Model discussion - hunt for cold - Christmas countdown

[blizzard81]

2 minutes ago, Staffmoorlands said:

Unfortunately, we rarely get any sun at this time of year to really enjoy the mild weather.

I’m still expecting a return to colder conditions as we head in to January

 

Will be interesting to see if Exeter change their wording today going into the new year. The charts bear no resemblance to their forecast. Quite the opposite in fact. 

[Gowon]

Just now, blizzard81 said:

Absolutely. Where is people's stamina and tenacity these days

Probably because they've been mislead too many times?

Looks like Lassie will only have one day in his flip flops.

[Ali1977]

YES, T324 and we have a snow shower we can track - over to the 12zs to see if it’s still there ️
 

[snowbob]

11 minutes ago, D.V.R said:

Get ready for the next chase everyone

Deffo mate that’s why we are in here isn’t it lol

if we didn’t love the chase we would just watch the weather forecast on tv.

a lot less stressful though I bet

Edited December 23, 2021 by snowbob

[blizzard81]

I will always hold my hands up when I call it wrong - Last night I posted that the ecm would have scrambled egg on its face this morning. Instead I have it on my face  

[cj114]

14 minutes ago, Katrine Basso said:

This is the first I have posted here and my view of the weather models using computer runs is that being an island where the weather can change very quickly from one day to the other as well as the geographical differences in the weather from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England along with the influence of the weather from the continent and from the Atlantic jet-stream. Our weather is harder to predict than the continent countries. It is so many things to consider in forecasting our weather, compared to the continent. The only we can get consistently cold weather is for Ireland and the British Isles to move close to Iceland. I do not think the computer runs can cope with so many variables effecting our weather, that they either over estimate mild winter weather or over estimate it.

I had to do a short course on our Weather in the 70s, whilst plotting Flying routes for small Aircraft. I was told by a kindly chap at the Met Office that our Weather was very hard to predict due to our position. 

Thank you for pointing this out, I had almost forgotten.

[lassie23]

1 minute ago, blizzard81 said:

I will always hold my hands up when I call it wrong - Last night I posted that the ecm would have scrambled egg on its face this morning. Instead I have it on my face  

Make some toast and treat yourself to a scrambled egg breakfast.

 

3 minutes ago, D.V.R said:

Probably because they've been mislead too many times?

Looks like Lassie will only have one day in his flip flops.

It does look like a flip flop Christmas and new year for the south. Is the polar vortex still in tatters like our dreams of a white Christmas

[Catacol]

2 minutes ago, blizzard81 said:

Will be interesting to see if Exeter change their wording today going into the new year. The charts bear no resemblance to their forecast. Quite the opposite in fact. 

I think today they will change. I doubt they react to single runs, but the model data they keep hidden must now be seeing the azores build as consistently likely. It does seem uncanny that the Dec 2012 fail was preceded by solar flares. And again....we have solar flares.

It's extraordinary really - if you took the GFS for tomorrow and told a weather guru without NWP access that within 5 days England would be basking in tropical south westerlies, I think you would get a sideways look....

[bluearmy]

1 hour ago, shawty1984 said:

I'll never understand this. Christmas day is on Saturday and we've only just found out what's happening on Wednesday/Thursday. Why do people even then look at something 3 weeks away. 

Because we can ………. And we don’t look for detail at two weeks - just trends in the macro pattern 

43 minutes ago, jamesgold said:

Well, I guess it’s look to the stratosphere time. That was a really good shot at blocking with strong signals, but you’d have no idea looking at the charts. Surprising to see with all the drivers in our favour. I have a bit of an all or nothing feeling about this winter, when will we get these drivers again in such a combination? Anyway winter in the UK pretty much begins in January so let’s see…

With the current disconnect between the spv and tpv ref strength, I’m not sure that’s going to be too much help. The trop continues to lead the dance - ie . trop waves are heading up into the strat but the spv strength is not working down into the trop (at the moment).  Because the strat is a lot more straightforward to model, when it leads the trop it’s an easier outlook. Because we have the trop currently in charge, that means it’s tough to get a decent strat forecast for two weeks out. 

[Gowon]

1 minute ago, lassie23 said:

Make some toast and treat yourself to a scrambled egg breakfast.

 

It does look like a flip flop Christmas and new year for the south. Is the polar vortex still in tatters like our dreams of a white Christmas

That don't mean Jack for this little island.. You could weaken the jet and we'd probably still end up with mild SW's 

[fellmike]

13 minutes ago, snowbob said:

Deffo mate that’s why we are in here isn’t it lol

if we didn’t love the chase we would just watch the weather forecast on tv.

a lot less stressful though I bet

Prefer Tipping point

 

[Eagle Eye]

I would suggest trusting the ECM it doesn't make too many wild calls and it's definitely the more conservative of models. It's trend was much closer to what all the models are showing now and even though I myself distrusted it initially and went with it's more wild occasional outlooks rather than it's down to earth very good ones, I think we all knew that it was more trustful than the GFS flip flopping more than the amount of times @lassie23will put flip flops on in the next couple weeks. I did say a couple days ago that the ECM has been performing best recently so I think I'll be looking at its outputs for the next couple of weeks ahead of the GFS, unless the GFS shows a full blown easterly that is 

[MKN]

5 minutes ago, Eagle Eye said:

I would suggest trusting the ECM it doesn't make too many wild calls and it's definitely the more conservative of models. It's trend was much closer to what all the models are showing now and even though I myself distrusted it initially and went with it's more wild occasional outlooks rather than it's down to earth very good ones, I think we all knew that it was more trustful than the GFS flip flopping more than the amount of times @lassie23will put flip flops on in the next couple weeks. I did say a couple days ago that the ECM has been performing best recently so I think I'll be looking at its outputs for the next couple of weeks ahead of the GFS, unless the GFS shows a full blown easterly that is 

ECM nearly always fairs best when the winds are expected or a possibility from the east. The icon which was getting alot of flack didnt perform badly and never got on board with the cold idea either. Think its time everyone had a break and comes back after christmas hopefully to see the azores high pushing into Scandinavia and giving us an easterly in the new year

Edited December 23, 2021 by MKN

[Blessed Weather]

1 hour ago, blizzard81 said:

Yep, I'm convinced that increased solar activity has played its part in this dramatic turnaround. Multiple CME's being ejected from the sun these last couple of days towards earth. Perfect timing, as ever. 

 

1 hour ago, mountain shadow said:

There is little evidence for this. Some of our best winters have come during periods of very high solar activity, so there is no direct correlation. 

 

29 minutes ago, Downburst said:

I'm curious if this "Solar Activity" or sun spots only impacts the UK? not sure if I am following this as I haven't seen any scientific articles confirming this.  

A fascinating topic about which I suspect we have much to learn. Whilst there may be more up-to-date scientific reports around, this 2011 paper Solar forcing of winter climate variability in the Northern Hemisphere (authors including Adam A. Scaife the head of Met Office long range forecasting) shows there is a measurable impact from solar levels on the weather in the northern hemisphere. The study focused on the impact of low solar activity, but it must be assumed the opposite impact for high solar? Some extracts:

The influence of solar irradiance variations on Earth’s surface climate has been repeatedly suggested from correlations between solar variability and
meteorological variables which show weaker westerly winds in the winter when the sun is less active....
We use the SIM observations of solar variability to estimate the change in UV between the maximum and minimum of the 11-year solar cycle and impose this forcing on an ocean-troposphere-stratosphere-mesosphere climate model. Our simulations are for 80 years of solar minimum and 80 years of solar maximum conditions.......
........In winter (December to February) the simulated and observed response at solar minimum shows substantial changes over the whole northern hemisphere. Model sea-level pressure increases at high northern latitudes and decreases at mid-latitudes in both the Pacific and Atlantic basins corresponding to a negative Arctic Oscillation or North Atlantic Oscillation-like pattern.

Full PDF can be downloaded at this link: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/76996214.pdf

[O'Maille80]

10 minutes ago, fellmike said:

Prefer Tipping point

 

The Chase  usually turns out to be Pointless in the end.

[The Eagle]

It is a bit of a depressing medium term outlook at the moment. I'm hoping we can break this set up in early January and that we don't get stuck in this cycle of southwesterlies and failed breakdowns for a month or more. It can be really, really frustrating once the more typical zonal pattern beds in.

Can only hope

Edited December 23, 2021 by The Eagle

[Methuselah]

11 minutes ago, Blessed Weather said:

 

 

A fascinating topic about which I suspect we have much to learn. Whilst there may be more up-to-date scientific reports around, this 2011 paper Solar forcing of winter climate variability in the Northern Hemisphere (authors including Adam A. Scaife the head of Met Office long range forecasting) shows there is a measurable impact from solar levels on the weather in the northern hemisphere. The study focused on the impact of low solar activity, but it must be assumed the opposite impact for high solar? Some extracts:

The influence of solar irradiance variations on Earth’s surface climate has been repeatedly suggested from correlations between solar variability and
meteorological variables which show weaker westerly winds in the winter when the sun is less active....
We use the SIM observations of solar variability to estimate the change in UV between the maximum and minimum of the 11-year solar cycle and impose this forcing on an ocean-troposphere-stratosphere-mesosphere climate model. Our simulations are for 80 years of solar minimum and 80 years of solar maximum conditions.......
........In winter (December to February) the simulated and observed response at solar minimum shows substantial changes over the whole northern hemisphere. Model sea-level pressure increases at high northern latitudes and decreases at mid-latitudes in both the Pacific and Atlantic basins corresponding to a negative Arctic Oscillation or North Atlantic Oscillation-like pattern.

Full PDF can be downloaded at this link: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/76996214.pdf

Thanks, Malcolm, it is indeed a fascinating theory, and one I have no problem in accepting. But what I do find annoying is that some folks reflexively quote it whenever a projected cold spell fails to materialise, or a run of favourable model-runs goes pear-shaped. Good grief, there can't be that many coronal mass ejections!

 

[Eagle Eye]

1 minute ago, Ed Stone said:

Thanks, Malcolm, it is indeed a fascinating theory, and one I have no problem in accepting. But what I do find annoying is that some folks reflexively quote it whenever a projected cold spell fails to materialise, or a run of favourable model-runs goes pear-shaped. Good grief, there can't be that many coronal mass ejections!

 

Good point there, our sun isn't young enough to have that many mass ejections, I don't think we can have 1 every week 

[MattStoke]

52 minutes ago, Ali1977 said:

YES, T324 and we have a snow shower we can track - over to the 12zs to see if it’s still there ️
 

 

[knocker]

42 minutes ago, bluearmy said:

Because we can ………. And we don’t look for detail at two weeks - just trends in the macro pattern 

 

It's the way you tell 'em ba

[mountsbaysnow]

28 minutes ago, O'Maille80 said:

The Chase  usually turns out to be Pointless in the end.

The charts are as useful as "Give Us A Clue"

[Had Worse]

Just now, mountsbaysnow said:

The charts are as useful as "Give Us A Clue"

Out to +324 on GFS, we are looking for the 'Weakest link' as a trend.

[mountsbaysnow]

3 minutes ago, Had Worse said:

Out to +324 on GFS, we are looking for the 'Weakest link' as a trend.

Lets play "Blockbusters"

[blizzard81]

52 minutes ago, Catacol said:

I think today they will change. I doubt they react to single runs, but the model data they keep hidden must now be seeing the azores build as consistently likely. It does seem uncanny that the Dec 2012 fail was preceded by solar flares. And again....we have solar flares.

It's extraordinary really - if you took the GFS for tomorrow and told a weather guru without NWP access that within 5 days England would be basking in tropical south westerlies, I think you would get a sideways look....

Indeed. The Dec 2012 climbdown was last minute as well. Just like this fiasco this week. I don't believe in coincidences. Ed Stone, I only mention the issue of solar activity on the rare ocassion there is a last minute flip from cold to mild that coincides with a big uptick in solar flares. I truly believe in the connection. Its too much of a coincidence imo. 

[Methuselah]

Whatever, the result is always the same: Blankety Blank?