Winter 2010/2011

[Cheese Rice]

The CFS seems to have downgraded the cold for this winter today.

Very much in-line with the forecast I made in July (surprisingly so).  

The only difference appears to be above average temperatures in Northern Britain. I forecast slightly below (?), and still do believe for northern areas the first half of autumn will be below for northern areas. 

Edited October 5, 2010 by 10123

[beng]

Very much in-line with the forecast I made in July (surprisingly so).  

The only difference appears to be above average temperatures in Northern Britain. I forecast slightly below (?), and still do believe for northern areas the first half of autumn will be below for northern areas. 

It just reflects a minor shift in the forecast for the position of the winter blocking pattern. These are the charts to keep your eyes on really at this stage and they're far more consistent than the 2m temp predictions:

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/glbz700Mon.gif

[blitzen]

Things already cooling down in Alaska it seems?

http://blogs.woodtv.com/2010/09/29/record-cold-in-alaska/

[johnholmes]

It just reflects a minor shift in the forecast for the position of the winter blocking pattern. These are the charts to keep your eyes on really at this stage and they're far more consistent than the 2m temp predictions:

http://www.cpc.noaa..../glbz700Mon.gif

not really, its only a week or so ago and the Uk was 'blue' throughout Dec-Feb.

[bluearmy]

not really, its only a week or so ago and the Uk was 'blue' throughout Dec-Feb.

JH - are you sure you're not referring to the T2m charts ? i think the ones posted by Ben illustrating the likely positions of the blocks (shown red) are consistent with last few weeks.

[Cecil Hogmanay Melchett]

Anyone hoping for some cold this winter need look no further than the ecm 240h chart tonight.Granted it probably wont happen but a classic chart with an Artic high nudging SW towards the UK and pressure low over SEurope.-

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm2401.html

If the ecm is on the money we can expect to see some very cold air flooding into Europe during the 2nd half of October!!!

[fear sneachta]

Has anybody read or heard what WeatherAction' s Piers Corbyn's forecast for the winter is? Is he also predicting a very cold winter, just like PWS?

[Gavin P]

Has anybody read or heard what WeatherAction' s Piers Corbyn's forecast for the winter is? Is he also predicting a very cold winter, just like PWS?

I've never known Piers NOT to forecast a cold winter? :unsure:

Edited October 5, 2010 by Gavin P

[Weathergirl]

I've never known Piers NOT to forecast a cold winter?

Just you watch! He will forecast a mild/stormy winter and he will be right by predicting the opposite of everyone else...as usual :unsure:

[summer blizzard]

No matter what happens this winter, we do actually know one thing to raise the hype..

September 2010 recorded the most negative September AO value since 1998.

[Alex95]

Anyone hoping for some cold this winter need look no further than the ecm 240h chart tonight.Granted it probably wont happen but a classic chart with an Artic high nudging SW towards the UK and pressure low over SEurope.-

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm2401.html

If the ecm is on the money we can expect to see some very cold air flooding into Europe during the 2nd half of October!!!

I think there is enough cold pooling to the north for an exceptionally early cold snap, such as October 2003 and 2008.

[summer blizzard]

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Great news, QBO anologues are in for September and the best August-September matches are listed above, the great news being that the majority indicate that we will see a mature +QBO value this winter, which correlates with a well below average CET values for all winter months.

[summer blizzard]

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Great news, QBO anologues are in for September and the best August-September matches are listed above, the great news being that the majority indicate that we will see a mature +QBO value this winter, which correlates with a well below average CET values for all winter months.

Dec – 4.3C, 0.8C below average

Jan – 2.8C, 1.4C below average

Feb – 2.7C, 1.5C below average

Those are the median values of all mature +QBO winter months since 1950.

Edited October 5, 2010 by summer blizzard

[Guest]

Considering the signals I've seen so far, this appears unlikely. We may well end up with a cold winter by recent standards, but it's unlikely to be on the scale of last winter, let alone the coldest for 1,000 years.

While silly season erupts all around some people like you and JH keep the head...winter will be what it will be.

After the "misery" of last November when all hope was apparently lost I think I'll just wait and see what happens.

The cold of last winter was all very well and good but what we had here was weeks on end of cold weather with a gorgeous looking but horrible icy crust of half melted but then refrozen "snow". It was not a good winter in terms of snow for snowmen, snowball fights and general crumping through powdery snow. It was horrible and icy most of the time. I wouldn't thank you for a repeat. Yes the snow was lovely when it was falling, but it wasn't any fun when it half melted and then froze into ice.

A repeat of 95/96 or 92/93, or even 98/99 for the sake of a good storm, would be warmly welcomed. I want a huge storm this year, snow is all very well but not when it can't be used properly.

[beng]

not really, its only a week or so ago and the Uk was 'blue' throughout Dec-Feb.

Yes but the upper level blocking charts have hardly changed - just a small change in the orientation of where the model thinks the blocking might occur has a big impact on it's forecasted 2m temps. The key thing at though is that it's consistently forecasting a very blocked atlantic through the winter period.

[Guest]

No matter what happens this winter, we do actually know one thing to raise the hype..

September 2010 recorded the most negative September AO value since 1998.

Hmmm...98/99 wasn't exactly a cold one. It was massively stormy in December and into January here but what followed? Not a lot in terms of snow and cold!

[beng]

JH - are you sure you're not referring to the T2m charts ? i think the ones posted by Ben illustrating the likely positions of the blocks (shown red) are consistent with last few weeks.

Yep - that's what I was trying to say - the model may be completely wrong of course - but it's been really consistent with the blocking signal on the upper air charts.

[camiscool]

It's gonna be cold

[Cecil Hogmanay Melchett]

Looks like a Scandanavian high will begin to dominate our weather towards the end of the week now.My feeling is that cold air will flood down the Eastern flank of the high bringing an early taste of winter for NE Europe,probably western Russia and as far west as maybe belarus.

I havent looked at the moscow ensembles but i would suggest a decent cooldown is on the offing.Hopefully a build of ice and snow to our NE will be quite early this year,not sure if thats got any bearing on the next 6months though.

[fear sneachta]

Anyone see this?!

http://rt.com/prime-time/2010-10-04/coldest-winter-emergency-measures.html?fullstory

[Thundery wintry showers]

The cold of last winter was all very well and good but what we had here was weeks on end of cold weather with a gorgeous looking but horrible icy crust of half melted but then refrozen "snow". It was not a good winter in terms of snow for snowmen, snowball fights and general crumping through powdery snow. It was horrible and icy most of the time. I wouldn't thank you for a repeat. Yes the snow was lovely when it was falling, but it wasn't any fun when it half melted and then froze into ice.

I think I mostly "got away with it" on that front- I endured two pronounced periods of ice, 23-28 December (though that at least produced a white Christmas) and 10-15 January, while the rest of what I saw was a soft snow cover, so although I had less lying snow than you I was probably more able to make use of what I got.

The problem is that we kept having cold spells separated by "less-cold" interludes which gave rise to the icy crust. This has often traditionally been a problem during prolonged cold snowy winters, e.g. my parents have occasionally mentioned that in between the snowy easterly spells in January & February 1985, there was a long "icy crust" phase. Hence it reinforces my preference for episodic winters with relatively short-lived cold snowy spells separated by mild interludes, although I still found last winter very enjoyable overall.

Hmmm...98/99 wasn't exactly a cold one. It was massively stormy in December and into January here but what followed? Not a lot in terms of snow and cold!

Cleadon got quite lucky for snow in 1998/99- there were fairly localised east-coast snowfalls on the 4th/5th December, the 20th December, the 10th/11th January and the 8th/9th February, and as a result snow amounts for 1998/99 were only slightly below the long-term average. Further inland, Durham reported more than 50% snow cover on just 2 days as opposed to Cleadon's 8.

I remember that February 1999 had a lot of potential to be cold and snowy, but with the exception of the northerly on the 7th-10th, all projected northerlies downgraded substantially as they entered the near timeframe- there were quite a few BBC forecasts that went for potent northerlies at the 4-5 day range that ended up as transient blasts with a few wintry showers. Overall, though, it was another of those mild westerly-dominated winters with short-lived northerlies.

[Optimus Prime]

I'm pretty sure it was the 1998/1999 winter where were predicted 25cm of snow 2 days prior. It snowed all day but none of it stuck.

[ZONE 51]

Considering the signals I've seen so far, this appears unlikely. We may well end up with a cold winter by recent standards, but it's unlikely to be on the scale of last winter, let alone the coldest for 1,000 years.

Nimbilus -its an exciting build up this one, although last winter was record, i actually had my deepest snow and severer frosts in jan/feb 2009, but last winter the snow didnt go, it was the prolonged cold block that never shifted and was cold to end march, this winter i think we might get another shock!

im excited about the experts thoughts (:

Edited October 6, 2010 by nimbilus

[Weather-history]

, let alone the coldest for 1,000 years.

How do they know it could be the coldest winter for 1000 years? Temperature measurements haven't even cover half that period so they can't say for definite. They could say the coldest winter since temperature measurements were first taken.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Mr_Data

[bobbydog]

How do they know it could be the coldest winter for 1000 years? Temperature measurements haven't even cover half that period so they can't say for definite. They could say the coldest winter since temperature measurements were first taken.

apparently they found an old roman thermometer near hadrians wall which read -35c. they keep it in a freezer at newcastle university so they dont lose the reading