Autumn 2011

[karyo]

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/PDFcr_nino34SSTMon.gif

Modelling now signalling that La Nina may redevelop for winter.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/qbo.data

QBO values dropped in May, so the easterly values are on there way.

Looking good!!

A weak La Nina would be nice this time!

Karyo

[Ruzzi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rplrO5FNFw

This was a dream come true for me, considering I live in Central Scotland.

I actually had to sit down when I seen the forecast, and struggled to take it all in.

Here's hoping a few more storms like that pop up this winter

[feb1991blizzard]

Yes, some of the big frontal snow events of the late 1970s and 1980s ended up as "all snow" events due to cold air meeting slightly less cold air, or the cold air winning out (such that areas that get rain initially still get snow in the end). Traditionally the main issue with such events is that in many cases the lows to the south throw a lot of warm air into their circulation so a narrow belt of the UK gets a memorable snow event, while eastern coastal areas within the belt and anywhere to the south/west of it gets rain.

I'm not generally a big fan of the Scandinavian High unless it throws up a ridge across to our north, as historically many "south-easterly" months dominated by the Scandinavian High have ended up very dull and mainly dry. A ridge across to our north tends to promote more of an east to north-easterly type which brings more instability and thus sunshine and snow showers as it crosses the North Sea.

I am suprised that you are not a fan of the scandi high though Ian as even a moderate one in terms of intensity and longjevity would most likely give some hefty convective snowfall for you, whether it be in Norwich or Newcastle. I suppose it depends on the source of the airmass and the longjevity of the stable high to the NE of us. I can see the point about the south easterly but in 1987 and 1991 the North, North east, and North west all took a pasting from heavy showers and frontal snow although i would say that our most severe winters tend to bring the best conditions for the SE wheras the 'Normal' Battle ground scenarios bring the heaviest snow for the North and North east.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I think my main issue with the Scandinavian high is traditionally sunshine, or rather absence of it. We can get sunshine and snow showers under favourable circumstances when we pick up a particularly cold airmass, or when the orientation of the high is right and we get an E/NE'ly rather than a SE'ly, but by far my biggest association with high pressure over Scandinavia is a thick layer of stratocumulus trapped under an inversion, which is what we generally get whenever neither of those conditions are met.

The Scandinavian high was a large part of the "building blocks" for the January 1987 and February 1991 spells, but in both cases the significant convective snowfalls occurred when the high ridged across to the north and pulled in some seriously cold air on its southern flank:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/1987/Rrea00119870112.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/1991/Rrea00119910208.gif

I'm more a fan of those setups with persistent high pressure around the Greenland/Iceland region (like the ones we saw a lot of in the last two winters!) or extensive high pressure stretching from Greenland to Scandinavia, as they tend to be similarly cold and wintry but also somewhat brighter. But of course each to their own- some aren't bothered about sunshine for instance.

[Ruzzi]

http://www.exactaweather.com/UK_Long_Range_Forecast.html

An update from the ever-increasingly prominent figure of James Madden. Interesting!

[arcticadventurer]

Very interesting! while it is early days yet. It couldnt be ruled out

[EaasmanG]

Metoffice, NetWeather, now Exacta Weather, third in line to be shot down in flames.

[NorthernRab]

Metoffice, NetWeather, now Exacta Weather, third in line to be shot down in flames.

Do go on.

[ZONE 51]

The factors are pointing to the potential for even more exteme cold-when it does come, but we must not forget it can be mild if we can have a tunnel opened up for the warmer winds-like february, what is possible is to get another extreme month of cold and snow, i cannot answer is the whole winter to be icy, i can say when we lock into the pattern of deep freeze then we are to freeze big time! as we know what happened in december2010, we got locked into that pattern, the setup was stuck for a long time from end of november. we have more chance of getting a blocked set up because of the factors that increase the chances of a blocked pattern-an atlantic block, think back to december and that shows what is possible, look at the jet stream pattern-where has it been over recent winters? further south than is normal, where is it now? further south than it should be, so in theory it would be further south this coming winter as solar infuences play its affects creating the unusual placement of the jet stream-it should be over far north in summer and over south england or the channel in winter, its important to the train tracks of atlantic activity heading our way, where the jet is-the lows are there, when we get to the right time il write a winter forecast-il have a go this year with detail! im learning like anyone else and what i say is from me and i try and explain how i see it in the way i can!

[Turnedoutniceagain]

http://www.exactaweather.com/UK_Long_Range_Forecast.html

An update from the ever-increasingly prominent figure of James Madden. Interesting!

Conclusion

I therefore expect the 2011-2012 winter to follow a similar pattern in terms of how November and December was in 2010 for the vast majority of this winter. It will be exceptionally cold and snowy with well below average temperatures. I fully expect to see records broken with the highlands of Scotland being once again particularly hard hit. It is therefore vital to start preparing now in terms of high energy bills and raising awareness amongst the most vulnerable and elderly people of society.

I'm liking this !!!

[Turnedoutniceagain]

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif

Never too early for this baby !!!!

[Eugene]

Got to admit i can't wait for autumn and winter, summer just seems to drag nowadays with not much happening.

[Radiating Dendrite]

Agree Eugene!

Summer is just dull. We do not even seem to get storms now.

There is nothing better than the winter buzz in the model thread when -15 850s are shown advancing towards us at +78!!

[Gavin P]

Before we get to winter we've autumn to concentrate on. CFS suggests the chance of an unsettled September and a very wet October;

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

Think we're going to make up some rainfall this autumn.

Edited June 22, 2011 by Gavin P

[snowlover2009]

Before we get to winter we've autumn to concentrate on. CFS suggests the chance of an unsettled September and a very wet October;

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

Think we're going to make up some rainfall this autumn.

Wow that october anomaly looks very cold and wet to me, all those blue stretching from eastern europe to the uk, with higher pressure to the north of the UK.. The december one is looking tasty as well!

Edited June 22, 2011 by snowlover2009

[Ben_Cambs]

Before we get to winter we've autumn to concentrate on. CFS suggests the chance of an unsettled September and a very wet October;

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

Think we're going to make up some rainfall this autumn.

Would certainly be interesting if we do have a wet autumn, it would certainly relieve the drought situation here. I have a hunch that this autumn will be the wettest since 2000 (though not as wet as that exceptional autumn!). I suspect Northern blocking and a Southerly tracking jet will be mostly prominent, though again its just a hunch.

[damianslaw]

Its been a long time since we have seen a wet Sept-Oct combo, in recent years only November has consistently delivered a wet autumn month most notably 2009. Many recent Septembers have been particularly dry and summery like most notably 2005, 2006 and 2009 with lots of high pressure. Its about time we saw a cool wet September - the return of warm dry settled weather in Sept after dissapointing Augusts is always very hard to stomach - yes such weather is pleasant but really far too late.. with daylight hours reducing markedly. Much rather see a warm settled august followed by a wet September- last time this happened was probably 1995.

[Summer Sun]

Simon: Just been revisiting prospects for Winter 2011/12 for some clients, and I think you'll need plenty of warm clothes lined up! We'll have more on Weatheronline for you in the coming weeks.

Issued: 07:56hrs Friday 01th July 2011

http://www.weatheron...nlineScratchBox

Bit early isn't it?

[Dorsetbred]

And rather non-descript too!

[A Winter's Tale]

Awww, I've just got out the BBQ for the first time since May

[Alex]

Weather online sound amateur and they aren't much better than positive weather solutions, they seem to guestcast and never have any backup for their longer term forecasts and they only seem to use the GFS model.

[Optimus Prime]

Weather online sound amateur and they aren't much better than positive weather solutions, they seem to guestcast and never have any backup for their longer term forecasts and they only seem to use the GFS model.

That's complete rubbish they are really rather good with a good validity in forecasting the weather. One of the better ones in fact.

[A Winter's Tale]

I would agree that Weather Online seems to be an amatuer organisation as their forecasts keep chopping and changing day by day. By the way, their forecast for August is looking glum so they better be amatuer .

Over on the weather outlook, Brian Gaze gave his thoughts about the upcoming winter:

"Still looking mixed for the next week or two. The big picture is fairly clear, and pretty much textbook. Low pressure to the north west, high pressure to the south west, and Britain squeezed in the middle with a predominantly Atlantic flow. The details are more complex though, especially further south because down here we could see warmer conditions at times as low pressure to the north west becomes slow moving, causing warmer air over the near continent to be pulled towards us. Despite that, I can’t at the moment offer any realistic prospects of another heatwave in the next couple of weeks, but something could still pop up at short notice. This is turning into a summer like the ones I remember when growing up in the 1980s. The hot spells we often had between 1990 and 2006 were in my view anomalous and not typical, and neither were the exceptionally mild winters. Talking of winter, as I’ve said before don’t write off the possibility of winter 2011/12 being cold, just because the last 3 have been. If the odds of landing a head are 60% when you toss a coin, and you get 3 heads in succession, do you think probability suggests the fourth throw will give you a tail? It doesn’t it suggests you are more likely to throw a head again. Think about it…"

I Would tend to agree with Brian Gaze's comment rather than the one published on Weatheronline.

We can all have our feelings and senses about the weather, however we really can't say anything much about it at the moment. All we can say is that winter is meant to be the coldest time of the year so therefore we can expect snowfalls, and when we get it there is no excuse for going mad about half a cm of snow cause it's winter and you should expect some snowfalls during the winter.

Regardless of what the winter is like as a whole, the potential for nothern blocking is there and as we all know, when that happens we can expect some severe winter weather for a period. So three colder than average winters in a row, I wonder if 2011/2012 would be a forth (and the last three winters have had a cold period(s) that seem to get worse each year). I'd like to know if December is now becoming more of a potent winter month now as the last three have been cold and to my knowledge, we've had cold Christmas Days during the last 5 years (or maybe it's I Can't remember when was the last time we had a mild Christmas).

My thoughts on winter: Well as Brian said, you can't rule out cold weather during winter, especially with Nothern Blocking becoming more prominent aswell as the fact that we've got cold air sitting to our North West, North, North East, East and even South East. At the moment I think it's on a knife-edge between a noticibly cold winter overall (that failed to materialise after December 2010 as potential cold snaps were so near but yet so far), a mixed winter overall (with cold snaps and mild periods) and a milder winter overall. However I do feel that during some time in the winter, Nothern Blocking would reappear and deliver some bitterly cold air to our part of the world as well as snow. With the way winters have been going recently, I feel that we are not going to see the endless, mild Bartlett driven winters that we experienced during the noughties. My gut feeling is that we are going to see a winter that will have a potent blast with the rest of the time having cold interludes/snaps aswell as milder periods.

All we can do is wait and see and that seems to be the way the Weather Online organisation have adopted recently!

[snowlover2009]

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

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

Looking at the anomaly for december, it looks very similar to last December. However the anomaly is less strong, but I guess a strong anomaly increases chances of extremes, however a weak anomaly may mean a lot more cold, if you have a strong high pressure to the north, I guess it could mean there is more mild weather than really cold weather. A weak high to the north increases the cold potential?

What is even more uncanny, is November is also looking distinctly cold, with the second link showing dark blues over Europe and high pressure to the north for October. I am really looking forward to September, as that is my favourite time of year as people start to look towards winter, and autumn and what might.

Edited July 6, 2011 by snowlover2009

[Backtrack]

Me being a cold lover, it's hard for me to say this:

I think this Winter will be very mild. In my opinion I think we will of used up our quota of Northern blocking, leaving no room for sustained cold spells, just minor cold shots.