Is this winter going to go pear shaped?

[snowblizzard]

Yes last winter has been worse than this winter so far at least we`re getting colder air from the west this time which is an improvement.

As for last febs very heavy snow we had 12 inches here last time we had had was January 1987 and I don`t think we had that much then maybe 10"(wish I kept records of the 80`s ) so that was a very rare event last feb except it didn`t last long enough.

Yes, the last really decent cold spell with heavy snowfall here in West Kent was Jan 1987 but I think it only lasted about 5 days. We have had a few cold snaps with snowy days since then some with moderate snowfall (4-8 inches) but it invariably turned to rain and slush within a few hours. We are not the only ones suffering a mild winter, just look to the East, most of Central & Northern Europe was above freezing during January, even Western Russia is nowhere near as cold as usual!

http://85.214.49.20/wz/pics/Reurmett.gif 11pm on 4th February, little chance of seeing the beast from the East!

[William of Walworth]

Me too. There's little point in hoping for a cold winter anymore as it's likely just not going to happen. It's time to accept that winters as we know them are probably gone forever. At least in our lifetimes.

Our summers however continue to improve though, getting hotter and drier all the time. Ok, last summer was shocking but that's the exception. My point is that if we hope for a hot summer there's a hell of a lot more chance of that coming off than a cold winter.

I think I love you ...

I like cold winters but they get rarer and rarer, snow in South London worth talking about is rarer than hens teeth .... whenever we do get significantly cold, it seems to stay dry.

I have every hope of a FAR better summer in 2008 than 2007 though. With none of that perfect April nonsense (as last year) that 'used up our quota' before we really needed it

[The PIT]

More on the Gulf Stream and it's effects or it's lesser effects.

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/ATM560/april_3.html

The orginal research was also published in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society so perhaps it's best not too dismiss it so quickly out of hand.

Edited February 5, 2008 by The PIT

[KDME]

Clicky

hmmm .... sounds like nature seems to think it is spring. Perhaps we better start to hope for a nice hot summer as opposed to any snow.

[Bobby]

Clicky

hmmm .... sounds like nature seems to think it is spring. Perhaps we better start to hope for a nice hot summer as opposed to any snow.

Not surprising considering the scorching January. 9th warmest in the 300+ years of the CET. January is the new November.

[SP1986]

More on the Gulf Stream and it's effects or it's lesser effects.

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/ATM560/april_3.html

The orginal research was also published in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society so perhaps it's best not too dismiss it so quickly out of hand.

I'm not swayed by who it's written by, no offence to the RMS, but I'd like to see some hard evidence first. It is without doubt the modfiying effects of the Gulf Stream that are the major contributor to warming our country up - the average yearly SST maps would easily prove that.

"meaning that the relative high temperatures in Europe during winter

are not due to the ocean currents but due to the atmosphere (the atmosphere

is transporting the heat through storms and stationary eddies)"

This is fairly obvious the atmsophere brings in relatively high temperatures but then the same can be said for Northerlies, the polar air like last week was fairly warm, because the ocean warmed the air up, no doubt about that, so thats surely why SW'lies are warmer, due to the low pressures track across the ocean?

I'm not entirely sure the Rockies have much of an impact, and if there is any its in partnership with the ocean, and the gulf stream, but I dont for a second believe that the Rockies have more influence that the Gulf Stream or any body of warming water.

[William of Walworth]

Not surprising considering the scorching January. 9th warmest in the 300+ years of the CET. January is the new November.

Maybe so, but 'scorching' is stretching it!

Pleasant and spring like, more like.

Let's save the 'scorching' to June, July, August ... please!

[Weather-history]

Maybe so, but 'scorching' is stretching it!

Pleasant and spring like, more like.

Let's save the 'scorching' to June, July, August ... please!

I think pleasant and spring like is stretching it as well because it was a really wet month. There was no real prolong anticyclonic spell during the month.

[Guest Mike W]

I remember a couple of months before winter that people were saying how alot of things were in place for a cold snowy winter, such as the Hale Cycle, low Solar activity etc, even this it seems wasn't enough, there were to be fair plenty enough to go against a notable witner , such as high SST's, low arctic ice levels, record low I think, escpecially in summer average. With that in mind it looks like this will be a case of stick in a rut, positive feedback loop.

Edited February 6, 2008 by Mike W

[mushymanrob]

dunno what you lot are moaning about... weathers LOVELY! you can keep yer cold cr@p , who wants to be cold?... :lol:

[Neilsouth]

dunno what you lot are moaning about... weathers LOVELY! you can keep yer cold cr@p , who wants to be cold?... :lol:

I do , but only if it has some snow depths of over 5cm!

Even if it lasts just a day

2008 Crappy winter, BAH!

[Peter Henderson]

Our summers however continue to improve though, getting hotter and drier all the time.

Not in Northern Ireland. Summers in this part of the UK are much wetter and less settled than I remember as a child. The last really good summer here was 1995. Last year was good up until the first week in June but terrible after that. Very reminiscent of 1985. The year before last wasn't bad, about average.

If the mild winters are due to global warming then why aren't the summers here getting better ? The temperature in NI has never exceeded 90F. Surely if global warming was responsible for the current spate of mild winters NI would be having summers with tept.s regularly in the nineties ?

Edited February 6, 2008 by Peter Henderson

[North-Easterly Blast]

Not in Northern Ireland. Summers in this part of the UK are much wetter and less settled than I remember as a child. The last really good summer here was 1995. Last year was good up until the first week in June but terrible after that. Very reminiscent of 1985. The year before last wasn't bad, about average.

If the mild winters are due to global warming then why aren't the summers here getting better ? The temperature in NI has never exceeded 90F. Surely if global warming was responsible for the current spate of mild winters NI would be having summers with tept.s regularly in the nineties ?

The summers have certainly shown some warming in recent years - 2003 and 2006 were the 4th and 5th hottest ever in the CET, and 1995 was the third hottest with July and August put together the hottest ever! Of course in the British Weather patterns not every year will follow the same pattern, although last year was very much like another version of 1998, like that year a very mild winter then a cooler summer by and large similar to 1998 temperaturewise although much wetter.

[Stratos Ferric]

:o Not in Northern Ireland. Summers in this part of the UK are much wetter and less settled than I remember as a child. The last really good summer here was 1995. Last year was good up until the first week in June but terrible after that. Very reminiscent of 1985. The year before last wasn't bad, about average.

If the mild winters are due to global warming then why aren't the summers here getting better ? The temperature in NI has never exceeded 90F. Surely if global warming was responsible for the current spate of mild winters NI would be having summers with tept.s regularly in the nineties ?

Peter, I can't believe anyone would suggest that 2003 wasn't a good summer overall. I suspect there's some selective recall in your assessment, but TWS or Mr D might disabuse me of that notion.

[acbrixton]

Peter, I can't believe anyone would suggest that 2003 wasn't a good summer overall. I suspect there's some selective recall in your assessment, but TWS or Mr D might disabuse me of that notion.

Indeed SF. I am in the process of drawing up a table showing summer data for Aldergrove. Certainly 2003 in NI was a decent summer by any reasonable standards.

regards

ACB

[Weather-history]

:o Not in Northern Ireland. Summers in this part of the UK are much wetter and less settled than I remember as a child. The last really good summer here was 1995. Last year was good up until the first week in June but terrible after that. Very reminiscent of 1985. The year before last wasn't bad, about average.

If the mild winters are due to global warming then why aren't the summers here getting better ? The temperature in NI has never exceeded 90F. Surely if global warming was responsible for the current spate of mild winters NI would be having summers with tept.s regularly in the nineties ?

One thing to note is that since and including 2000, only 2006 has the Northern Ireland summer been sunnier than the spring. Every other year: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2007, the spring has been sunnier than the summer.

[Stratos Ferric]

...I'm not entirely sure the Rockies have much of an impact, and if there is any its in partnership with the ocean, and the gulf stream, but I dont for a second believe that the Rockies have more influence that the Gulf Stream or any body of warming water.

Stephen, the North American Divide has a huge impact. There tends to be a standing wave in the PFJ caused by the forced ascent of air; as the air ascends in the W it rotates clockwise and gains angular momentum on top of the increased coriolis effect, and a basic principle of the flow of the jet is that angular momentum must be constant (or close to it) so to counteract this increase the jet turns equatorwards, losing angular momentum. This upper trough explains much of the tendency of the central US to be cold in winter, and it also tends to set up a pattern in which the jet enters the Atlantic in the lower half of its typical latitudinal range, thus setting up an "upswing across the Atlantic", and also tending to encourage cyclogenesis of the eastern seabord, both because the jet is accelerating again, and also because by being south a steep thermal gradient is encouraged between polar air aloft and a very warm ocean surface..

One thing to note is that since and including 2000, only 2006 has the Northern Ireland summer been sunnier than the spring. Every other year: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2007, the spring has been sunnier than the summer.

Surely NI isn't unique in that. I seem to recall that May is often the sunniest month in Scotland.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I think Scotland hasn't been as extreme as NI in this sense, but yes, it's not unusual for spring to be sunnier than summer in Scotland either. Recent examples were 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2007, while 2004 and 2005 had a similar sunshine total for both seasons.

The stats do back up the point about poor Northern Ireland summers- since 1995, sunshine in the subsequent summers appears to have been:

1996- average

1997- slightly sunnier than average

1998- dull

1999- slightly duller than average

2000- average

2001- dull

2002- dull

2003- slightly sunnier than average

2004- dull

2005- dull

2006- sunny

2007- dull

This is using Met Office stats calculated with respect to the 30-year average (it doesn't matter whether 1961-90 or 1971-2000 is used, because they're both much the same) 2003, which was a pretty good summer in the North East by my recollections, was let down in N Ireland to some extent by a cloudy July.

[Jonnie G]

Stephen, the North American Divide has a huge impact. There tends to be a standing wave in the PFJ caused by the forced ascent of air; as the air ascends in the W it rotates clockwise and gains angular momentum on top of the increased coriolis effect, and a basic principle of the flow of the jet is that angular momentum must be constant (or close to it) so to counteract this increase the jet turns equatorwards, losing angular momentum. This upper trough explains much of the tendency of the central US to be cold in winter, and it also tends to set up a pattern in which the jet enters the Atlantic in the lower half of its typical latitudinal range, thus setting up an "upswing across the Atlantic", and also tending to encourage cyclogenesis of the eastern seabord, both because the jet is accelerating again, and also because by being south a steep thermal gradient is encouraged between polar air aloft and a very warm ocean surface..

Yes SF a fascinating piece of research which I wasn't aware of before picking it up on this forum.......I had realised that the Gulf stream in it's own right is a relatively minor player in warming north-west Europe as there would still be a huge body of water to our west to carry heat from the summer even without a warming current. I had not however realised the role played by the Rocky mountains in causing a large scale disturbance of the global flow, giving for the UK a mean South-Westerly instead of a mean Westerly. This synoptic difference is huge, and I fully accept that the Gulf Stream is responsible for only around 10% of our positive global temperature anomaly in winter, contrary to popular belief.