Winter 2021-22 Chat, Moans and ramps thread

[Walsall Wood Snow]

Does anybody think the recent volcanic eruption in Tonga might have an effect on the atmosphere going forward?

It's certainly something that no weather model would have foreseen or accounted for. 

I'm just wondering going forward it might shake things up a bit. Not sure if it will have any effect on the rest of our winter weather though but maybe it'll cause something to happen that wouldn't have happened if it were not for it?

[SussexSnowman]

Been crisp dry days here on the coast. Maximum day temps have been in the 6-8oC range. It's been refreshing having sharp frosts and more winter weather. I know most would like a dash of snow sprinkled in, but right now not complaining. 

[Staffmoorlands]

10 minutes ago, SussexSnowman said:

Been crisp dry days here on the coast. Maximum day temps have been in the 6-8oC range. It's been refreshing having sharp frosts and more winter weather. I know most would like a dash of snow sprinkled in, but right now not complaining. 

Probably another ten days of this pattern! 

[Climate Man]

29 minutes ago, SussexSnowman said:

Been crisp dry days here on the coast. Maximum day temps have been in the 6-8oC range. It's been refreshing having sharp frosts and more winter weather. I know most would like a dash of snow sprinkled in, but right now not complaining. 

I love snow but for me my first aim is to get mean temp to or just below average. Here in Warwickshire could achieve that in January so by no means warm. 

[jvenge]

44 minutes ago, Walsall Wood Snow said:

Does anybody think the recent volcanic eruption in Tonga might have an effect on the atmosphere going forward?

It's certainly something that no weather model would have foreseen or accounted for. 

I'm just wondering going forward it might shake things up a bit. Not sure if it will have any effect on the rest of our winter weather though but maybe it'll cause something to happen that wouldn't have happened if it were not for it?

Nope. Nothing a few weeks out anyway.

It is of interest as to how it impacts the ENSO state going forwards. Some papers have speculated that volcanic eruptions in that general region can favour El Nino development. So I imagine many scientists are quite excited now that they get to test theories on such a big eruption.

Of course it isn't like ENSO forecasts are no long and accurate anyway, so even if it does go to El Nino, how unusual would that be after two La Nina anyway? Heh! 

[Mariescb]

37 minutes ago, Staffmoorlands said:

Probably another ten days of this pattern! 

Hope so, been great  

[damianslaw]

23 minutes ago, Mariescb said:

Hope so, been great  

Very good compared to the usual mild Atlantic gunk we have in January but also very frustrating for cold snow lovers as a nudge further west and north would have meant a locked in cold spell with possible bursts of snow from the north. Alas not meant to be.. however I think we'll look back at Jan 2022 quite fondly in future Januaries when under relentless mild Atlantic wet air.

Edited January 19, 2022 by damianslaw

[Summer8906]

12 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Very good compared to the usual mild Atlantic gunk we have in January but also very frustrating for cold snow lovers as a nudge further west and north would have meant a locked in cold spell with possible bursts of snow from the north. Alas not meant to be.. however I think we'll look back at Jan 2022 quite fondly in future Januaries when under relentless mild Atlantic wet air.

I always find it interesting to 'invert' a month to see what we'd prefer, as it's a good measure of how 'good' or 'bad' a month has been. The inverse of this month would be an extremely wet and dull month with temperatures close to average, maybe slightly colder than average. by day, but mild at night - but a historic snowy spell for the first 3 days which then thaws on the 4th.

Think I prefer what we have..

Edited January 19, 2022 by Summer8906

[nobble]

If the winter peters out without a decent snowy spell , surely next year

[Guest]

Snowing in Cyprus now, says it all really...

[mb018538]

3 hours ago, mountain shadow said:

There is always the chance of proper cold and snow period, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing, trop or strat wise pointing to such a scenario. 

Personally I think very late February into March might produce the goods.

This is what usually happens every winter first it was front loaded, then mid to late January might deliver….now late feb and March….before you know it, another season has passed by with nothing to note.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, nobble said:

If the winter peters out without a decent snowy spell , surely next year

Same chance as this year (i.e. slim)

[FetchCB]

6 hours ago, northwestsnow said:

It's actually a valid point regarding Exeter factoring in GW into their LRF's..perhaps when telecommunications like qbo /enso are analysed  it needs to be considered GW can over ride any cold signal.

Thing is GW is not an entity as say temperature is. GW doesn't override anything its merely a name given to a set of observations. 

By way of explanation it is said that sea ice is retreating because of global warming. It is higher temperatures that cause the reduction in sea ice and temperature is already included in the forecasts. 

As a caveat to my statement above I would say that GW is possibly factored into climate modelling by the Hadley Centre by way of assumptions to understand the impacts of different scenarios 

[fromey]

17 minutes ago, booferking said:

There's nothing else to pin or hopes on currently unfortunately.

Just do what I’ve done, I gave up on winter when the temps hit 15c on New Year’s Eve, I’ve just read that La Niña is fading and they expect El Niño to make an appearance this year and if that comes to  pass well I dread to think what next winter will be like.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Hull 1963 said:

That's a ridiculous statement. There is no way on this earth that anyone can predict a year from now what the weather will be like.  It takes most experts all their time usually to get it right beyond 5 days. .

Chances of signifigant cold for the UK is slim for each and every year.

Just because one winter had no significant snow fall doesn't mean the next will.

[markyo]

20 hours ago, stainesbloke said:

But you live in Sheffield, not Seville. Not really known for ‘trapping people indoors by summer heat’, or has the climate changed that much?! 

Much above 25c and i try not to go out, yes shopping etc but not enjoyment, 30c plus i never go out!.....at all!

[RabbitEars]

5 hours ago, mb018538 said:

We are fine for rain. It hosed it down in October, and December was around average. November quite dry, January exceptionally so....but nothing to cause any panic yet. The very wet October and almost average December means no real issues.

We just seem to get one or the other in modern times. It's either soaking wet or bone dry. What we'd expect in a more extreme and warming climate that we are seeing in the last 20-30 years,

 

It’s possible the UK will be fine so long as it rains in March or May, but if I was a water authority/utility I’d be keep my eye on the reservoir levels. In the Isle of Man we can’t “borrow” water from other utility company areas and neither can we reliably “ship” it in. We don’t have desalination (which to be frank would make sense being surrounded by the Irish Sea) so if we have drought we run the risk of water saving restrictions. I just hope our Government run utilities authority are keeping their eye on rainfall stats. 

[Mariescb]

1 hour ago, damianslaw said:

Very good compared to the usual mild Atlantic gunk we have in January but also very frustrating for cold snow lovers as a nudge further west and north would have meant a locked in cold spell with possible bursts of snow from the north. Alas not meant to be.. however I think we'll look back at Jan 2022 quite fondly in future Januaries when under relentless mild Atlantic wet air.

Indeed a spell of not too disruptive snow would be my first choice but this current spell of weather is a definite contender for next best thing. 

[North-Easterly Blast]

6 minutes ago, DCee said:

Chances of signifigant cold for the UK is slim for each and every year.

Just because one winter had no significant snow fall doesn't mean the next will.

Most of the snow that falls in the UK occurs at high levels with elevation; you usually need to be at an elevated level to see significant snow accumulations - snow at low levels has always been rare in the UK, and the UK as a whole is not well set up for snow as most of the country is at a low level and only small areas of the UK have elevation.  In the rare occasions when snow settles at low levels in the UK there will still always be more of it in areas with elevation.  

I think that what has happened so far this winter is that, apart from the five day exceptionally mild spell over the New Year, it mostly has not been all that mild the rest of the time.  The main disappointing part of this winter so far that I have found is that the pattern has on two or possibly three occasions got close to setting up a significant cold spell for the UK; the week before Christmas and now in mid January when the HP has never set up far enough north to bring a cold feed of air, even though some models hinted at that possibility a week or two ago. On top of this we actually did get a toppler in the first week of January that brought a short lived colder snap (though not seriously cold) and a bit of snow for some parts of the country but nothing major.  Another disappointment in my view of the current spell is that it has brought very little in the way of significant fog (the air has not had white fog for most of the country), and little if any in the way of really cold days.  In the past If a UK mid-latitude high (but not HLB) set up favourably it could bring widespread fog and be cold at the surface even if the upper air temperatures are not cold; this mid-January ML HP spell has just failed to bring any surface cold and been extremely disappointing as regards fog, and also has produced hardly any frost that persists through the day.

Certainly this winter so far, apart from for five or six days over the New Year period, has not felt especially mild; it is that the pattern has not come together to bring any significant cold to the UK, even though there has been a good amount of cold air not far from our shores.  For the most part of this winter so far, temperatures have been almost average all the time, and we are now just stuck in anticyclonic nothingness that is keeping temperatures mostly average and failing to bring any significant fog to most of us and little in the way of what I would call "cold" days, and cannot evolve into a more favourable HLB setup to get the UK cold.  

On looking at what the first half of winter 2021-22 has been like, the only one or two winters that I can think of as worse were 2013-14 and 2019-20 (the former more so) that were mostly just nothing but 7-10*C days and raining all the time.  This winter so far has been better than having a winter like those two recent ones, but that is about all.

[Mariescb]

1 hour ago, nobble said:

If the winter peters out without a decent snowy spell , surely next year

Last winter seemed a classic teaser affair, not this.

[Don]

1 hour ago, fromey said:

Just do what I’ve done, I gave up on winter when the temps hit 15c on New Year’s Eve, I’ve just read that La Niña is fading and they expect El Niño to make an appearance this year and if that comes to  pass well I dread to think what next winter will be like.

If it's a central based El Nino (Modiki) it could be good for a cold winter in western Europe i.e. 2009/10.  However, we will very likely be in a westerly QBO by then and as we've seen this winter, positive drivers seem to have been overridden somewhat!

Edited January 19, 2022 by Don

[Portsmouth Sun]

Daren't post this in the MAD thread, but snow in the Sahara is coming quite a common occurrence

 

In pictures: Snow falls in Algeria's Sahara Desert

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

---

The ice crystals leave stunning patterns in the sands of the Sahara, the world's largest hot desert.

 

[SqueakheartLW]

4 minutes ago, Don said:

If it's a central based El Nino (Modiki) it could be good for a cold winter in western Europe i.e. 2009/10.  However, we will very likely be in a westerly QBO by then and as we've seen this winter, positive drivers seem to have been overridden somewhat!

Not sure if we'll even get an El Nino at the moment. The La Nina is currently getting stronger again if you look at the 7 day trend charts, especially further east.

Also something else I have noticed. We seem to be heading back towards more of a negative IOD as well. The warming in the eastern Indian Ocean and cooling in the western Indian Ocean should be working in our favour and I would also expect a negative IOD to fight against a formation of an El Nino as they are usually associated with positive IOD's

This latest stratospheric chart however looks very grim, look to the top right hand side of each bit if you dare

That screams polar vortex of doom all over again to me, not what we want to see.

[weathercold]

You simply cannot dress these charts up, absolutely awful for cold and snow.

The writing has been on the wall for some weeks now. The latest models only reaffirm initial thoughts.

Jan has been a write off for some time, Feb looks equally bleak to me. I don’t see an SSW likely. The current high has eaten away the heart of winter. It’s just one of those years I’m afraid. Hopefully 2022/3 will be our winter.

[Don]

34 minutes ago, SqueakheartLW said:

Not sure if we'll even get an El Nino at the moment. The La Nina is currently getting stronger again if you look at the 7 day trend charts, especially further east.

Also something else I have noticed. We seem to be heading back towards more of a negative IOD as well. The warming in the eastern Indian Ocean and cooling in the western Indian Ocean should be working in our favour and I would also expect a negative IOD to fight against a formation of an El Nino as they are usually associated with positive IOD's

This latest stratospheric chart however looks very grim, look to the top right hand side of each bit if you dare

That screams polar vortex of doom all over again to me, not what we want to see.

Interesting.  However, as for this winter, it's getting to the stage where I'm no longer bothered.  I've pretty much written it off!

Edited January 19, 2022 by Don