Winter Lrf By Rjs And Bftp

[Guest]

I will only be satisfied by a period with the max reaching -5c, with mostly blue skies but replenished once in a while by a nice interesting blizzard to ensure the snow keeps its pristine whiteness.

Then, as the spring advances to have the snow melted by the sunshine rather than the miserable rain and drizzle we usually get, to be followed by a spring and summer with crystal clear blue skies, with the occasional thunderstorm to replenish the water supplies with a lovely indian summer at the end, but then I am something of an idealist.

[Mark H]

Excellent work chaps,i take my hat off to anyone attempting to make a long range forcast, no matter if it predicts mild or cold. In this case ive got my fingers crossed your bang on the money. Ive no technical knowladge whatsoever,however this year does feel different to recent ones,but lol i think that every winter!!

Well done and thanks for the effort.

[Magadan]

I will only be satisfied by a period with the max reaching -5c, with mostly blue skies but replenished once in a while by a nice interesting blizzard to ensure the snow keeps its pristine whiteness.

Then, as the spring advances to have the snow melted by the sunshine rather than the miserable rain and drizzle we usually get, to be followed by a spring and summer with crystal clear blue skies, with the occasional thunderstorm to replenish the water supplies with a lovely indian summer at the end, but then I am something of an idealist.

Hmm, I spent 3 weeks in Feb this year in Kyrgyzstan and enjoyed cold, blue skies mostly, with REAL snow (as in, you could see the little six-sided cogs). The temperature was regularly -25C, a bone-chilling coldness I'd never experienced before, had to wear long-johns underneath my clothes and two pairs of socks with fluffy-lined boots (the people there can't afford to have a conscience about animal fur). After a while I was starting to long for wet, rainy, windy weather. I'm told the summers there are of Moroccan proportions, though.

That all said, I still would love a cold, snowy winter here. No matter how much I get sick of it, I still wish for more!

[Gavin P]

Very interesting. A more seasonale January would be ace.

[KTtom]

Obviously a very popular forecast and no doubt has given many a sense of enthusiasm for the forthcomming winter. I really hope your correct but I am a little sceptical when LRF's mention specific dates. Hats off for taking the plunge and a good read

[Frosty.]

I enjoyed reading your combined efforts which must have taken a while to construct. One thing though, you mention plenty of cold weather but are we talking Easterlies or Northerlies or some of both, thanks again.

[stormforce 10]

good forecast bftp/rjs, i await patiently with anticipation.

[VillagePlank]

Interesting forecast, and very nice to see dates associated with events - something which is really lacking in other LRFs. Whether this turns out to be foolhardy we shall see, but to the credit of the forecasters, they've set it out that way which is science at it's best ...it's testable.

Edited November 11, 2008 by VillagePlank

[Nick L]

Snow?! In January?! Has the world gone mad!

[stormchaser1]

Evening Roger and BFTP

Nice read guys, thankyou for sharing , as you know i have also been doing alot of research regarding the Moon Phases , and i agree about the period around

13th December , could be a very stormy around this period especiaally with the Full moon and perigee occuring on the same day , also the moon will be at

its closet point for the whole year approx 356567km ,

nigel

[Roger J Smith]

As to the question of easterly or northerly cold, I think some of each type is indicated, as well as some NW'ly mP events that might be deep enough to bring some snow -- the main feature that catches my eye at present is the unusual extent of very low thickness values in the current FI section of the GFS, I don't recall seeing such large expanses of the 492 dm thickness anywhere on these maps, let alone covering all of Greenland, and if these maps are anything near reality, no matter what the details turn out to be, the ice cover east of Greenland would have to expand rapidly, just as ice cover has very rapidly overwhelmed the Foxe Basin and much of the Baffin Sea regions and seems poised to cover large parts of Hudson Bay in the next two weeks. And, it is difficult to envisage days of such deep northerly flow into Scandinavia not having some pretty dramatic results on sea ice, SST anomalies, snow cover in Scandinavia, etc. I've mentioned in other winters that it would be very helpful towards creating a cold winter regime for the UK if the Baltic would cool down and start to freeze substantially, having a 3-5 C Baltic through the winter was perhaps the detail that wrecked the potential of the 2005-06 winter to bring any really memorable cold and the snow that comes with it. A lot of other features were in place at times, but the flow was just too warmed up at the surface to produce, in that case.

Now, we have indicated that our research efforts do not indicate some sort of unbroken cold spell like famous winters of yesteryear, the Atlantic will remain in play and for example this first major storm we talk about (12-13 Dec) is advertised as being a generally mild if quite stormy period. On the other hand, just because we are naturally reluctant to call for long unbroken periods of cold, doesn't mean that these are now physically impossible in some "modern" winter set-up, but we do make the necessary gestures towards the obvious difficulties created by SST anomalies that are long-term and persistent north and west of Norway. We just may, stressing the word may, be seeing the first signs of pattern change in that regard with some of this arctic expansion going on this autumn. I wonder what other long-time watchers of the situation are thinking about that? This autumn does seem to be bringing back some "classic" appearances to the arctic vortex despite these warmer ocean temperatures.

Frankly, the rebound effect seems to be quite accelerated so far this autumn and I have to confess that there's a real feeling that dramatic weather events must lie ahead for the winter season around the hemisphere.

As to the precise date question, we both felt that the 12-13 December period was worth a special mention because of the unusual energy peak available then. I've indicated previously that the one way this kind of forecast can require amendment in the run-up is when blocking develops over France or near to southern England, then these storms are likely to be diverted across Iceland. So I would say we are about 70% confident that there will be a significant low pressure event across the British Isles during 12-13 December, and if this fails then the low would be found in the Iceland-Jan Mayen sector. I'm getting more of an indication of blocking a bit earlier like first week of December. Beyond that, we haven't really gotten into very specific dates for events in our forecast, although I do hope to produce an experimental date-specific LRF to give a framework for model development. If forecasts are too vague, then you have nothing to work on after the fact, for example, if we just said "a cold winter" and the mean CET came in -0.5 relative to normal, this would be all well and good, but hardly the basis for euphoric celebration, however, if we have a number of specific forecasts and some measurement of accuracy or errors then there is a framework for further study and development.

[KTtom]

As to the precise date question, we both felt that the 12-13 December period was worth a special mention because of the unusual energy peak available then. I've indicated previously that the one way this kind of forecast can require amendment in the run-up is when blocking develops over France or near to southern England, then these storms are likely to be diverted across Iceland. So I would say we are about 70% confident that there will be a significant low pressure event across the British Isles during 12-13 December, and if this fails then the low would be found in the Iceland-Jan Mayen sector. I'm getting more of an indication of blocking a bit earlier like first week of December. Beyond that, we haven't really gotten into very specific dates for events in our forecast, although I do hope to produce an experimental date-specific LRF to give a framework for model development. If forecasts are too vague, then you have nothing to work on after the fact, for example, if we just said "a cold winter" and the mean CET came in -0.5 relative to normal, this would be all well and good, but hardly the basis for euphoric celebration, however, if we have a number of specific forecasts and some measurement of accuracy or errors then there is a framework for further study and development.

Cheers for the response Roger, I will for one keep that date in my diary. My question was not meant to be a negative comment to your forecast and now reading your reasoning it will be very interesting to see how it pans out. In the scheme of things, taking into account the vast areas we are dealing with, it will be one hell of a call if we get a significant storm on our relatively small island on those dates. Personaly I hope you right, I feel a column in the Express will await

Edited November 11, 2008 by KTtom

[damianslaw]

A good read and if your forecast comes true I would be most happy indeed for a number of factors -

January will redeem itself as the true winter month when cold and snow is at its peak, it has let us down on too many occasions in recent years, by late February when in recent years we have seen our coldest and snoweist weather thoughts begin to turn to spring and with the lighter nights and stronger sunshine; the maximum effect of winter quickly diminishes taking the edge/quality off any cold/snowy spell, I don't want to wait till late feb/early march anymore!

Having moved back to Windermere, I like the sound of lots of polar maritime air about as we would be in the firing line for plenty of snow.

I can cope with some short mild interludes if it converserly means spells of cold polar snowy air.

As for degree of cold I think any arctic shots this winter will be colder than many in recent years and it will be the depth of cold attached to any arctic airstreams that will be the main factor in terms of lowering those CET's.

[sundog]

A very interesting forecast and if it comes off it would be a very interesting winter.

I wish BFTP and Roger the best of luck with it

[Roger J Smith]

Yes, I was remiss in not mentioning that Nigel (stormchaser1) has been doing a lot of research on lunar cycles of weather in the UK, I am sure from my own research that there is an influence and the main task ahead is to sort out how this influence interacts with various other influences that we are identifying, once again David Dilley of GWO is working in this field as well, but I do think that there are other external energy cycles that come from solar system magnetic fields and if it were not for these, perhaps the lunar energy cycles would completely drive the system and it would be easier to predict them and therefore the whole weather pattern.

Just to give some idea of the timing on this very long-range specific forecast for 12-13 Dec, we have the following energy peaks to consider:

12 Dec 1638 GMT ... full moon

12 Dec 22h GMT ... perigee

13 Dec 1200 GMT ... N Max

13-14 Dec ... strong J-field energy peak

14 Dec ... JO lunar event

These are all fairly high energy events, having them all in one cluster suggests a pretty high risk of an intense storm, and usually it is the N Max event that dominates in these groupings, so I picture the low being a wide-open wave embedded in a strong jet stream, and here's something rather interesting, the Daniel Defoe storm of 1703 was near a new moon at perigee, with the calendar change this occurred around 8 Dec new style (it was 27 Nov old style), so the spacing to S Max with that storm was about the same as here. In other words, this is a time of year where the astronomical forcing can peak in energy.

There would likely be other significant storms around the northern (and southern) hemisphere with this energy peak, I'm also expecting to see a strong low on the west coast of North America. If we're into the expected mild winter pattern for eastern N America, then the strong low will be near Lake Huron. If the pattern were in a colder phase there could be a strong coastal secondary with this.

Another region that could see severe weather in this energy set-up would be New Zealand with a late spring type cold front.

[Snowyowl9]

Friday, 7 November, 2008

Cold spells ahead -- the combined winter forecast of BFTP and RJS

As you are aware I use lunar and solar cycles to predict weather patterns and I have used this technique to compile my forecast.

The rhythm of this alternating pattern will probably be governed mainly by the lunar cycle which favours mild and westerly influences near the full moons,

January

Then into January, we are optimistic that some real winter weather will strike, and the sad memories of the past two winters will fade as strong low pressure systems are forced to take rather southward-shifting tracks at regular intervals. Possibly one or two will succeed in pushing further north again for a day or two of rain and mild weather, but quite a few of these disturbances, which are likely to be well developed with strong energy peaks, could track far enough south to bring many regions snow, or sleet or even freezing rain. There is some similarity indicated to 1940, a January which brought perhaps the worst freezing rain event ever seen in England, so that could see at least a minor repeat.

Feel free to ask questions either on here or by PM.

Kind regards

BFTP and RJS

Could have a event like this I wish no what I meant which I didn`t even know as there was any freezing rain during feb 1986/drizzle yes as looking at dundee`s site as there wasn`t any here as it turned to snow grains after the early drizzle which did freeze but nothing only to make the top of the snow crusty higher up as it was wet down here, as there was 50mm of ice on power lines at Buxton which must of down some damage to electric/telephone wires/trees, with more freezing rain in the north midlands on the 2nd as here it turned to snow from then on after.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00119860202.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/19...00219860202.gif

Interesting forecast as going by the moon phases puts a different light of things.

Full moon tomorrow and guess what very mild end of the week.

I will only be satisfied by a period with the max reaching -5c, with mostly blue skies but replenished once in a while by a nice interesting blizzard to ensure the snow keeps its pristine whiteness.

Thats sounds like a particular winter I remember.

But the last time it got that cold here was in december 1995.

Edited November 12, 2008 by Snowyowl9

[Frosty.]

Thanks for answering my question Roger. Your explanation was a very interesting and informative read, thanks again. I have my fingers crossed that both of you have success with your long range forecast and we finally see a winter that delivers wintry weather for a change.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

So phase one looks good currently in verifying. Much colder pattern developing and it will be interesting to see what 'bite' this cold outbreak has. Stormchaser/Nigel, I too know you have done loads of research on lunar phasing...anything you see that might have been missed?

BFTP

Edited November 17, 2008 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[johnholmes]

its still November mate the winter is Dec 1- end of February

[noggin]

Great stuff, Blast and Roger! Well done for putting your cards on the table. I'm actually getting a bit excited that we can follow this closely to see the extent to which lunar, solar and magnetic field effects drive the weather/climate. It is a refreshing change from the "other stuff"!

I am not excited about the possibility of freezing rain in January though, or any other month come to that!

I shall follow this thread with the greatest of interest and I appreciate the effort that you have both put in.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

its still November mate the winter is Dec 1- end of February

If you read it, John, you will see that November is clearly mentioned.

BFTP

[kippure]

" but it seems that as soon as two or three mild waves move through, a serious change to much colder weather could follow, so the snow could be flying in at least western and northern regions of the UK as well as some parts of Ireland before November ends. " Quote Rjs and Bftp

Looks like your forecast is off to a cracking start already. Well Done It does look like we will have a sharp mild interludes after this cold snap. In fact there,ll some cold air into northern parts of scotland for a time on tuesday.

[TEITS]

its still November mate the winter is Dec 1- end of February

Come on John lets give some credit here.

The forecast clearly mentions November and so far the forecast has been very impressive.

Im sure members don't seek credit but lets at least give it when its deserved!

[johnholmes]

okay I'll back off but can I please make a plea to all who forecast?

Leave your forecasts to stand or fall as issued; making comment each time they seem to be correct is not necessary.

We will all be judged by our output without drawing attention to the occasions when they seem correct?

Leave any comments + or - to those who read them, unless someone is making comments that are unfair

mine seems to fall into that category it seems, so my apologies.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

okay I'll back off but can I please make a plea to all who forecast?

Leave your forecasts to stand or fall as issued; making comment each time they seem to be correct is not necessary.

We will all be judged by our output without drawing attention to the occasions when they seem correct?

Leave any comments + or - to those who read them, unless someone is making comments that are unfair

mine seems to fall into that category it seems, so my apologies.

Sorry John excitement is getting the better of me...but you are right.

BFTP