]

Yes I noticed that Nick the high anomalies,compared with this time last year they were quite abit cooler than that,I think SB posted the links.

I wouldn`t be at all surprised that it will be a fairly active autumn stormwise.

:lol:

S9.

But they could easily change for the better.

Edited September 2, 2006 by Snowyowl9

[Snowly does it]

The point I was making with my avian friends was that at this stage I would just as much back their judgement as I would a LRF. If there is cold to the north then southward migration will take place earlier correct? As such, a sign of coldness to the North at an earlier time or deeper than usual would indicate an increased possibility of a colder winter season by its very nature (but by no means guarantee it). By the same token if I see wildebeest in my garden I won't be getting the sledge out for a while.

I have no idea what this winter will bring. I like cold weather and I like snow, I enjoy rain and winds and I detest heat of any type, therefore my hopes will always lie in chilly summers and brutal winters with autumn storms and late spring frosts.

More to the point, no-one else yet knows what will happen this winter, they can merely point to indicators which skew the probabilities one way or another.

[Stratos Ferric]

Oh Now come on people NOW we are REALLY entering into the Funny Farm!

...

Sorry if my post appears as a rant but after last years doom laden winter forecasts I honestly cannot believe we are going through it all over again and the UKMO's experimental forecast is NOWHERE near as favourable to cold as last years!(YET!!)

As a Doctor in the NHS i am STILL steaming over our beloved health secetaryies comments of "we did well considering we have come through the coldest winter in 40 years!"WHAT A LIE!!!!!!!!

Anyway please folks take a deep breath now and lets calm down ok?

Oh, believe you me, there was nothing unusual about last autumn. The one thing you can absolutely rely on come autumn, whatever the weather, and irrespective of any portents, is that the airwaves will be crammed full of people predicting waist deep snow and endless frost, and praising each other for the voracity of their projections. As ever, this year is "wait and see".

[Roger J Smith]

I give you my personal, money-back guarantee, this will be the coldest winter in the UK since 2005-06.

It will also be the mildest, driest and wettest.

Seriously, though, I am working on an experimental long-range winter forecast, and so far (work still in progress) the indications look milder than average for December, and variable near normal sort of a little bit of everything for January February, based on indications that some return to high-latitude blocking seems likely, but perhaps not a huge or prolonged event. So, there might well be a little of everything that all comes out to average or near normal in the long run. Autumn, by the way, looking consistently warmer than average -- I'm thinking that December may well be an extension of that trend, as is often the case when you get a mild December.

Much is made about the tropical storm influence, but I see this as chicken and egg sort of stuff -- if the long-wave patterns allow remnants to sweep across the Atlantic, then you're likely in a zonal flow, and if they don't, then you're probably in a long-wave trough or under a block. So the mere fact that the tropics are supposed to get active or not, has to be seen against that complication, because not all active seasons see transport of the remnants across the Atlantic on a regular basis. For example, Ernesto has decided to die a natural death over the Great Lakes region. Remnants of Hurricane Hazel in 1954 went up into Baffin Island before totally dying out, and the 1954-55 seasons were generally active with many storms heading into the eastern Canadian arctic or west of Greenland.

So far, this Atlantic season that held a lot of promise has been a bit of a dud, frankly, but I expect late September and October to pick up the pace -- I think the missing ingredient has been the seeding magnetic field disturbances that start off these storms. The water temperature environment will definitely support strong hurricanes this season, but Ernesto has been the only real player so far, and he took a route that was too close to land for too long. Even so, this tropical storm packed quite a punch when it hit NC and VA yesterday. Even today, there is plenty of strong wind circulating around the remnants, gusts to 54 knots recorded on Lake Erie in the past few hours (from the NE).

[Snowyowl9]

Looking back at my records which go back to 1990 there hasn`t been one december when we havn`t had any lying snow whether it`s a dusting at the very least upwards to a foot so I`ll be very surprised if we don`t get any snow this december,but we do live on a hill mind

S9.

[Damien]

NCEP's latest is going for a slightly cooler than average September for the UK; a cooler, easterly October for the South albeit mild and Atlantic-driven for the North; and an uncertain "battle" between West and East in November and December. January is expected to be slightly colder than average from the north and east; February is mild but with colder air never too far away out to our east.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/peop...bT2mMonNorm.gif

[Schnee]

TWO's autumn foresast is online. There's also a brief note on winter.

Won't go into detail. That's for the media/internet forecasts forum.

[summer blizzard]

I will reply to everbodys posts tommorow, however i thought that i would give you all the likely teleconnection patterns for this winter based on the available data at this time.

Positive PNA

Positive PDO

Westerly QBO

Weak to moderate El Nino

Positive NAO

[The Enforcer]

A mysterious brown smudge has appeared on the roof of my car. Cold winter ahead.

[kippure]

Edited September 3, 2006 by kippure

[summer blizzard]

Please can people stop spoiling this thread with the old wives tales, while there may be truth to some off them, it is better discussed in the general weather section, posts like the ones above mearly serve to detract from otherwise useful information.

[Snowly does it]

Please can people stop spoiling this thread with the old wives tales, while there may be truth to some off them, it is better discussed in the general weather section, posts like the ones above mearly serve to detract from otherwise useful information.

I love your posts SB but I disagree with this one. This is an open thread for speculation about the coming autumn and winter. Until someone gets a handle on LRF and shows some accuracy (at this long range) then anything is fair game. The old wives tales as you put them should stay and remain part of speculation until we get close enough to the event to see whats what. Dismissal of weather lore is a great pity imho, it has served well in the past and has its place. It is also interesting to see how it relates to more technological forecasting and which comes out on top. Thats the beauty of living in an open and accepting society, it allows for all comers and all thoughts and does not discriminate the intrinsic value of them, merely acknowledges the results.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Got to agree with what Snowmaiden says SB.

[kippure]

Onion skins very thin,

Mild winter coming in,

Onion skins thick and tough,

Coming winter cold and rough.

This is a perfect example of the type of long range forecast nature provides.

[Paul]

What would be interesting is if we could actually 'scientifically' test some of these old wives tale type forecasts. Can we take a handful of them and compare what they suggest may happen to what actually does happen this winter? Any takers?