Model discussion: Hunt for cold - into mid-January

[mountain shadow]

What's the record high pressure reading for the UK in January?

Anyone know?

[minus10]

Almost made that link...

[swfc]

3 minutes ago, minus10 said:

Almost made that link...

You think

[Nick F]

8 minutes ago, mountain shadow said:

What's the record high pressure reading for the UK in January?

Anyone know?

1053.6 mbar at Aberdeen in 1902.

It's like the Azores High has found a new home over UK / NW Europe this month!

[damianslaw]

12 minutes ago, Nick F said:

1053.6 mbar at Aberdeen in 1902.

It's like the Azores High has found a new home over UK / NW Europe this month!

Just hope come summer we aren't saying if only we had the synoptics of January! Wouldn't be surprised!

[damianslaw]

Was such a dry anticyclonic January envisaged by any long range forecasts? 

It takes until 384hrs before 18z GFS clears the high away.

ECM 0hrs central core of high pressure in the same place as in 10 days. 

Is the Atlantic asleep!

Edited January 17, 2022 by damianslaw

[damianslaw]

2 hours ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

So far this winter I can think of two occasions when the pattern has got half way there to delivering the UK a significant cold spell, but the pattern has just failed to come together.  The first good pattern for a cold spell we saw was in the week before Christmas, when there was a good HP block to the north of the UK, and it delivering a cold spell looked very possible, but it just did not come together and LP did not undercut the block and instead got in over the UK and then a week later became stationary to the west of the UK bringing the record warm new year.  A week after that we got a brief northerly (a toppler) that gave a colder few days and a bit of snow for a few but nothing major.  Then for the second time this winter at this very moment we are having the second opportunity that looked possible for a significant cold spell to develop, but the HP has just not built far enough north and west of the UK and the pattern has again just not come together to bring a proper cold spell to the UK.  Clearly this winter we have had two failed attempts of a cold spell in the UK.  This winter so far is just like a case of there been a fair amount of cold air to the north and east of the UK, but the pattern just not quite coming together to allow the cold nearby to succeed in becoming established over the UK or even paying us a visit.  Just everything has gone wrong so far this winter on two attempts in the weather pattern to get cold into the UK.

Winter 1991-92 had some inversion cold at times from a Rex block but saw next to nothing in the way of proper cold synoptics and deep cold air.  This HP spell and the spell just before Christmas so far hasn't or didn't even bring much in the way of inversion cold.  Are you sure damianslaw that you do not mean 2000-01 and not 2001-02?  2000-01 as a whole featured a fair amount of cold outbreaks especially for the north but less so for the south and was average rather than mild overall.  2001-02 saw a fairly cold (but nothing exciting) December mainly under HP over the UK but did have a couple of northerly spells late in the month and a cold HP lasted until early January but then went downhill significantly and the rest of that winter was very mild, especially second half of Jan and most of Feb 2002. 

This January does bear some similarities in my view to Jan 2017, which also had long spells of HP close to the UK in a pattern that never came together from a significant cold perspective.  You are right about 2005-06; that winter had a fair amount of cold air to the east of the UK and was very blocked, but the blocking never set up favourably to bring significant cold to the UK, and it was really a failed opportunity of a cold winter.

Yes meant winter 00-01. More the January and February that brought a fair amount of quiet settled conditions courtesy of high pressure, much less Atlantic influence.

Storm Arwen feels an oddity event.. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by damianslaw

[Cheshire Freeze]

11 hours ago, feb1991blizzard said:

 @CreweCold has called this winter spectacularly right.

Cheers mate...though I was hoping I'd be spectacularly wrong!

Edited January 17, 2022 by CreweCold

[feb1991blizzard]

5 minutes ago, CreweCold said:

Cheers mate...though I was hoping I'd be spectacularly wrong!

Yes i was hoping my SSW prediction would come right, still time but need to see a W2 pressure put on vortex right now or game over. w1* wont do it, only way is tropical forcing by way of AAM and +mountain torque.

*alone

Edited January 18, 2022 by feb1991blizzard

[Don]

1 hour ago, damianslaw said:

Just hope come summer we aren't saying if only we had the synoptics of January! Wouldn't be surprised!

Or ‘If only it was January!’  Who knows these days?!

[Sever siberian icy blast 2]

One word to describe the oz Gfs,,, borefest, the most interesting thing about it is the cold air glazing Eastern England for 24 hours later this wk. 

Oh and I suppose low pressure in southern Europe but nothing exciting at all

[Mark Smithy]

Clear signs on the GFS 0z operational run of the Atlantic re-awakening, as early as this time next week. Basically the high is shunted reluctantly south-westwards of the UK as the conveyor belt returns.

 

[carinthian]

Morning. GEM run pick of the models this morning. Some cold or even very cold surface and uppers in place by the middle of next week. Maybe first snow grains into the SE ? 

GFS  has the high slipping south with warmer uppers over the top. ECM some what in between but keeps the SE in cold air with an outside chance of snow grains. Maybe European cold rather than looking for northerly air mass maybe the best bet at the moment for retaining some winter charts ?

C

Edited January 18, 2022 by carinthian

[mountain shadow]

8 hours ago, Nick F said:

1053.6 mbar at Aberdeen in 1902.

It's like the Azores High has found a new home over UK / NW Europe this month!

Thanks Nick.

Unlikely we'll beat that over the next couple of weeks, but we might get close to 1050mb.

That's about the only excitement there is.

[KTtom]

Gfs op very much on the warm side of the ensembles throughout the run with the sinking of the high. Overall, no real support for the Atlantic to return in January... plenty of snow opportunities tho....if you live near Athens!

 

 

[Mark Smithy]

5 minutes ago, KTtom said:

Gfs op very much on the warm side of the ensembles throughout the run with the sinking of the high. Overall, no real support for the Atlantic to return in January... plenty of snow opportunities tho....if you live near Athens!

 

 

 

True although you'd be a brave person to bet against it. The GFS is often very good at picking up signals like this.

The ECM did also have something similar a couple of days ago which it then backed away from. When the GFS spots the Atlantic coming back to life it's often right.

[northwestsnow]

Hats of to Glosea 5 , it nailed the +NAO signal months ago.

[IDO]

The mean def indicative of the UK high sinking from D8 onwards and low pressure spreading from the north:

Some members like the control go Atlantic from D8 bringing in a strong zonal flow by D13. The ECM op ties in with HP until at least D10. The GEM op is an outlier, the mean follows the GEFS mean right out to D16, so HP still over most of us at D10.

GEM D10>  ECM D10>

So possibly a change after D10 to more unsettled, slightly below average, but nothing snowy likely with no forcing showing in the models.

 

[sukayuonsensnow]

8 hours ago, damianslaw said:

Was such a dry anticyclonic January envisaged by any long range forecasts? 

It takes until 384hrs before 18z GFS clears the high away.

ECM 0hrs central core of high pressure in the same place as in 10 days. 

Is the Atlantic asleep!

Netweather seasonal forecast did indicate a blocked pattern would become established for most of January and early February.

Long Range Weather Forecast - Winter 2021/22 | Netweather.tv

WWW.NETWEATHER.TV

Not any mention of anything particularly snowy however. But greater chances of something colder late January/early-mid February.

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/forecast/uk-seasonal-weather-forecast

TWO also goes for a blocked period mid-late January but a transition for all to mild and unsettled by the end of January for a time, before setting up a more substantial cold spell in February after a mild and wet start.

I think both of these have overestimated expected rainfall across the country for January however, unless there is an Atlantic breakthrough at the very end of January after all. Having no SSW may or may not throw a spanner in the works. TWO especially going for an above average rainfall January is probably going to be wrong in that sense. Even in TWO's January forecast they stick with above average rainfall: https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/forecast/30-day-uk-weather-forecast

Update: Netweather's monthly update isn't keen on anything in terms of substantial snowfall for the foreseeable: https://www.netweather.tv/weather-forecasts/uk/long-range/monthly

But likely staying dry for much of the south and some eastern areas. Not too optimistic as far as the remainder of Winter is concerned.

 

 

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by sukayuonsensnow
Netweather monthly forecast recently published

[carinthian]

1 hour ago, carinthian said:

Morning. GEM run pick of the models this morning. Some cold or even very cold surface and uppers in place by the middle of next week. Maybe first snow grains into the SE ? 

GFS  has the high slipping south with warmer uppers over the top. ECM some what in between but keeps the SE in cold air with an outside chance of snow grains. Maybe European cold rather than looking for northerly air mass maybe the best bet at the moment for retaining some winter charts ?

C

Winter overview chart of the morning from the Canadian Operational Model offers Continental cold !

C

[Anthony Burden]

Morning all,Not much change regarding high pressure domination in reliable time frame,main difference being a

drop in daytime temperatures from Wednesday.GEM looking ambitious with northern blocking while ECM 

possibly showing more of a continental feed,going to be very interesting to see if this stubborn Azores high

will finally head north or sink back into it’s normal position.

[sukayuonsensnow]

29 minutes ago, carinthian said:

Winter overview chart of the morning from the Canadian Operational Model offers Continental cold !

C

Reading between the lines I'm going to hypothesise that the greatest chance of a cold spell with snow risk in the UK in the next month or so will probably be the further southeast you go, with Kent being the most likely part of the UK.

(I could be wrong)

[carinthian]

25 minutes ago, sukayuonsensnow said:

Reading between the lines I'm going to hypothesise that the greatest chance of a cold spell with snow risk in the UK in the next month or so will probably be the further southeast you go, with Kent being the most likely part of the UK.

(I could be wrong)

According to GFS long term snow probabilty chart out to early Feb, Kent has a very low snow risk. It could of course be wrong !

C

[sheikhy]

And so winter slowly ebbs away my peeps!just got one of those reminders on my phone from 18th jan 2013!someone take me back to january 18th 2013!!!what a wonderful classic of a snowfall that was for parts of wales and the midlands!!ended up close to 20cms here!!!was meant to stall across the west mids but ended up much further north and east which made it all the more sweeter!!miss those times man!!!

[I remember Atlantic 252]

Just now, sheikhy said:

And so winter slowly ebbs away my peeps!just got one of those reminders on my phone from 18th jan 2013!someone take me back to january 18th 2013!!!what a wonderful classic of a snowfall that was for parts of wales and the midlands!!ended up close to 20cms here!!!was meant to stall across the west mids but ended up much further north and east which made it all the more sweeter!!miss those times man!!!

great day yes! coming up to year since 24th Jan snow, 3 similar events, also 10th Dec '17