Model discussion: Hunt for cold - into mid-January

[feb1991blizzard]

7 minutes ago, Nick F said:

January 1992, if anyone is old enough to remember, or just go through the chart archive on wetterzentrale. looked very similar for much of the month synoptically as we are at the moment and likely to stay over the next week or two - with mid-lat high pressure in control over/near the UK. I'm sure there are examples of other Januarys. In fact winter 1991/92 was mostly anticyclonic, with no snow for many, maybe a repeat this year? Albeit it was cyclonic at times in December just past and the start of this month. 

I'm thinking the repeating pattern we are seeing of HP domination is because the MJO is not really willing to move away from phase 7, keeps circling around for days and days since early mid-December. Plus lack of +AAM.

This is not really helping change the pattern for the N Atlantic sector, with the persistent deep cold / upper troughing over central/eastern N America and west coast ridge likely to persist  for much of the rest of the month and continue to force a standing wave of ridging downstream over the NE Atlantic/NW Europe. But the low heights stubborn to move over Greenland is preventing the ridge to build north enough to bring cold air down from the north.

No signs of a pattern change imminent, we'll have to wait and see if the trop PV can weaken and split over Greenland to allow high pressure to build at higher latitudes.

Jan 1992 spell was much colder though from memory, there were several days of persistent frost, even though it was cloudy in the day, we got an inch of snow or 2 in late feb from a lee Easterly from memory, i was in 4th year at school and remember checking forecasts religiously every day, hoping for a repeat of 12 months earlier but there was no such thing.

[North-Easterly Blast]

1 minute ago, Nick F said:

January 1992, if anyone is old enough to remember, or just go through the chart archive on wetterzentrale. looked very similar for much of the month synoptically as we are at the moment and likely to stay over the next week or two - with mid-lat high pressure in control over/near the UK. I'm sure there are examples of other Januarys. In fact winter 1991/92 was mostly anticyclonic, with no snow for many, maybe a repeat this year? Albeit it was cyclonic at times in December just past and the start of this month. 

I'm thinking the repeating pattern we are seeing of HP domination is because the MJO is not really willing moving away from phase 7, keeps circling around for days and days since early mid-December. Plus lack of +AAM.

This is not really helping change the pattern for the N Atlantic sector, with the persistent deep cold / upper troughing over central/eastern N America and west coast ridge likely to persist  for much of the rest of the month and continue to force a standing wave of ridging downstream over the NE Atlantic/NW Europe. But the low heights stubborn to move over Greenland is preventing the ridge to build north enough to bring cold air down from the north.

No signs of a pattern change imminent, we'll have to wait and see if the trop PV can weaken and split over Greenland to allow high pressure to build at higher latitudes.

Yes 1991-92 was a nightmare for for proper cold synoptics and snowfall.  It had HP sat over the UK all winter, though we did get a couple of inversion cold spells in the second week of December and in the last ten days of January, but absolutely no cold spells from proper cold synoptics all winter.  As far as snowfall went, I believe that some favoured areas in higher parts of central Britain had some short lived snow in mid February and that was that.  Another spell similar to what is being forecast now that I can recall at this time of year was around mid to late January 2000.  That month saw a long spell of HP sat over the UK that was never able to build to higher latitudes, and that winter apart from a few NW'ly polar maritime spells in the December didn't bring much and February was then very mild.  Another spell I can also recall similar to what we have in the models at present is in January 2011 - there was a long spell of HP in the second half of that month that brought a number of frosts but very little snow and then that just went away into a mild February.  Perhaps a more recent example of a whole winter like 1991-92 was 2016-17; I remember there was a lot of HP close to the UK for most of that winter that was never able to set up favourably from a cold synoptical perspective.  It just looks a non-starter to me does this winter - I think the warm September = poor winter theory has struck again and the theory is being put to the test and it appears to be a well known fact of the UK climate that there is virtually no chance of a cold winter after a warm September.  

[nick sussex]

The current outputs seem stuck in a repeating pattern of tease some colder air heading south then the pattern flattens out on the next runs and the cold air gets shunted eastwards .

At least it’s not stuck in a wet mild rut but frustrating for coldies to see the heart of winter passing by with little excitement .

[beefy201]

Just a thought but shouldn’t this thread be called the hunt for widespread snow … 3 nights of sun zero temperatures here in south midlands and day day temps barely above fridge temperatures… whilst I understand this isn’t the case nationwide wide but neither would a snow event be

[Ali1977]

Not far off I guess, but nothing helping to bring that west a little!! 

[Anthony Burden]

Evening all,sunny chilly day after a frost -2c day time temperature 6c in Oxford beats rain and wind,meanwhile 

UKMO showing Atlantic high pressure at 144 hrs setting up further northwest bringing colder 850 hpa 

and at 168 hrs looking very cold.Let see what ECM has to offer nothing mild on the table at present,

GFS struggling so leaving their prognosis alone at present.

[sebastiaan1973]

10 minutes ago, feb1991blizzard said:

Jan 1992 spell was much colder though from memory, there were several days of persistent frost, even though it was cloudy in the day, we got an inch of snow or 2 in late feb from a lee Easterly from memory, i was in 4th year at school and remember checking forecasts religiously every day, hoping for a repeat of 12 months earlier but there was no such thing.

Here too, in the Netherlands. Some skating was possible. Pressure record for January. 

Edited January 13, 2022 by sebastiaan1973

[feb1991blizzard]

1 minute ago, sebastiaan1973 said:

Here too, in the Netherlands. Some skating was possible. 

This spell was severely cold even though no snow, -8c in Midlands with temps around 0 or 1.

[Allseasons-Si]

JFPF(just for pure fun),..the control is at it again with it's outrageous synoptic pattern...

there are other members in there with it though so you never know,the gfs however is not following the script,...it's all over the place

[That ECM]

5 minutes ago, Allseasons-si said:

JFPF(just for pure fun),..the control is at it again with it's outrageous synoptic pattern...

there are other members in there with it though so you never know,the gfs however is not following the script,...it's all over the place

Here’s a few of the others. 

[TSNWK]

Oh dear..  GFS 384 ensemble members being wheeled as a fillers until / if we get some action.  

,

[Jeremy Shockey]

UKMO 12z @ t156

worth keeping an eye on i suppose. If the high could get a little bit further NW we might get a Northerly perhaps

[Ali1977]

It’s easy, the ECM at 240 follows my technical drawing and we end up looking like the Control at T384. Winter sorted

Edited January 13, 2022 by Ali1977

[Allseasons-Si]

1 minute ago, TSNWK said:

Oh dear..  GFS 384 ensemble members being wheeled as a fillers until / if we get some action.  

,

Why not?,...it is the model output discussion thread and whilst there is interest(all be it in fl),then i will post them,...it is trends that i am looking for and some of the gefs ens back the control up.

[mountain shadow]

Lol. Looked at the ECM t+0 and then the ECM t+240. 

It's like nothing has moved.

[Scott Ingham]

To put things in very simplistic terms:

Blocking is usually in 1 of 3 places for the Uk.

1) Over the Azores/ Southern Europe (Low latitude)

2) Over the Uk (Mid latitude)

3) Over Greenland/Iceland/Scandinavia (High latitude)

In winter in order to jump the levels from 1-3 (3 obviously being what we look for for cold and snow) the main drivers tend to be tropical and extra tropical convection and the state of the stratispheric conditions.

This winter has been dominated by blocking area 2. Why? The standing mjo wave in 7/8 has persistently stopped our uk high from sinking back to the azores. Why cant we get to level 3? AAM apart from early december has been stuck in the wrong phase so we just havnt had enough tropical forcing to drive our high northwards and when we have had a little bit of it the last player the stratosphere has been too strong.

Personally any weather model showing high lat blocking before at least the first week in february is emphatically wrong. 

My eyes will be on mountain torques and rises in AAM to coincide with seasonal weakening of the stratosphere.

For me this is the ONLY way to snow this winter unfortunately

[SqueakheartLW]

Don't know how all of you missed P26 from the GFS at +300 hours away

This is a stonker of a chart and look at those uppers from a northerly

Edited January 13, 2022 by SqueakheartLW

[Captain Shortwave]

The only real comment I can make is that the hemispheric pattern does not like one you would expect in the middle of winter....

Looks more akin to early Spring than midwinter, the problem is we have what is a rather compact and disorganised polar vortex pushed onto the Atlantic side of the pole (There have been well above average heights over the Pacific side for quite some time now and are forecast to persist throughout the forecast period). The weakness of the lower levels of the polar vortex are summed up by the fact that most places will see little, if any rainfall over the coming week or so.

We need to bide our time, but if the suppressed nature of the polar vortex continues, you get the feeling that as February arrives that you could get more of a northwards push on heights close to the UK, which in turn could lead to something more wintry. As for the now, it will be a case of monitoring cloud amounts circling around this high, if it remains fairly low then we could make up for what has been a very dull winter so far (Two sunny days on the bounce here). Not much else to report at the moment, temperatures generally near normal with frosty nights (Lower temperatures if fog persists). There will be the occasional weather front that will move south east through the UK, which should help to clear any low cloud/murk as we get occasional glances of cooler PM airmasses as the high moves west of the UK at times.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Captain Shortwave

[phil nw.]

Just now, mountain shadow said:

Lol. Looked at the ECM t+0 and then the ECM t+240. 

It's like nothing has moved.

Indeed ms it's like freeze frame wrt general pattern.

The gefs for Warks are hardly anything to get the blood racing either

High and dry with some night frosts and temperatures by day not far from normal.Nothing untoward based on those,almost until month end.Hopefully we get a bit of Winter sun to lighten the mood,like we have been lucky to have here over the last couple of days.

Signs that the cold to the east creeps a little closer at times next week when the high does edge a little west but really nothing dramatic is showing yet.

[ICE COLD]

Just had to pull myself back into the real world as I’ve being reading through the forum from the 2018 BFTE. What a ride that was it was epic model watching .  
 

Back to now and it’s all looking rather boring the output , dry at least with some frost about . What I’d do to re run that 2018 output again . 
 

ECM today -

Feb/mar 2018

If only we could have this again. 

[Mike Poole]

Well another day, another tranche of uninspiring model output.  Look, clearly there is nothing imminent, so here’s the ECM clusters T264+ charts:

The third cluster, all of 6 members looks fine, but the others have the UK under the same High it is now, in 15 days time.

I have tried to stay positive in looking for the possibilities, and they were there on the models, so I make no apology for that.  It’s not like the zero chance of cold brigade who fortell this and provide no model evidence at all (even though it is equally there on the models if they wanted to post the charts as evidence!).   Anyway I have now concluded that there aren’t any realistic chances, for the rest of this month, the high is now too well set.

I am beginning to wonder if this is the right hobby for me in winter.  As a (now occasional) gambler, it sets off the same highs and lows, but how long do you play a fruit machine that never pays out?  That seems to be the question now, last winter and this supposedly both had a fair few factors (teleconnections) in our favour and we still seem to have got diddly squat both years (noting this Feb still to come).  Noting also my location, I know some in the north have done better.

Regards

Mike

Edited January 13, 2022 by Mike Poole

[damianslaw]

Spot the difference in the position of the core of high pressure at present. It seems to want to spin around on itself hemmed in all sides and back to square one again. Synoptics more reminiscent of the quieter spring months or September rather than January.

Can't remember a 14 month period like the last one when we've had upwards of 2 weeks of dry settled weather on regular cycles.. unprecedented I think.. and makes for very trying times for weather enthusiasts. 

Might be a good time to come back in a week's time and see if changes are coming into the horizon. Core deep mid winter being eaten away by nothingness..

[Lukesluckybunch]

somes it up really that ECM op was a lot colder then the mean

[Uncertainty]

Only one or two reversals but it’s interesting that we finally, after at least a month, have a cluster of members who at least weaken the SPV well below average later in Feb. 
 

For the next two weeks, it’s a delightful pattern for me. I like any pattern other than long fetch south westerlies. Snow and thunder, my favourite weather types, are rare bonus in the U.K. and I always hunt for them but for me personally I’m delighted with anything that doesn’t potentially bring flooding to the lakes, and weeks of HP dominance, calm winds, viewing sunsets through broken clouds etc is an absolute delight. We wouldn’t be complaining if the seasonals had shown this pattern for January now would we?

But where are we headed after the high finally moves? The breakdown has been put back on the EC46. Here’s the week 3 forecast from today:

 

Last Thursdays forecast for the same period

 

Mild fans, don’t panic, it gets there in the end…

Week 5

Week 6 is even worse. 
 

With the mjo suggested to finally head back to the Indian Ocean, the above ++NAO is understandable (though the Nina composite charts for february in phases 2-4 are surprisingly blocked?)

Nina phase 3 Feb composite???

But all that’s a long way off. And as elucidated to above, it keeps putting the nasty long fetch SW winds back. 
 

But what the above and other output does suggest, is that it’s going to be tough to get snowy cold over the coming weeks, and a stormy/wet spell is still expected, even if it does keep getting delayed. I think we’ve done a really good job in here these last few weeks in not over hyping the odd silly run and almost all of the posts have been firmly grounded in realism and objectivity. Sniping has been minimal too.
 

So perhaps sadly we are looking at late feb / early March for our best shot at cold. I see no reason to adjust my dry —> wet —> v cold outlook for the rest of mid-late winter, more the need to push the timing back…

Just the slightest hint of vortex weakening today and we need to keep an eye on that. 
 

Until then, it might be a case of ‘better the devil you know’ with this high pressure. Should the back end of the EC46 and many forecasters expectations ‘come off’, then we’ll be begging for it to return!

 

[minus10]

2 hours ago, beefy201 said:

Just a thought but shouldn’t this thread be called the hunt for widespread snow … 3 nights of sun zero temperatures here in south midlands and day day temps barely above fridge temperatures… whilst I understand this isn’t the case nationwide wide but neither would a snow event be

Well thats incredible as here in hertfordshire so far the temp has barely been below zero for last 2 nights with no fog and very pleasant days of 9 degrees! Tonite 9pm temp is still 3 degrees, no frost, just dew. I think we are just going to have to get used to this for....some time..