Model Output Discussions 18z 31/01/2016

[Frosty.]

The ukmo 12z is a coldies dream next week with a sustained arctic blast, the ukmo would produce the most wintry spell so far this winter, hands down. The Ecm 12z is a clear second to the ukmo with plenty of wintry potential during the first half of next week and then again towards the end of the run...I pray the ukmo verifies and gives us poor coldies something good to remember about this horrible winter!

[joggs]

22 minutes ago, Karl. said:

The ukmo 12z is a coldies dream next week with a sustained arctic blast, the ukmo would produce the most wintry spell so far this winter, hands down. The Ecm 12z is a clear second to the ukmo with plenty of wintry potential during the first half of next week and then again towards the end of the run...I pray the ukmo verifies and gives us poor coldies something good to remember about this horrible winter!

I can only see downgrades again Karl tbh.Can't see the low pushing straight through the high,ala ukmo.Probably ne and link with the trough to our ne and keep us in a cool westerly flow imo.I really think the Ecm is the best we can hope for realistically.The colder flow with blustery wintry showers on the GFS,for most of West and central areas,for Sunday has been diluted and that's the way it's gone all winter.Eye candy 6 days + any and slowly erode.Just the background pattern we've been in I'm afraid.

[Guest]

Although only my second post on here, I have been following this forum daily all winter prior to registering as a user and recently changing to my current name.  I feel that some posters have allowed their repeated disappointments to get the better of them and sometimes this has led them to rather unfairly criticise the models, predictive charts and some of the analysis. The failure of any longer lasting cold spell to develop and almost no lowland snow outside of Scotland and far Northern England is understandably very frustrating for the coldies.

Whilst I am also disappointed and enjoy weather extremes, particularly the cold and the snow, I feel that this model blog needs a severe injection of optimism and realism for balance. I will attempt this below. Posters like Frosty (now Karl.) often looks for exciting charts and puts a positive but not totally unrealistic spin on them – long may that continue. Then we have the experts - far too many to mention but I really appreciate their valuable contributions. Very frequent posters like Singularity and Nick Sussex do a fantastic job in providing expert analysis and opinion and they stick with it even though they are often just as frustrated as most of the rest of us. Tamara was making some excellent posts but seems to have been absent recently. Although February so far has not really gone according to plan, I would really like to see an update from her on her views on the next few weeks and early Spring.

In my 56 years of following the weather avidly (from age 7), I feel that this has been the most unusual winter I have known.  The models have really been struggling with so many “unknowns”. There has been a  combination of the near record basin wide El Nino, record low Arctic ice build-up by the end of January (particularly in the Barents Sea, the Kara Sea and the East Greenland Sea all to the north of our side of the Atlantic – see: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ ), the almost unrelenting powerful and direct west to east Jet Stream, the 15 month cold pool in the north west Atlantic, the much warmer than averages SSTs to our south west, the extremely strong and stubborn polar vortex, several periods of extreme cold in the north-east States and eastern Canada and eastern Asia and the lack of any enduring cold in Europe.  Most, if not all, of these factors are inter-related. 

In general, the longer term monthly/seasonal models have actually been broadly accurate for this winter. A very mild and unsettled first half and a trend to rather colder weather later on. Yes, December turned out to be exceptionally mild and a record breaker. January only had a brief colder spell (perhaps partly abbreviated by the January hurricane!) and February, so far, has been less mild. The models most scrutinised on this thread have sometimes been in disagreement, even in the more reliable time frames. I feel that the disappointments and criticisms have been aimed at the two extreme ends of the model runs. The FI T+168 to T+384 charts have often suggested a possible change to colder conditions but with little run to run consistency and which have mostly failed to materialise – this is not that unusual. Gibby’s excellent daily reports incudes an update on the 31 day verification success of the major models and this is probably considerably better than many of us might realise. In the very short-term, the models are not ideal in forecasting most snow events and especially the marginal ones. There is, quite understandably, a lot of focus by many posters on these snow events but even with the usual caveats, most forecasts have again been “broadly” accurate – there has been a tendency to ramp up the chance of snow when hinted at on the low and high resolution charts and then shoot it down when it barely delivers.

Now to the next few weeks. I believe that weather patterns will very likely change markedly by the turn of the month and particularly during March.  The El Nino has weakened substantially in the eastern Pacific during the last few weeks although it is still at its strongest in the central Pacific. Overall it is no longer basin wide and its effects may well become less widespread.  It is forecast to weaken steadily into a neutral state by the summer and with a strong chance of moving quickly into La Nina conditions later in the year. El Nino and ENSO winters often have mild first halves with powerful zonal Jet Streams and colder second halves with weaker and more meridional Jets.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

The stratospheric warming event in late Jan/early Feb was weaker than some had forecast and did not do much to change the predominate weather patterns. It merely seemed to displace the Arctic cold into North America (re-strengthening the Atlantic Jet) as well as East Asia. Possibly bad luck or perhaps not as the experts continue to learn from this highly unusual set-up. Several anomaly models have suggested that we may see a much stronger and perhaps a proper SSW event starting within 2 weeks. The last few GFS runs between T+240 and T+384 have switched from a strong to weak and back to a strong warming with varying degrees of trop vortex displacement. If this does materialise its timing will be very similar to the late Feb/early March 2013 event.

As Singularity (and several others) show us, the MJO seems to be coming to our help too, moving through phase 7 and probably quite quickly into phase 8 and with a lot more amplitude than many model and some experts predicted just a week or so ago.

The land masses start to warm up during March and there should be less temperature contrast between the North American east coast and the western Atlantic. So, the Jet Stream should weaken considerably in any event. Although conditions have been so unusual with all the influences I’ve already referred to, the one thing that is more reliable is mother nature and the seasonal changes. I would be amazed if we continue to see the Jet Stream power its way through the Atlantic and almost straight at us for a fourth month in a row!

Some of the models have started to toy with the impact of some of these possible changes. I think we will see a lot of chopping and changing in the T+144 to T+384 model charts for the fortnight or so. Although there are no guarantees that we will have a long cold spell like March/April 2013 there are some interesting signals. So, I would suggest that all you posters with model fatigue and those who have given up on this winter, re-charge your batteries and focus on the models really closely during the rest of this month and into March. It may be that everything is just going to fall into place albeit about 6-8 weeks later than in a more normal winter.

I am new to using the site functions. This is not a repeat of my first post (which was on page 41 of this thread) but a new post. I must have pressed the wrong button or something!

[Frosty.]

6 minutes ago, joggs said:

I can only see downgrades again Karl tbh.Can't see the low pushing straight through the high,ala ukmo.Probably ne and link with the trough to our ne and keep us in a cool westerly flow imo.I really think the Ecm is the best we can hope for realistically.The colder flow with blustery wintry showers on the GFS,for most of West and central areas,for Sunday has been diluted and that's the way it's gone all winter.Eye candy 6 days + any and slowly erode.Just the background pattern we've been in I'm afraid.

Hi joggs, well at some point us coldies will surely have some luck...long, long overdue..maybe next week..and what a great post, reposted by Bring Back 1962-63.

[winterof79]

9 minutes ago, Karl. said:

Hi joggs, well at some point us coldies will surely have some luck...long, long overdue..maybe next week..and what a great post, reposted by Bring Back 1962-63.

Time will tell if his prediction is correct.At present we are in the usual position of 1 model predicting Narnia next week(jam tomorrow) and the others not.

The norm is for Narnia to water down to something likes soft Narna and we end up with being stuck with a mixture which delivers snow to the Scottish ski resorts and drowns the rest.

Still here though

Edited February 18, 2016 by winterof79

[ANYWEATHER]

Hi Folks! Im  gonna  put a little bet on that judging by ecm and gfs output tonight we will see snow in lowland southern Britain before mid March. After all it does not need to be that cold to snow... Keep this post and see If Im right.....

Edited February 18, 2016 by ANYWEATHER

[winterof79]

3 minutes ago, ANYWEATHER said:

Hi Folks! Im  gonna  put a little bet on that judging by ecm and gfs output tonight we will see snow in lowland southern Britain before mid Marcch. After all it does not need to be that cold to snow... Keep this post and see If Im right.....

Just colder than this week that's all Your falling snow picture is keeping me from going in sane

Edited February 18, 2016 by winterof79

[Day 10]

Just getting in to see the UKMO run

PLEASE UKMO, be right, my eyes hurt from all this model watching and nothing to show for it!!

[Frosty.]

Just to add some balance to the cold chasing, it would be wrong to overlook the fact that there is a very mild spring like weekend ahead further south with temps into the low to mid teens celsius across the south / southeast of the UK, Saturday night looks extremely mild for a winter's night and the  central swathe of the UK look like having pulses of moderate to heavy rain throughout the weekend, especially west of high ground. Sunday looking the drier and brighter day in the south of england and east anglia whereas it stays rather cold and showery across the north of the UK with snow across the scottish hills and mountains according to the Gfs 12z...then turning colder further south too by early next week.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Karl.

[snowice]

29 minutes ago, Minus 10 said:

Just getting in to see the UKMO run

PLEASE UKMO, be right, my eyes hurt from all this model watching and nothing to show for it!!

I dont think that low at 96 is going to go through th Hp cell it will go over. Ukmo has been poor this winter and gfs will be correct!

[Frosty.]

1 minute ago, Snowmut said:

Frosty will be turning in his grave! 

Very funny...Frosty isn't just a cold ramper, he (I) posts in spring, summer and Autumn too and has been known to be quite fair and balanced at times....just to set the record straight!

[LeeTofficial]

Interesting look at the date. 

[karlos1983]

15 minutes ago, Karl. said:

Very funny...Frosty isn't just a cold ramper, he (I) posts in spring, summer and Autumn too and has been known to be quite fair and balanced at times....just to set the record straight!

until it's April I'm not buying it sorry Karl 

[nick sussex]

Although this GFS run isn't jumping on the UKMO bandwagon its made a clear move towards the ECM solution, the key area is the trough set up over Scandi and the heights rising nw towards Svalbard.

Because of this the deeper cold is kept in place to the ne rather than being pulled nw.

Edited February 18, 2016 by nick sussex

[feb1991blizzard]

A bit marginal perhaps but the 180-186 chart on the 18z GFS has shades of the 8th December 1990 about it.

[fergieweather]

The -ve screen temp anomalies from last week of Feb all the way on past mid-March (one such frame below) are generally weak - but versus previous output, now quite striking in latest EC Monthly, especially re longevity. Meanwhile, +ve PPN anomalies shift increasingly southwards through England and into continental Europe, with mean flow varying N to NNW to NNE throughout most of run, before losing any significant signal against climatology later next month. This fits well with UKMO suspicion re colder start to spring.

Something afoot....

Edited February 18, 2016 by fergieweather

[Frosty.]

57 minutes ago, karlos1983 said:

until it's April I'm not buying it sorry Karl 

LOL no need to apologise..karl

If something's afoot, I hope it's a foot of snow

[on the coast]

1 minute ago, fergieweather said:

The -ve screen temp anomalies from last week of Feb all the way on past mid-March (one such frame below) are generally weak - but versus previous output, now quite striking in latest EC Monthly, especially re longevity. Meanwhile, +ve PPN anomalies shift increasingly southwards through England and into continental Europe, with mean flow varying N to NNW to NNE throughout.

Something afoot....

Yep our winter starts next week. Typical book a weeks break in the Algarve early March and the cold follows me :-(  Cold and damp spring coming up.

[Captain Shortwave]

ECM ens out to day 10

      

So the initial Scandi trough looks likely to wane somewhat but with low heights continuing to drain south east into Europe with heights maintained to our west and over Russia. The outlook doesn't scream mild or even average to be honest. So it is either a slightly below average and cyclonic regime to something much colder if we can get some Arctic air to move towards us, preferably from the north east as to remove any modifying effects. I suspect the day 10-15 range is broadly similar in the pattern it is showing.

The GFS op and parallel continue to play around with a more robust Euro trough at the start of March.

   

Would be good enough even at this time of year (850s around -8C with an unstable north to north east flow). Still it is a long way off but an idea of what a good solution would be for us.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Captain Shortwave

[winterof79]

1 minute ago, on the coast said:

Yep our winter starts next week. Typical book a weeks break in the Algarve early March and the cold follows me :-(  Cold and damp spring coming up.

In the Algarve, yes it does look that way. Here ,however, maybe not just damp and cold.

[nick sussex]

Looks great for the ski resorts across Europe, now if we could just put the UK on a jack and lift it up about 2,000 feet then it would be snow heaven!

I think the issue is still the lack of a strong block to pull the coldest air in from the ne. I'd like to see less of the much used wintry showers, wintry mix, marginal snow which seems to have been associated with any colder snaps that have survived the PV onslaught this winter.

It would be great to just have a forecast which said snow or snow showers, end of no caveats! For that I think we need that strong block.

 

[Daniel*]

Très bien, can UKMO be trusted? I think partially it does toy in with 'extended period of below average temps...' I'd say if it was a month earlier this thread would be an awful lot more busier, the arpege model also sniffing it out!..

[Derbyshire Snow]

As i mentioned in this mornings post winter is a long way from being finished yet, and this run is proving what might happen. Snow potential for many areas , particularly for Scotland. Better and stronger ridging over Greenland slowing the atlantic attack at last  and pushing lows further south . We are i believe heading for a late winter big battle between a developing Scandinavian high with assistance from heights to our north against  our prevailing jet stream. We could be lucky and be right on the front line of this with some well deserved copious amounts of snow.

Climate does tend to balance out to a degree and we are overdue a proper cold spell. And what better time to have it now. This time of year fronts and showers can produce blizzard conditions.

Blizzard means snow so heavy you cannot see the car in front when you are driving.

 

 

[nick sussex]

The UKMO for the second night in a row have modified their raw output and the fax charts look more like the ECM. Obviously they think their operational run is an outlier solution.

 

[Earth Wind and Snow]

5 minutes ago, nick sussex said:

The UKMO for the second night in a row have modified their raw output and the fax charts look more like the ECM. Obviously they think their operational run is an outlier solution.

 

Hi Nick

I don't think they have updated yet. ..they look like last night's....some tasty looking ensembles tonight tying in with Ian Fergusons  post

 

EWS