Model Output Discussion - Early Summer and Beyond

[Daniel*]

4 hours ago, kold weather said:

Not too concerned yet by some of the less impressive models. The key is we still have High pressure upper cores not too far away and nothing to stop that from sinking back southwards as time goes along, as we so often see anyways.

If we do get some northern blocking I'd rather it from the N/NW than what the GFS is trying to do, as at least we'd be reasonably sunny if just on the cool side (plus showers always possible) whilst that GFS 06z extended FI screams cloudy and dull, at least for the SE half of the UK, maybe better further NW/W.

Well last summer was central London’s wettest summer in over 30 years, the August was also dullest August on record at Heathrow and it was driest month the first summer month on record <100 sun hours, records started in 1957. I had 300mm here in Docklands never seen anything like it, with high pressure anchored close to west/northwest, it is simply not good enough. It was good enough for west Scotland apparently the best summer they ever had, in this country though I don’t like westward deviation at all, it can be settled for many but there tends to be a lot of cloud which spills in that has been an issue in recent summers. 
 

 

[mb018538]

Drab weather now starting to get into the reliable. Day 6 UKMO above - chilly northerly with cloud and rain/showers in many areas. Temps stuck in the low teens for many. Particularly cold on the east coast.

[Captain Shortwave]

Looks like we will see cooler conditions pushing southwards from next weekend.

UKMO

 

GFS

 

probably a lot of cloud, but probably some sunshine for most with some showers. It will probably become quite cool (Though warmer than average SSTs should neuter this a little).

The change is being driven from the Pacific with the MJO driving strongly into phase 6. The good news is that if the wave fully propagates then we could see a quick return to warmer conditions across NW Europe. 

[Sweatyman]

10 minutes ago, mb018538 said:

Drab weather now starting to get into the reliable. Day 6 UKMO above - chilly northerly with cloud and rain/showers in many areas. Temps stuck in the low teens for many. Particularly cold 

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by Sweatyman
wrong thread!

[Frost HoIIow]

1 hour ago, Daniel* said:

Well last summer was central London’s wettest summer in over 30 years, the August was also dullest August on record at Heathrow and it was driest month the first summer month on record <100 sun hours, records started in 1957. I had 300mm here in Docklands never seen anything like it, with high pressure anchored close to west/northwest, it is simply not good enough. It was good enough for west Scotland apparently the best summer they ever had, in this country though I don’t like westward deviation at all, it can be settled for many but there tends to be a lot of cloud which spills in that has been an issue in recent summers. 
 

 

Yeah what a strange summer it was last year for folk in southern England. Up here it wasn't too bad overall, not the best ever but sort of in between what Scotland and the south of England had with Scotland having their best summer since 1976 if I'm not mistaken. So here in NW England we did basically "ok" with middle ground territory.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, mb018538 said:

Drab weather now starting to get into the reliable. Day 6 UKMO above - chilly northerly with cloud and rain/showers in many areas. Temps stuck in the low teens for many. Particularly cold on the east coast.

Yep, people need to be careful of posting 500mb means looking like saying ‘I’ve seen worse’ they can deliver really poor surface conditions and lots and lots of cloud which then only annoyingly melts away. To be fair GFS gets a little better at the surface later next as the easterly undercut gets cut off but given D8-10 verifications stats must be close to zero (a little tongue in cheek) at the moment all I see is an upper trough moving in through the weekend. 

[Cambrian]

First day of the jubilee break, 2 June, within the 10 day range now, and looking like an improving picture from the end of May on the 12z GFS. We might get lucky with the timing.

The operational run has a 1030mb high centred promisingly just to our west, and the op is very close to the mean for pressure, at least at day 10, after running lower than the mean from day 6. A bit on the cool side no doubt, but looking largely dry. The GFS trend at least is looking better so maybe worth making a cautious start on hunting that bunting!

   

Looks like a series of very colourful cold fronts (hopefully not to be emulated in the charts).

[ANYWEATHER]

10 minutes ago, Cambrian said:

First day of the jubilee break, 2 June, within the 10 day range now, and looking like an improving picture from the end of May on the 12z GFS. We might get lucky with the timing.

The operational run has a 1030mb high centred promisingly just to our west, and the op is very close to the mean for pressure, at least at day 10, after running lower than the mean from day 6. A bit on the cool side no doubt, but looking largely dry. The GFS trend at least is looking better so maybe worth making a cautious start on hunting that bunting!

   

Looks like a series of very colourful cold fronts (hopefully not to be emulated in the charts).

Get lucky,.... promising, I'm afraid that's all hope casting . Looks to me that the ops are getting worse for anything settled. Perhaps no monsoon, but surpressed temperatures and showers ...

[mb018538]

If there was ever a chart to sum up the UK weather, then tonight’s ECM 168 chart ticks all the boxes. A huge great green blob neatly splodged over the UK and Ireland. Suppose we’d all better start looking for flights to Reykjavik then!

Edited May 23, 2022 by mb018538

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, mb018538 said:

If there was ever a chart to sum up the UK weather, then tonight’s ECM 168 chart ticks all the boxes. A huge great green blob neatly splodged over the UK and Ireland. Suppose we’d all better start looking for flights to Reykjavik then!

It’s just the worst summer chart isn’t it, the only crum of comfort is that the low fills extremely quickly and by T216 we’re starting to import much warmer southerlies as low pressure gets cutoff west of France and pressure rises over the Uk.  
 

To be honest the ECM run looks highly unrealistic, from one extreme to the other. I think it’s one for the bin to be honest. 

[Captain Shortwave]

One thing to watch is where the low near the Azores ends up. West of those Islands and the U.K. gets stuck with a dominant northerly flow.

GEM

The high is propped up by the Atlantic low and remains west of the U.K. essentially cool with cloud and showers in the east.

However if that low gets east of the Azores, the block high ends up further west and allows the southerly tracking jet to lift northwards. The JMA shows this nicely with the pattern flipping from cool and showery to increasing warm or even hot as high pressure returns from the south. The ECM looks like following that route.

ECM

Core heights further west with a renewed Europe ridge and a surface high over the U.K. The temperatures recovering quickly as the earlier trough drains into the Azores low. The issue as always is whether low heights will sink through the U.K. like this or will it get stuck over the U.K. There are plenty of example of troughs moving this quickly, but there are also plenty of examples of stalling patterns. It depends, if the pattern is tropically driven then the quick solution might be the right one.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Captain Shortwave

[MP-R]

2 hours ago, Frost HoIIow said:

Yeah what a strange summer it was last year for folk in southern England. Up here it wasn't too bad overall, not the best ever but sort of in between what Scotland and the south of England had with Scotland having their best summer since 1976 if I'm not mistaken. So here in NW England we did basically "ok" with middle ground territory.

Very much what it was like here too. The Atlantic-dominated period between July 27th and mid August wasn't anything like some poor summers of the past, and in fact, after August 09th, there was hardly any rain here for the rest of the month... just a lot of benign partly cloudy weather, a bit like July 2016.

Back to the here and 'just beyond now', highs moving westward are not that unusual at this time of year but full blown northerlies are a somewhat rarity. I seem to remember something akin to what the models have hinted at occurring in June 2005, where a strong high got shunted west, a cooler northerly ensued, which evolved into a brief Atlantic period in, followed by what we often remember that June for - plumegate.

 

 

I'll be watching more the end of June for what the outlook is like then as that is often when the summer's base state becomes more established.

[Cambrian]

I suppose most of us try our best to balance comment somewhere between hopecasting and despaircasting. I like to look for trends and then decide whether a bit of optimism might be appropriate or not.

Both the 12z GFS and ECM ops clearly show an improvement between the end of the month at day 8 and 2nd June at day 10, with a rise in pressure and heights across the UK and Ireland.

GFS

 

ECM

 

The 12z GEM op is already quite good at day 8, but if anything goes the other way by day 10. 

 

But still, very little in the way of precipitation modelled at day 10 by any of the ops compared with this afternoon for example (GEM day 10 and today shown here), 

 

and less precipitation than indicated for these very same dates just a couple of days ago. So to my mind, at this admittedly very early stage, and of course all might appear very different tomorrow, looking at the broad trend across the 12z ops today, some cautious optimism for the first week of June is due. 

 

[Mike Poole]

ECM flukes a reasonable T240, but the key uncertainty looks to me to be much earlier.

Folks were berating the UKMO T168 earlier, but I think it is a decent run.  Look away from the UK for a moment and the UKMO is much more reluctant than ECM (and others) to drag higher heights into Greenland in the first place:

[Buzz]

31 minutes ago, Cambrian said:

 

Both the 12z GFS and ECM ops clearly show an improvement between the end of the month at day 8 and 2nd June at day 10, with a rise in pressure and heights across the UK and Ireland.

 

 

It often seems to be the way that, whatever the season, the weather that most people hope for can only be found at around days 8, 9 or 10. It's a recurring theme.

[Guest]

Unsurprisingly the ECM Ops run lifting the trough out so quickly was an outlier. The ensemble mean going into early June is pretty naff really and in quite good agreement. The only scatter really being naff, naffer or naffest. 
 

[damianslaw]

12 hours ago, Alderc said:

Yup, looking more and more certain like the jubilee curse will strike yet again. Surely it can’t rival 2012, was stood on the Thames, 12c with a howling wind up the rive 
 

As usual we’ll be doing well to get away 10-14days of this tosh, once the patterns in it’s usually tough to budge, yes that sounds negative but it’s pretty accurate I reckon. 

Also the shocker of jubilee 1977..

[Don]

3 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Also the shocker of jubilee 1977..

Don't quite remember that..... 

[damianslaw]

3 minutes ago, Don said:

Don't quite remember that..... 

No I wasn't alive for that one but hy all accounts it was a cold one. Snow on Skiddaw for example when the beacon was lit. 

[Roadrunner]

Well I am still thinking positively that we'll get some usable dry weather for the long jubilee weekend. Nothing set in stone yet. 

[Don]

31 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

No I wasn't alive for that one but hy all accounts it was a cold one. Snow on Skiddaw for example when the beacon was lit. 

I was alive but under a year old!  Not surprised to hear it was cold though!

23 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Well I am still thinking positively that we'll get some usable dry weather for the long jubilee weekend. Nothing set in stone yet. 

As long as it's dry, I'm not too fussed.

[East Lancs Rain]

Looking like a washout for queens jubilee on this gfs run the other day.

[Frosty.]

Looking at the Gfs 0z operational, sure there’s the occasional fly in the ointment but there’s plenty of high pressure / ridging and I would be very happy if early June turned out anything like these charts show! ️ ?  

[Cambrian]

A tale of two halves for the coming weekend, the last weekend of spring, in keeping with the spring itself.

Saturday looking like the best day according to the 0z ECM operational run, high pressure in control, 1030mb over Ireland, a bright, dry day with good sunny spells, best in the west and on the east coast itself, and temperatures responding to an extent.

    

Sunday not so good, the high pressure moves a little further north, allowing some cloud and showers to spill in around its southern flank, suppressing the temperatures, especially further north and east - far from a washout but not as good as Saturday. I love these kinds of graphics as they tell such a clear story.

   

This is my spring sign-off. Thanks. Have a good week. I’ll be back in the summer!

Edited May 24, 2022 by Cambrian

[mb018538]

Some slight signs of promise on the ECM mean. Trough down the east of the UK starts to lift out between day 6-10, with 850 temps recovering as this happens. Note the gradual shift north of the 5c line between day 6-10.