Model Output Discussion - 1st - 7th January

[dixonoid]

Indeed, the teleconnection and strat forecasts might be saying something about colder weather on the way but this is most certainly not showing in the model output.

I'd say it is showing in the output. if your just looking at the operational than it looks a bit mild near the end, but you have the Control and 19 perturbations to look at:

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=ensviewer;type=panel;

[Bristawl Si]

Only if you believe every gfs run, yet again there is too much doom and gloom in here yet the bigger picture indicates the pv coming under some strain in the next few weeks. I mentioned about a snowstorm hitting the far north tonight and tomorrow but I may as well have been talking to a wall. The outlook is not set in stone and changes are afoot.

Thing is that's a pretty normal UK winter - the far north getting snow at this time of the year. At the moment it still looks like a winter of 2 halves i.e. split North and South.

And no one can say if changes are afoot - maybe things will change, maybe not.

All the talk of Strat warming doesn't mean it will transfer into cold conditions in the UK - remember February 2010?

The Atlantic 'train' seems to remain quite intense to me and that HP to our south is still playing at the party pooper.

[IDO]

Only if you believe every gfs run, yet again there is too much doom and gloom in here yet the bigger picture indicates the pv coming under some strain in the next few weeks. I mentioned about a snowstorm hitting the far north tonight and tomorrow but I may as well have been talking to a wall. The outlook is not set in stone and changes are afoot.

There is nothing forecast, apart from much of the same for the next two weeks, with obvious exception to the storm tomorrow.; there will be strong winds (possibly worse as the forecast gets hi-res), much rain and snow showers (favoured parts of Scotland), on the back end of the low. Quite seasonal, of late, for Scotland. I was referring to the majority of the UK; it will be windy tomorrow with rain, but more like Autumn than Winter weather. Rather bland weather to follow that, till the proposed change, mid month.

[Wilks]

I'm amazed there are not more comments about the blizzards being forecast on the models for the northern half of scotland, I am the only person to comment on this rare feature so far this winter, a blizzard which could dump over 20cm of snow with drifting and power cuts to the far north, I guess it's due to the IMBY nature of snow where unless you are going to get it, it's of no interest but the models are really whipping up a storm for tonight and tomorrow with flooding, storm force winds and heavy snow, yet nobody seems bothered!

Most on here are probably closer to France than the far north of Scotland. It certainly does look pretty wild over the next couple of days on the models in those parts.

[Craigers]

I'd say it is showing in the output. if your just looking at the operational than it looks a bit mild near the end, but you have the Control and 19 perturbations to look at:

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=ensviewer;type=panel;

The control run looks so good as the feed from the north east makes its way right over the uk.

[swilliam]

The 06z control run looked pretty uninteresting (from a cold perspective) compared to the 0Z. That is until the end of the run when an amazing arctic high is in place. Shows what might conceivably happen with the forecasted weakening of the vortex allowing high level blocking to develop - we just need it to do so in a favourable manner for us.

[phil nw.]

Only if you believe every gfs run, yet again there is too much doom and gloom in here yet the bigger picture indicates the pv coming under some strain in the next few weeks. I mentioned about a snowstorm hitting the far north tonight and tomorrow but I may as well have been talking to a wall. The outlook is not set in stone and changes are afoot.

Yes you make a fair point Frosty.

Looking at the fax here shows this feature around N.Scotland.Stormy indeed up there and the Highlands especially will get those blizzards.Quite a wet and windy spell across the UK tomorrow generally.

Temps.still around average further south but quite cold at times further north this week as this changeable cyclonic spell continues with fronts sweeping across.

The trend for the Azores High to ridge north towards the UK at the weekend here-

should settle things down for many areas.

[SP1986]

The big models certainly sticking to their form books, but it wouldn't be yet that we see changes anyway. At this current moment in time it seems we are no closer to answering the question, but it's common sense that a pattern change will occur, as I'd find it very difficult to entertain that a westerly mobile situation would last from December until March at the moment.

The ensembles seem to showing what they have previously showed, trending around the average line with the operational often being on the warmer side of the ensembles. As for Stratospheric warming, I think some are right, the potential is there, but we'll have to wait and see - afterall there are many variables involved in allowing Strat warming to help conduct where things fall into place and the implications of that are either favourable, or unfavourable.

[weather_it_will]

The winds on Tuesday morning appear stronger on the 06z GFS for south east England,

and along with very heavy rain will make driving difficult.

The GFS ensembles only hint at frost and fog as presure rises at the end of this week.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Osbourne One-Nil
Hooray! A post not looking into the distant future!

[Craigers]

The controll looks so nice. Lets hope this trend becomes evident in the other models later this week

[Summer Sun]

I'm amazed there are not more comments about the blizzards being forecast on the models for the northern half of scotland, I am the only person to comment on this rare feature so far this winter, a blizzard which could dump over 20cm of snow with drifting and power cuts to the far north, I guess it's due to the IMBY nature of snow where unless you are going to get it, it's of no interest but the models are really whipping up a storm for tonight and tomorrow with flooding, storm force winds and heavy snow, yet nobody seems bothered!

You must be the only one as even the met office haven't got warnings out for snow.

Apart from tonight its only rain

Edited January 2, 2012 by Gavin D

[nick sussex]

Somewhere over the rainbow!

This would sum up the GEFS ensembles which continue to show some more interesting solutions but the question is will any of these survive into the higher resolution operational output?

You often get this situation where the ensembles well into FI continue to show promise, as we've seen over the last few weeks the ECM picks up something interesting at 240hrs, then drops a few teases and then decides its on the wrong track, we've not seen a single decent chart from it survive within the 168hrs timeframe, so you could say it's picking up on something but is perhaps being too quick to bring about any change.

Unfortunately you couldn't find a worse place for the PV to currently limpet itself, even if you get more amplification upstream you don't even end up with a northerly toppler and until the PV is dislodged from there either shunted much further east towards Scandi or west towards Baffin then theres no chance of a change.

And I would certainly advise against reading too much into ensembles past 240hrs and even though the ECM is top global model within 168hrs I'd certainly be very dubious of it showing any interest past that point to 240hrs.

At the moment if you've been reading the strat thread we are seeing continued warmings and hopefully these will weaken the limpet PV but we need to see the operationals show a solid trend over several runs and see these last to within 168hrs.

IMO too much is being made of the far reaches of the GEFS ensembles which promise much but implode as soon as they see they higher resolution GFS output coming into view.

You could say the fact that they are playing around with some different solutions is a positive sign but we need to see concrete signs of this in the operationals, so for the timebeing not a great deal of change.

[bluearmy]

a few thumbnails for mid month ideas (rather than looking at the op)

gefs mean 06z normal at T336 (note the large mean aleutian ridge into the arctic (you will struggle to get atlantic zonality like we've seen for long with that in place)

gefs parallel mean T348 from the 00z run (a less pronounced ridge but its there nevertheless)

the ecm 00z ens for london showing a fairly settled period for the south approaching mid month with a slow dropping of temps to av/cool.

the spreads of the gefs ens are not supportive of a strong vortex remaining in greenland. if they are right a slow retrogression towards baffin is more likely.

no promises but as phil says - look at the trends in the polar profile and realise that a change is coming. sorry but its not possible on the 2nd jan to say that it will be freezing in accrington on the 22nd, much as some of you would like to hear.

Edited January 2, 2012 by bluearmy

[Harsh Climate]

You must be the only one as even the met office haven't got warnings out for snow.

I think they are just refreshing their warnings, expect warnings of snow to come out soon.

[swilliam]

Somewhere over the rainbow!

This would sum up the GEFS ensembles which continue to show some more interesting solutions but the question is will any of these survive into the higher resolution operational output?

You often get this situation where the ensembles well into FI continue to show promise, as we've seen over the last few weeks the ECM picks up something interesting at 240hrs, then drops a few teases and then decides its on the wrong track, we've not seen a single decent chart from it survive within the 168hrs timeframe, so you could say it's picking up on something but is perhaps being too quick to bring about any change.

Unfortunately you couldn't find a worse place for the PV to currently limpet itself, even if you get more amplification upstream you don't even end up with a northerly toppler and until the PV is dislodged from there either shunted much further east towards Scandi or west towards Baffin then theres no chance of a change.

And I would certainly advise against reading too much into ensembles past 240hrs and even though the ECM is top global model within 168hrs I'd certainly be very dubious of it showing any interest past that point to 240hrs.

At the moment if you've been reading the strat thread we are seeing continued warmings and hopefully these will weaken the limpet PV but we need to see the operationals show a solid trend over several runs and see these last to within 168hrs.

IMO too much is being made of the far reaches of the GEFS ensembles which promise much but implode as soon as they see they higher resolution GFS output coming into view.

You could say the fact that they are playing around with some different solutions is a positive sign but we need to see concrete signs of this in the operationals, so for the timebeing not a great deal of change.

Yes Nick but a few weeks ago even in the far reaches of the GEFS ensemble there were no perturbations showoing anything interesting at all - all that is being said is that at least there is potential.

[SMU]

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT8_London_ens.png

Not a bad set of ensembles- apart from yet again the operational-

The problem is little consistency from the GFS & less so the ECM- the GFS in the long term is responding to the heights changing over the polar fields, however with such a broad locale of where a warming might occur & properagte down theres some huge swings in locations of high pressure-

I do feel like there is a big change coming, but its painstaking in trundling towards it- especially when the operationals depict the milder set of options all the time...

Even the ever mind CFS that every single day in december painted mild all the way to the end of time is now changing - & this will lose a cold signal at every opportunity ..

http://176.31.229.228/modeles/cfs/run1m/cfsnh-0-492.png?

S

[bluearmy]

Somewhere over the rainbow!

This would sum up the GEFS ensembles which continue to show some more interesting solutions but the question is will any of these survive into the higher resolution operational output?

You often get this situation where the ensembles well into FI continue to show promise, as we've seen over the last few weeks the ECM picks up something interesting at 240hrs, then drops a few teases and then decides its on the wrong track, we've not seen a single decent chart from it survive within the 168hrs timeframe, so you could say it's picking up on something but is perhaps being too quick to bring about any change.

Unfortunately you couldn't find a worse place for the PV to currently limpet itself, even if you get more amplification upstream you don't even end up with a northerly toppler and until the PV is dislodged from there either shunted much further east towards Scandi or west towards Baffin then theres no chance of a change.

And I would certainly advise against reading too much into ensembles past 240hrs and even though the ECM is top global model within 168hrs I'd certainly be very dubious of it showing any interest past that point to 240hrs.

At the moment if you've been reading the strat thread we are seeing continued warmings and hopefully these will weaken the limpet PV but we need to see the operationals show a solid trend over several runs and see these last to within 168hrs.

IMO too much is being made of the far reaches of the GEFS ensembles which promise much but implode as soon as they see they higher resolution GFS output coming into view.

You could say the fact that they are playing around with some different solutions is a positive sign but we need to see concrete signs of this in the operationals, so for the timebeing not a great deal of change.

i disagree nick. the mean aleutian ridge is now beginning to show in the ens at T240. it didnt suddenly appear. it s been counting down for the past week or so. of course, as more runs have come on board, its now showing as a mean feature, rather than just a spread cluster. this is not a one off feature and it will take more than one ridge to really dislodge this vortex. the next surge occurs around low T300's and this time it is showing as a mean feature by T336 (see my earlier post). the northeast canadian/west of greenland segment will be our problem but the spreads are not supportive of it remaining in place where it prevents us going proper cold. its the trend, rather than the specifics post T192 as far as i am concerned and they continue to point to a cold spell after mid month but more likely after the 20th. (caveat that we could be unlucky as always in a split vortex scenario and remain under a mid lat high ).

[WhiteFox]

Most on here are probably closer to France than the far north of Scotland. It certainly does look pretty wild over the next couple of days on the models in those parts.

Indeed Frosty makes a good point about the weather being far from boring. However, there is a lot of IMBYism because I'd estimate that about 1% of the population, maybe less, lives in the north of Scotland.

[nick sussex]

i disagree nick. the mean aleutian ridge is now beginning to show in the ens at T240. it didnt suddenly appear. it s been counting down for the past week or so. of course, as more runs have come on board, its now showing as a mean feature, rather than just a spread cluster. this is not a one off feature and it will take more than one ridge to really dislodge this vortex. the next surge occurs around low T300's and this time it is showing as a mean feature by T336 (see my earlier post). the northeast canadian/west of greenland segment will be our problem but the spreads are not supportive of it remaining in place where it prevents us going proper cold. its the trend, rather than the specifics post T192 as far as i am concerned and they continue to point to a cold spell after mid month but more likely after the 20th. (caveat that we could be unlucky as always in a split vortex scenario and remain under a mid lat high ).

I'm not saying theres no reason to have some optimism about the second half of winter and I have noticed that ridging to the west of Alaska but I don't care much for ensembles well into FI, show me an operational run that dislodges the PV within 240hrs and sticks to this for a few days or at least a big ensemble jump within 240hrs and I'll be less dubious.

I do have to remain constant here, ever since I've been on here I've always rubbished the GEFS ensembles in the far reaches of FI, and I'm not just going to change now because these show some more interesting solutions.

We'll just have to wait and see how the models react to that ridge in the east Pacific, maybe we'll just get a sudden switch from one of the operationals.

[Craigers]

http://www.winterhighland.info/weather/

Warnings have been up for some time on the mountain forecasts

[SMU]

i disagree nick. the mean aleutian ridge is now beginning to show in the ens at T240. it didnt suddenly appear. it s been counting down for the past week or so. of course, as more runs have come on board, its now showing as a mean feature, rather than just a spread cluster. this is not a one off feature and it will take more than one ridge to really dislodge this vortex. the next surge occurs around low T300's and this time it is showing as a mean feature by T336 (see my earlier post). the northeast canadian/west of greenland segment will be our problem but the spreads are not supportive of it remaining in place where it prevents us going proper cold. its the trend, rather than the specifics post T192 as far as i am concerned and they continue to point to a cold spell after mid month but more likely after the 20th. (caveat that we could be unlucky as always in a split vortex scenario and remain under a mid lat high ).

+ 1 on the aleution ridge- the vortex slayer-

s

[NorthernRab]

Indeed Frosty makes a good point about the weather being far from boring. However, there is a lot of IMBYism because I'd estimate that about 1% of the population, maybe less, lives in the north of Scotland. Once you get past Stirling it's pretty barren up there!

More than 1% of the UK's population lives north of Stirling, places such as Dundee, Inverness, Perth, Aberdeen, Stornoway - you've heard of them all because people live up here and we do count I'm afraid!

[Harsh Climate]

http://www.winterhig...d.info/weather/

Warnings have been up for some time on the mountain forecasts

Yet another calamity from the met office!

How can they not have a warning out for west yorkshire when we are shawl'y going to get hammered tomorow.

Last week they failed to put a warning out, we had trees down, trains cancelled and damage to fences/other garden stuff. There incompetance really does baffle me! The large oak tree that I saw fallen down on top of a car and blocking an entire street could have killed somebody!

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Wrong thread for talking about weather warnings!

[Thundery wintry showers]

A pattern of alternation between mild westerlies and colder north-westerlies is showing for the foreseeable future with a slow trend towards a more anticyclonic bias. The jet is set to remain very strong to our north with considerable modification from depression cores, so as others have noted, none of the north-westerlies will be especially cold, with snow generally restricted to northern hills.

The chart for 12Z tomorrow reminds me a bit of the big depression on the 16th/17th January 1984:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/1984/Rrea00119840117.gif

...though of course the polar maritime air coming in behind was a lot colder on that occasion- this time around we're looking at temperatures 2 to 3 degrees higher, hence snow being restricted to northern hills.