Preliminary Winter Forecast

[Moomin]

Good God almighty, just read the preliminary forcast from Stuart and I may have suffered cerebral failure! Incredibly interesting post irrespective of what the forcast ultimately turns out to be. Working as I do as a hydrogeologist, the weather is of great impoirtance to me professionally and also of huge interest personally, I have always thought I had a slightly better understanding of weather and climate than many and was aware of many of the processes described by Stuart but I was not aware of how intricately inetrwoven they all are.

Given that this level of detail was included in the preliminary forcast, I have taken the 24th Nov off to allow enough time to read the full detailed forcast!

M

[Polar Continental]

GP, an absolutely brilliant piece of work, extremely well explained, I did manage to absorb a good deal of that, though it has taken hours over a few days. I will still need to go over it a few more times yet.

It has to be said your understanding of the Global atmosphere, its interaction with worlds oceans and reactions is second to none. As others have said, whether it be right or wrong, a very educational read, something for me to keep and refer to.

Edited November 9, 2009 by Polar Continental

[Terminal Moraine]

I'll second the comments above. The amount of work, G.P, you must have put into that preliminary forecast beggars belief. Never have I read such a detailed preamble to a forecast, and I have read it several times to fully absorb it.

Even now I'd have to refer to notes if I tried to explain all the different connections to someone else.

[Tom Quintavalle]

Just a comment about Stewarts prelim winter forecast and his thoughts re. analogues for this winter coming.

A few weeks ago I remember him stating we could become the battleground at times between Arctic air driving south through Scandinavia and very mild Atlantic air trying to move up from the S.W., courtesy of higher than normal pressure between Greenland and the Canadian Arctic and lower than normal pressure straddled out from near Newfoundland and out into the Atlantic.

Charts below show that very kind of scenario in snapshots from 1969 and 1978.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1969/Rrea00119690112.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1978/Rrea00119781228.gif

As G.P. and TWS stated, very finely balanced for the U.K if those analogues prove accurate, if low pressure in the Atlantic is too strong winds could be tilted towards the south but if high pressure over Greenland gains the upper hand and pushes the jet way south, then Arctic air could well sweep SW across the whole of N.W.and N.E.Europe.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1978/Rrea00119781231.gif

I know pattern matching daily charts with anomaly charts, tut , tut. Just a bit of fun! :lol:

On that basis we could have a very volatile winter with crazy swings in temperature.

Stewart, I take it that, overall, you are expecting the PV to be residing away from its usual wintering grounds, i.e. Greenland, and more to the north of Scandinavia/N.W.Russia?

Regards,

Tom.

Edited November 9, 2009 by TomSE20

[Guest]

I will put this way then, if the Greenland High does not move east, it certainly ridges to the east and links up with the Scandi High and vice versa. In the forecast fax charts we have two highs, one over Scandinavia and the other over Greenland with relatively high pressure linking the two.

[leroys35]

to have high pressure from canada to scandinavia is good very cold i imagine but to get a low pressure from arctic east of moscow that would be something has there been a occurance when this scenairo has happened before and are there any charts available

[johnholmes]

a quite superb presentation Stewart-my thanks for giving so much detailed explanation of the factors and what to look for as well as explaining what each is in simple terms-thanks again.

[Turnedoutniceagain]

What can be overlooked is how close we came to a repeat of the mid month freeze at the end of the month!

I remember that one well as I lived in West Germany at the time

Top post GP