January 2022 C.E.T. and EWP forecast contests

[North-Easterly Blast]

7 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

I'm surprised some intervening Aprils, such as 2012 especially, didn't come close to 1989. Certainly 2012 seemed to be completely devoid of warm weather after the first two days, and had a number of clear nights throughout the month which would have dragged min temps down, in addition to the cold days. By contrast I don't remember 1989 being that spectacularly cold (cold sure, but not colder than 2012) after the first week, but could well be wrong.

Last year we finally cracked something that was long overdue - a significantly cold April CET.  Between 1990 and 2020 the April CET was never lower than 7.2c (which was 2012), and in fact between 1990 and 2011 the April CET was never lower than 7.7c.

[North-Easterly Blast]

Back to the point the final January 2022 CET was 4.58*C, or 4.6 rounded up.  It was average by recent standards (1991-2020), and a little above 1981-2010 averages, but back to the 1961-90 and 1951-80 averages it would have been a mild month, which puts into perspective how the January weather in the UK has changed so much in the last 30 odd years.

January 2022 was also a month where its CET does not tell you a great deal about the weather pattern and types of weather that the UK experienced during the month.  After a very mild first three days, temperatures were basically just average all the time for the rest of the month with no significant cold spells, and bar a short northerly snap from about the 4th to 7th, the rest of the month was more or less high pressure slap bang over the UK, and the pattern simply never got itself together from the perspective of a proper cold spell or even a cold snap, as the UK High never moved to a favourable position for that.  The weather also never really lived up to what its, in a sense "wintry potential" would have been in such a synoptic setup many years ago, in terms of widespread fog or really cold days through an "inverted cold".  During the month there was hardly any snow for most places except for the favoured areas that saw short lived falls in the brief northerly episode in the first week.  I do believe that 30-40 years ago and longer ago than that, January 2022s synoptics would have delivered widespread fog that lasted for many days and never cleared, and would have given the atmosphere a very white look and it would have felt very wintry, but hardly any fog in last month's anticyclonic spell was very disappointing from a wintry perspective.

All in all, in my opinion, January 2022 was definitely a very disappointing month from a weather enthusiasts perspective, and model watching perspective, and about all in all as poor as the Januarys of 2007, 2008 and 2020 even though January 2022s overall CET was quite a bit colder than those three very mild ones.  It puts into perspective of how a winter month with a similar CET may include a week's cold spell with also a mild period and a bit of an average period, and some winter months with higher overall CETs than last month have actually seen more in the way of proper cold synoptics and more cold days and more snow than January 2022 did.

[Summer8906]

19 hours ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

Back to the point the final January 2022 CET was 4.58*C, or 4.6 rounded up.  It was average by recent standards (1991-2020), and a little above 1981-2010 averages, but back to the 1961-90 and 1951-80 averages it would have been a mild month, which puts into perspective how the January weather in the UK has changed so much in the last 30 odd years.

January 2022 was also a month where its CET does not tell you a great deal about the weather pattern and types of weather that the UK experienced during the month.  After a very mild first three days, temperatures were basically just average all the time for the rest of the month with no significant cold spells, and bar a short northerly snap from about the 4th to 7th, the rest of the month was more or less high pressure slap bang over the UK, and the pattern simply never got itself together from the perspective of a proper cold spell or even a cold snap, as the UK High never moved to a favourable position for that.  The weather also never really lived up to what its, in a sense "wintry potential" would have been in such a synoptic setup many years ago, in terms of widespread fog or really cold days through an "inverted cold".  During the month there was hardly any snow for most places except for the favoured areas that saw short lived falls in the brief northerly episode in the first week.  I do believe that 30-40 years ago and longer ago than that, January 2022s synoptics would have delivered widespread fog that lasted for many days and never cleared, and would have given the atmosphere a very white look and it would have felt very wintry, but hardly any fog in last month's anticyclonic spell was very disappointing from a wintry perspective.

It would be interesting to compare the synoptics of Jan 2022 with Dec 1991. That was a month of persistent anticyclonic conditions, and I remember fog but particularly some really thick frost at times, including hoar frost on the trees, which often persisted through the day. The end of Dec 1992, from around the solstice, was very similar. By contrast I don't remember any of those 'thick white hoar frost on trees' or 'all day frost' days in this past month. If we had, I think I'd have been more unambiguously happy with the month, though I was grateful for the dryness and somewhat-frequent sunny days.

So one might ask: were the airmasses of Jan 2022 fundamentally warmer than those of Dec 1991 or the end of Dec 1992, or is it that the background temperature has risen during that time? From my memory it does appear that the first half of the 90s was the 'last hurrah' for old-fashioned intensely frosty anticyclones.

[Summer8906]

19 hours ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

All in all, in my opinion, January 2022 was definitely a very disappointing month from a weather enthusiasts perspective, and model watching perspective, and about all in all as poor as the Januarys of 2007, 2008 and 2020 even though January 2022s overall CET was quite a bit colder than those three very mild ones.  It puts into perspective of how a winter month with a similar CET may include a week's cold spell with also a mild period and a bit of an average period, and some winter months with higher overall CETs than last month have actually seen more in the way of proper cold synoptics and more cold days and more snow than January 2022 did.

I often find it interesting to 'invert' a month and imagine the exact opposite of what actually happened. An 'inverted' Jan 2022 would overall have been somewhat below the older (e.g. 1961-90) CET means, but would also have been rather cloudy and extremely wet. You can imagine a historic snowfall and low temps on the first 3 days followed by a gradual transition to a close-to-average, dull cyclonic type with almost daily heavy frontal rain, daytime temps slightly below average and night-time temps above, with little variation between day and night. Perhaps something akin to Feb 2010.

Though the historic snowfall would have been interesting, I think I prefer what we got to its inverse, which suggests Jan 2022 was basically OK.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Summer8906

[Don]

On 06/02/2022 at 20:12, North-Easterly Blast said:

All in all, in my opinion, January 2022 was definitely a very disappointing month from a weather enthusiasts perspective, and model watching perspective, and about all in all as poor as the Januarys of 2007, 2008 and 2020 even though January 2022s overall CET was quite a bit colder than those three very mild ones.  It puts into perspective of how a winter month with a similar CET may include a week's cold spell with also a mild period and a bit of an average period, and some winter months with higher overall CETs than last month have actually seen more in the way of proper cold synoptics and more cold days and more snow than January 2022 did.

2007 did feature a short lived snowfall in the south after mid-month, although I think it might have been pretty localised?

[MP-R]

4 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

 

So one might ask: were the airmasses of Jan 2022 fundamentally warmer than those of Dec 1991 or the end of Dec 1992, or is it that the background temperature has risen during that time? From my memory it does appear that the first half of the 90s was the 'last hurrah' for old-fashioned intensely frosty anticyclones.

They seem to have become less common but there were such occasions locally in early Feb 2006, Dec 2007, Jan 2009, Jan 2011 and late Nov - early Dec 2016. 

Although I don’t begrudge the sunny conditions in January, it would’ve been nice if the anticyclones were colder... good for the lower CET too.

[North-Easterly Blast]

5 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

It would be interesting to compare the synoptics of Jan 2022 with Dec 1991. That was a month of persistent anticyclonic conditions, and I remember fog but particularly some really thick frost at times, including hoar frost on the trees, which often persisted through the day. The end of Dec 1992, from around the solstice, was very similar. By contrast I don't remember any of those 'thick white hoar frost on trees' or 'all day frost' days in this past month. If we had, I think I'd have been more unambiguously happy with the month, though I was grateful for the dryness and somewhat-frequent sunny days.

So one might ask: were the airmasses of Jan 2022 fundamentally warmer than those of Dec 1991 or the end of Dec 1992, or is it that the background temperature has risen during that time? From my memory it does appear that the first half of the 90s was the 'last hurrah' for old-fashioned intensely frosty anticyclones.

 

December 1991 did see a spell of "inverted cold" under a mid-latitude Rex block, with frost and cold conditions through the days and frequent fog from around the 7th to 15th, although the rest of that month was generally of the mild, dry and anticyclonic type, so anticyclonic conditions in Dec 1991 were not all of the cold type!  The last third of January 1992 also saw a very similar surface cold Rex block type with frosty days and frequent fog.  December 1992, after a relatively mild but unsettled first half, also saw a very similar spell for a fortnight from around the 20th which lasted until about 3rd January 1993, which again, under a mid-latitude Rex block, gave cold conditions at the surface with frost often persisting through the days and frequent fog, and in fact the relatively cold overall CET of 3.6 for December 1992 was largely due to a mid-latitude Rex block giving surface cold in the second half of that month and never deep cold Arctic air.

The lack of fog on any widespread scale that persisted through the days was a very disappointing fact of the anticyclonic synoptics of last month (Jan 2022), and really showed how the weather that such winter synoptic patterns deliver in the UK has become far less wintry in recent times.  From what I can think of from memory, the last hurrah for widespread foggy type winter anticyclonic spells was just after mid December 2006, from about the 19th to 23rd of that month, and although not especially great in terms of widespread fog, mid December 2007 had an inverted cold type anticyclonic spell, as did late December 2008 that lasted into early January 2009, and I recall a mainly surface cold type anticyclonic spell in the first half of February 2012.

Edited February 7, 2022 by North-Easterly Blast

[Weather-history]

On 03/02/2022 at 16:35, Weather-history said:

I think after the exceptionally mild spell ended on the 3rd, the rest of the month had a CET average of 4.0C

 

 

January 2022 CET: 4.6C     4th-31st January CET: 4.0C

January 1962 CET: 4.3C     4th-31st January CET: 5.2C

Shows how a short period of extremeness in the temperatures can make an impact on the overall CET.

In reality, for the large part of January 2022 was cooler than January 1962 even though it has a higher CET than January 1962.

 

 

 

[Midlands Ice Age]

10 minutes ago, Weather-history said:

January 2022 CET: 4.6C     4th-31st January CET: 4.0C

January 1962 CET: 4.3C     4th-31st January CET: 5.2C

Shows how a short period of extremeness in the temperatures can make an impact on the overall CET.

In reality, for the large part of January 2022 was cooler than January 1962 even though it has a higher CET than January 1962.

 

 

 

Thanks WH..

Be interesting to see the min temps (particularly for Pershore).I suspect that we had more than 15 days with a frost in the Midlands to help bring the CET down so much.

MIA

 

[North-Easterly Blast]

17 minutes ago, Weather-history said:

January 2022 CET: 4.6C     4th-31st January CET: 4.0C

January 1962 CET: 4.3C     4th-31st January CET: 5.2C

Shows how a short period of extremeness in the temperatures can make an impact on the overall CET.

In reality, for the large part of January 2022 was cooler than January 1962 even though it has a higher CET than January 1962.

 

 

 

From the archived charts, after the 4th, January 1962 to me really looks quite a zonal Atlantic driven month and often of the mild zonal variety rather than the polar maritime variety, though it did get colder near the end under a ridge of high pressure.

January 2022 after the exceptionally mild first three days, was basically near average all the rest of the month and never that mild, even though there was never a significantly cold period during the month, as the northerly toppler after the 4th did not come to much, and the high pressure spell that followed just kept conditions benignly average with little in the way of "inverted cold" days and little in the way of significant fog.  All this puts into perspective what a very uninteresting and uninspiring month January 2022 was from a weather enthusiast's perspective.

[Summer8906]

17 hours ago, Don said:

2007 did feature a short lived snowfall in the south after mid-month, although I think it might have been pretty localised?

I do remember the end of January 2007, perhaps the last 7 days, was colder (and drier) so it's conceivable this happened. In fact 2005, 2006 and 2007 all followed a similar pattern of mild turning colder later in the month, but the 'cold' spell of 2007 was the most feeble (and the mild of 2006 the most feeble, so that Jan 2006 was about average in contrast to the very mild 2007).

Edited February 8, 2022 by Summer8906

[Kasim Awan]

On 03/02/2022 at 21:00, J10 said:

Excel -> January 22 CET.xlsx

PDF -> Jan 2022 Summary.pdf

Monthly

Just the one correct entry this month, Kasim Awan.

Three others 0.1c out, DR(S)NO, Daniel*, NeilN.

In total 16 within 0.5c.

Seasonal

The top 5 is all new and is Freeze, DR(S)NO,  Stationary Front, seaside 60 and virtualsphere.

Overall

The same top 5 as per the Seasonal competition, the main difference is Kasim Awan is in 7th.

A nice estimate that was then. I based that (lucky) estimate on a likely blend of zonal mild & stagnant high pressure cold. A sub 4C C.E.T. month generally requires a prolonged cold spell of some sort, and a >5C C.E.T. month a lack of cold nights. Neither looked likely given the zonal & high pressure signal which cancelled out the sub 4C & >5C risk respectively.