South East and East Anglia Weather Discussion January 2021 onwards

[MAF]

Okay, lets get things into perspective.
Its winter
It might be cold
It might be cold enough for snow
It might be frosty
It may even be icy, frosty, snowy and cold
But at the end of the day, it is what it is. 
So, looking at what might be in ten days’ time is pointless.
Looking at what might happen in 5 days’ time might be realistic.
However, and I say this as someone who loves winter, the chances of snow are rare currently. 
That’s not to say it won’t snow, or be wintry, but realistically, this season is not how many would like.
Mind you, its better than going for a walk trying to decide whether it’s a jumper and no jacket/coat. Its better than struggling with an umbrella, its cool enough to know it’s not spring and it so much better than the last few winters  
No matter what the model thread is saying, if it’s not forecast for the next three days then its probably not going to happen. 
I have enough life experience to sit down and consider if I look out the window and see what the weather is doing right now, then it will do what it does. If I look at a forecast to tell me what it might do for the rest of the day, then I take notice. But I hate carrying an umbrella around when commuting to work and finding out I never needed it.
All I am trying to say is; and I hate this phrase; ‘it is what it is’ nothing ever will determine what the weather will do.  
Sorry, for the rant. 
 

[moogyboobles]

Popped out for a walk when the rain had calmed down a bit.. never seen the sluice gate bit look this flooded before! 

[Mark]

7 minutes ago, londonblizzard said:

now it's over me. pure rain

 Yeah, stupid hot concrete buildings...

[lottiekent]

Temp 3.1c here now, still raining lightly.

 

Had 44.0mm since midnight and that means now we’ve had 123.8mm so far this month!

[Polaris]

Finally stopped raining here in central Beds. Hoping the ppn continues to decay, roads and fields completely flooded. 

[Kentspur]

Rains actually gone from about 0.5/10 to 3.5/10 here in Dartford 

[paget]

Temp 4.4 here in Farnham, surrey 

dp 3.8 

at least it’s stopped raining!  

[Stabilo19]

No wintry mix in the SE it seems.. just heavy, cold rain and freezing wind chills. It really can't get much worse, can it?

Roll on summer! 

[dubmuffin]

1.3 out there now and rain fading, the latest BBC forecast showed rain Saturday with warm southerly air

[TSNWK]

3 minutes ago, dubmuffin said:

1.3 out there now and rain fading, the latest BBC forecast showed rain Saturday with warm southerly air

Good.. no point with slush fest..at least with rain only its one less stage on the drying phase

[steveinsussex]

It’s now bloody cold out

[Tom Montalbano]

Evening all,

Not a particularly a good start to the 12z Runs Tonight, IMHO.

The Low that is expected to phase over the U.K., around mid-Week (t120/t144), looks to "faff about" between Scotland and Norway:

We need this to clear S.E./E, asap.

Heights are rising up to Greenland but the "dilly/dallying" of this North Sea Low, eventually leads to the Greenland heights orientating towards Canada, long term:

Has the look of a dreaded West based -NAO.

Saw that Model Tweet, that our own Hotspur62 posted earlier from someone called Mark Vogan. 

Below, is a link to his Website and his thoughts, as we go through January:

Europe January 2021 Outlook : MarkVoganWeather.com

I saw a post a few Days ago from a NW Member, that suggested a West based -NAO, isn't such a bad thing.

The Member went on to state that if the Greenland High is large enough, even though it would be considered to constitute a West based -NAO, it would still be able to block off the Atlantic and facilitate the passage Southwards over the U.K, of a bitterly cold Arctic flow.

It's highly unlikely that a blocking High over Greenland would be large enough to block off the Atlantic, whilst being orientated towards Canada, in my opinion.

Having done some extensive research into Greenland Highs, back in 2007 or 2008, I have to disagree with that Member's statement.

I posted a link to the follow up Thread, which I put together in December 2019, a few Days ago.

Below, is an extract from that Thread: 

QUOTE: 

"There were some very interesting results. On the whole, there did seem to be a correlation between "true heights" over Greenland and the likelihood of Cold/Wintry Weather, reaching the U.K. It threw up a very interesting Winter though and my first introduction to the dreaded West based Negative NAO.

Although Jan.1969 recorded "robust" (yellow/greens) heights over Greenland at times (esp.early Jan.), the area of High Pressure   had no strong Ridging due South ,allowing the Atlantic in through the back door (so to speak) . The 1969 Jan. CET returned a value of +5.5c  (In the Very Mild Category)."

Below,  is an archive Synoptic Chart, to illustrate the above point:

                   8th JAN 1969 

Decent heights over Greenland but no strong Ridging due South, to "block off" the Atlantic. This resulted in a mainly Mild and unsettled January, 1969."

               7th FEB.1969

A Month later and still reasonable heights around Greenland but because the High has a strong Ridge aligned to the S.E, the Atlantic is "blocked off", allowing cold to flood down, from the Arctic.

Jan./Feb. 1969, were exact Polar opposites (literally).

Lets hope any Greenland High that does develop behaves like the February 1959 example, otherwise.

P.S. E.C.M. long term not looking good either!!

Phased Low, hangs about in the Norwegian Sea and decent heights over Greenland are wasted, as the Model also goes on to suggest a West based -NAO, by Runs end.

Regards,

Tom.   

[NewEra21]

So ladies and gentlemen, please don't shoot me as we all know how terribly inaccurate these ECM snow charts have been for our region. But maybe, just maybe a glimmer of hope for Saturday......

Edited January 14, 2021 by NewEra21

[winterfreak]

In other news the cold is just ten days away according to the models.., 

[dubmuffin]

29 minutes ago, TSNWK said:

Good.. no point with slush fest..at least with rain only its one less stage on the drying phase

Agree really - a snow to rain event is so depressing after the initial excitement

[Polaris]

8 minutes ago, NewEra21 said:

So ladies and gentlemen, please don't shoot me as we all know how terribly inaccurate these ECM snow charts have been for our region. But maybe, just maybe a glimmer of hope for Saturday......

If only that glimmer were a reality 

Nice to look at, but I’m sure we can all agree that ECM snow charts are absolutely useless. I should have been buried 5 times over by snowfall in the past 4 weeks. 
 

The rest is history- RAIN RAIN RAIN 

[Polaris]

Drizzle fest incoming for most of the region before dying off. 
 

Groundbreaking..... 

[NewEra21]

9 minutes ago, Polaris said:

If only that glimmer were a reality 

Nice to look at, but I’m sure we can all agree that ECM snow charts are absolutely useless. I should have been buried 5 times over by snowfall in the past 4 weeks. 
 

The rest is history- RAIN RAIN RAIN 

Yep. They have been horrendous! Especially a few weeks ago when it was showing the whole of the SE & EA buried in snow, then the system barely made the Chanel and headed for Northern France. 

We desperately need a BFTE for any meaningful and lasting snow down here, we just don't seem capable of seeing the white stuff any other way nowadays unfortunately. And we all know how rare those true BFTEs are!

Edited January 14, 2021 by NewEra21

[Lord Grogon]

10 minutes ago, dubmuffin said:

Agree really - a snow to rain event is so depressing after the initial excitement

As a child who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s I learned to dread the phrase “a band of rain preceded by snow”

So many times I would throw open my curtains hoping to see white, but instead confronted by damp, miserable grey. My Dad would then rub it in by telling me that there was a blizzard at about midnight which of course was washed away long before morning.

That was in the West Country. As a Londoner it’s interpretation became more simple. “A band of rain preceded by rain”.

 

[Paul Sherman]

At this stage I think most of us would take 3 hours of just seeing snowflakes falling its been a while

[bluebell]

Just now, Paul Sherman said:

At this stage I think most of us would take 3 hours of just seeing snowflakes falling its been a while

Absolutely definitely! Just had a call from my mother (they live in a small village in North Beds) and they had some big wet snowflakes falling earlier, I felt quite envious but it didn’t settle apparently. The main headlines seem to be floods for our area. She sent picture of the allotments in the village, must be a bit soul destroying seeing all your hard work under water.

[Hotspur62]

A very interesting post by TomSE12 a short while ago on -West based NAO.It is certainly a consideration going forward and as 1969 proved January of that year looked like a horrible wet month but then was replaced by not a too shabby February .I think this second warming happening currently will hopefully shuffle things up for the better and if this Arctic high can come more prominent then that may displace the trough modelled in the North Sea south eastwards and put the SE THREAD back in the game for cold prospects.Atm I agree with Tom in that we have to get that trough moving.As today proved up North you don’t need bitter cold for snow,uppers of -6 and DPs of 0/-1 and bingo.Then have surface cold build and temperatures will stay coldSimples

[Captain Shortwave]

pretty clear as to where the front stalled for the majority of the past 36 hours. 30mm of rain here as well as a couple of hours of moderate wet snow. We really need some dry weather as much as anything. Hopefully we can get blocked and cold without the mass onslaught of rain. So we probably need to avoid the west based -NAO over the coming weeks.

[chionomaniac]

1 minute ago, Captain Shortwave said:

pretty clear as to where the front stalled for the majority of the past 36 hours. 30mm of rain here as well as a couple of hours of moderate wet snow. We really need some dry weather as much as anything. Hopefully we can get blocked and cold without the mass onslaught of rain. So we probably need to avoid the west based -NAO over the coming weeks.

Blimey, and I thought it was wet here. 

[Southender]

2 minutes ago, Captain Shortwave said:

pretty clear as to where the front stalled for the majority of the past 36 hours. 30mm of rain here as well as a couple of hours of moderate wet snow. We really need some dry weather as much as anything. Hopefully we can get blocked and cold without the mass onslaught of rain. So we probably need to avoid the west based -NAO over the coming weeks.

Ouch. I knew it was bad here but that’s 36-38mm over me and Mr Sherman’s house.