February 2023 C.E.T. and EWP forecast contests

[Relativistic]

18 hours ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

At this stage anything from the 4s to the 6s is possible for the final CET, with something in the 5s looking favourite at the moment, which would still be a milder than average winter by 1981-2010 standards, and winter 2022-23 could still even finish above the 1991-2020 average.  This would clearly put into perspective that it looks almost certain that after 2013 the UK entered a "super warm era", and that winters like 2009-10 and 2012-13 and spells like December 2010 are now well and truly consigned to the history books and will never be seen again, and that a winter like 2017-18 or 2020-21 may be regarded as "cold" or even "severe" in the post 2013 super warm era, and the greatest depth of cold that it is now realistically possible to achieve in an UK winter.

 

This is an extremely bold statement. How an Earth can you say this when even leading climatologists aren't certain?

Edit: I see I'm not the only one to rebuke this claim lol

Edited February 9, 2023 by Relativistic

[Midlands Ice Age]

4 hours ago, Roger J Smith said:

If this was 1739 and not 2023, I could write this ...

"The past decade has seen very few outbreaks of cold, the winters have been several degrees warmer on average than what was normal just a few decades past. We have not had a really severe winter since 1716, just the 1.1 Januaries of 1723 and 1726 and 1.2 in 1729. Since those, we have only had one month below 2 C (1.9 in Jan 1731) and the past seven winters have all been quite mild like this one."

Perhaps I would have gone on to speculate that we wouldn't see any severe cold again. That would have not been a wise statement (1739-40 was a very severe cold winter). And didn't somebody with initials SF famously say around 2006 that we would never have winter months below 3 C ever again?

Never say never. But one time it could be right. You never know which time though. It's a long wait. 

Yep, the 1730 era was really exceptional.

It breached 10C CET when just 30 - 50 years before the UK had several years around  and below 7C.

That was twice the rate of warming (3C) we have had in the last 150 years. 

MIA

[Don]

2 hours ago, Relativistic said:

All winter. There were a few sub-minus-10C nights in the south during December, and many more fell below -5C.

Yes, it's been a peculiar winter and apparently the south has now recorded more frosts than during winter 2009/10!!

[North-Easterly Blast]

1 hour ago, Don said:

Yes, it's been a peculiar winter and apparently the south has now recorded more frosts than during winter 2009/10!!

Well the CETs do not really back that up.  December 2022 did have a notable cold spell for 11 days but that fizzled out after the 18th, and the month did finish colder than average, although slightly less cold than December 2009.  January 2023 was quite a mild month overall, although it did get colder for a time from around mid-month up until about the 24th, and its CET was 3.7*C warmer than January 2010 - so significantly milder.  February 2023 has been quite mild so far with its CET up to this point being well into the 5s, though it has had a fair few frosty nights.

[snowray]

Could be on course for a near record dry February, maybe we will see more in the way off ppn later in the month, but this HP seems very persistent. 

I wonder where we stand so far this month for precipitation?

[Derecho]

4 hours ago, Relativistic said:

This is an extremely bold statement. How an Earth can you say this when even leading climatologists aren't certain?

Edit: I see I'm not the only one to rebuke this claim lol

I think this December just gone proves we can get severe cold spells as the CET was still close to zero on the 20th.

Don't want to drag this off topic but yes global temperatures are increasing. However atmospheric circulation determines how that extra warmth is distributed across the planet.

Keep that warmth bottled up over the tropics and there's no reason why we can't see severe cold again like in 2018 or early December 2022.

If a deeply cold pattern persists for long enough then there's also no reason why we can't get a 62/63 winter, the increased warmth circulating around our planet would be advected elsewhere (most likely kept over Tropical areas or towards Greenland).

One of the key questions that I would like to know is 'how much can atmospheric circulation vary?' If it varied around a mean state all the time then yes it would be harder to get severe cold because you'd see a general upwards trend of the colder and warmer months.

However if we can get more extreme atmospheric circulation patterns, cold can still reach us... just look at the 1070mb Greenland high during the middle of December 2010, it helped advect some notable cold to our little part of the world as a result.

[Derecho]

7 minutes ago, snowray said:

Could be on course for a near record dry February, maybe we will see more in the way off ppn later in the month, but this HP seems very persistent. 

I wonder where we stand so far this month for precipitation?

Just had a light shower early on in the month here in Hull. Little in the way of precip at all since January 14th! Also a lot of sunshine.

A whole month with barely any rain looks likely here (January 15th - Feb 14th) You do wonder when drought will start becoming a concern here given what we had last year?

I appreciate we still have a long way to go yet and it was a lot wetter in the west through Autumn and early January.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Quicksilver1989

[Don]

1 hour ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

Well the CETs do not really back that up.  December 2022 did have a notable cold spell for 11 days but that fizzled out after the 18th, and the month did finish colder than average, although slightly less cold than December 2009.  January 2023 was quite a mild month overall, although it did get colder for a time from around mid-month up until about the 24th, and its CET was 3.7*C warmer than January 2010 - so significantly milder.  February 2023 has been quite mild so far with its CET up to this point being well into the 5s, though it has had a fair few frosty nights.

Exactly, a peculiar winter!

[snowray]

26 minutes ago, Quicksilver1989 said:

Just had a light shower early on in the month here in Hull. Little in the way of precip at all since January 14th! Also a lot of sunshine.

A whole month with barely any rain looks likely here (January 15th - Feb 14th) You do wonder when drought will start becoming a concern here given what we had last year?

I appreciate we still have a long way to go yet and it was a lot wetter in the west through Autumn and early January.

I know its the pub run, but this is incredible.

[Roger J Smith]

1 hour ago, snowray said:

Could be on course for a near record dry February, maybe we will see more in the way off ppn later in the month, but this HP seems very persistent. 

I wonder where we stand so far this month for precipitation?

Only 1.2 mm to 7th, estimate we are at 1.5 mm now, GFS 16-day shows almost bone dry conditions, would be 2-3 mm tops by 25th if correct. Which is a record low value (I posted the ten driest EWP values a few days ago). 

[summer blizzard]

12 hours ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

Well the CETs do not really back that up.  December 2022 did have a notable cold spell for 11 days but that fizzled out after the 18th, and the month did finish colder than average, although slightly less cold than December 2009.  January 2023 was quite a mild month overall, although it did get colder for a time from around mid-month up until about the 24th, and its CET was 3.7*C warmer than January 2010 - so significantly milder.  February 2023 has been quite mild so far with its CET up to this point being well into the 5s, though it has had a fair few frosty nights.

I think the key this winter is that though not snowy for a lot, the cold has at least packed a punch. We had the 12th coldest first half to December on record which puts us in the top 5% over the last 300 years (probably a little further down the list to the 18th when we peaked).

[kold weather]

12 hours ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

Well the CETs do not really back that up.  December 2022 did have a notable cold spell for 11 days but that fizzled out after the 18th, and the month did finish colder than average, although slightly less cold than December 2009.  January 2023 was quite a mild month overall, although it did get colder for a time from around mid-month up until about the 24th, and its CET was 3.7*C warmer than January 2010 - so significantly milder.  February 2023 has been quite mild so far with its CET up to this point being well into the 5s, though it has had a fair few frosty nights.

A couple of points:

1: It HAS been cold and frosty in the south. I appreciate its been much less so further north compared to the average, but locally this is easily the most frosty winter since at least 12/13, and I suspect probably since 10-11, though I can't say I've checked that far back. I'm not sure many from post mid 1980s will be much frostier than this one at least in my part of the world.

2: The CET DOES back them up actually. Upto the 8th February the mins (which is what we are looking for when it comes to frost) are running around 1c below the 61-90 average for the entire winter, and obviously that anomaly is going to be more extensive versus the milder 91-20 average.

This winter has been very interesting, we've had one exceptionally mild period which has balanced out a pretty cool winter here in the south, albeit the cold definitely has been loaded more towards the mins than the maxes , which really aren't anything of note outside of that severe cold spell in December. I'd guess further north you've had alot less inversion based cold, especially closer to the coasts you go. Here in the south we had something similar in summer 21, which was utter garbage down here, but actually further north was a half decent summer overall.

As for 09-10, yes it definitely was colder overall as we more often had deep cold airmasses rather than inversion based stuff we've seen a whole load of this winter. Maxes were much more suppressed as a result. Even the colder Jan mins of 09-10 are comparable to Jan 23 mid month cold spell, the difference between the mins though is 09-10 did not have an exceptional mild spell in the first 10 days which as previously said has gone a very long way to balance things out.

EDIT - as for severe cold from one of your previous posts, you do realise that for example the 23rd January was the 4th coldest night at Heathrow since 1963. Or that the 15th December was the 17th coldest day since the end of the 62-63 winter... both of those are fairly severe levels of cold. I do however get what you are saying, in a warming world it is going to get increasingly difficult to get cold months, because even short lived mild spells tend to pack a punch these days, as we saw back in late December/early January.

Edited February 10, 2023 by kold weather

[Relativistic]

1 hour ago, kold weather said:

...

EDIT - as for severe cold from one of your previous posts, you do realise that for example the 23rd January was the 4th coldest night at Heathrow since 1963. Or that the 15th December was the 17th coldest day since the end of the 62-63 winter... both of those are fairly severe levels of cold. I do however get what you are saying, in a warming world it is going to get increasingly difficult to get cold months, because even short lived mild spells tend to pack a punch these days, as we saw back in late December/early January.

Very interesting statistic; not one I was aware of. You able to provide the top 20?

[johncam]

Some great points being made. Definitely mild weather in winter now is at least 2C warmer than in would have been in 70's and 80's where a  very mild day up here was 9C 

 

 

 

 

[Earthshine]

Maximum CET could get rather high over the next 10 days or so if forecasts are to be believed.  Temperatures regularly above 10C by day with perhaps even getting as high as 15C if conditions become just right in places.

[Summer Sun]

5.3c to the 9th

1.5c above the 61 to 90 average
0.5c above the 81 to 10 average

[The PIT]

Sunny Sheffield down to 6.7C +2.2C above normal. rainfall stuck at 0.2mm 0.3% of normal.

Shows what the cold nights are doing in the CET zone. Coldest night here is 0C.

Just had a look and our driest feb is 1959 with 2.3mm well we are 2mm off pretty sure we will beat it.

Edited February 10, 2023 by The PIT

[Summer8906]

Interesting that this month is mild overall to date, despite regular frosts in the past week.

There has been some ground frost here every night since Saturday night, though Sat night was slight, Wed night it melted by morning, and Thurs night it didn't form until after midnight.

The day maxima seem to have been surprisingly high for early in Feb, in air cold enough to produce some good frosts. Around 9C has been typical - basically an equinoctial temperature profile of mild days and cold nights, more typical of March, April, September or October.

We don't seem to get cold-by-day conditions in anticyclonic setups anymore, except in the mid-winter months of Dec and Jan when the daylight is restricted. It seems that cold in February requires a potent injection of air from the north or east - a static high won't do it.

Nonetheless this seems to have been a good winter for frosts. Wondering whether we'll get anymore frosts now, though, as this evening we seem to be getting an injection of cloudy Atlantic air,  and then next week we seem to be getting first southerlies, and later, W-lies or SW-lies.

It's been enough to prevent any overly-early flowering, compared to 2020 or 2022. For example one local plum tree came into full flower at the very end of January in 2020 and 2022, while this year there is just the first sign of flowering on one of them now, so we're perhaps two weeks behind last year. However I do worry whether predicted mild weather in the coming week will cause nature to get ahead of itself again - albeit to not the extreme extent that occurred in 2016, 2020 or 2022. Let's have spring flowers in actual spring!

It's good to see the dry weather now though, which seems to be the favoured outlook.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Summer8906

[damianslaw]

10 hours ago, kold weather said:

A couple of points:

1: It HAS been cold and frosty in the south. I appreciate its been much less so further north compared to the average, but locally this is easily the most frosty winter since at least 12/13, and I suspect probably since 10-11, though I can't say I've checked that far back. I'm not sure many from post mid 1980s will be much frostier than this one at least in my part of the world.

2: The CET DOES back them up actually. Upto the 8th February the mins (which is what we are looking for when it comes to frost) are running around 1c below the 61-90 average for the entire winter, and obviously that anomaly is going to be more extensive versus the milder 91-20 average.

This winter has been very interesting, we've had one exceptionally mild period which has balanced out a pretty cool winter here in the south, albeit the cold definitely has been loaded more towards the mins than the maxes , which really aren't anything of note outside of that severe cold spell in December. I'd guess further north you've had alot less inversion based cold, especially closer to the coasts you go. Here in the south we had something similar in summer 21, which was utter garbage down here, but actually further north was a half decent summer overall.

As for 09-10, yes it definitely was colder overall as we more often had deep cold airmasses rather than inversion based stuff we've seen a whole load of this winter. Maxes were much more suppressed as a result. Even the colder Jan mins of 09-10 are comparable to Jan 23 mid month cold spell, the difference between the mins though is 09-10 did not have an exceptional mild spell in the first 10 days which as previously said has gone a very long way to balance things out.

EDIT - as for severe cold from one of your previous posts, you do realise that for example the 23rd January was the 4th coldest night at Heathrow since 1963. Or that the 15th December was the 17th coldest day since the end of the 62-63 winter... both of those are fairly severe levels of cold. I do however get what you are saying, in a warming world it is going to get increasingly difficult to get cold months, because even short lived mild spells tend to pack a punch these days, as we saw back in late December/early January.

This winter has been interesting the depth of cold and mild swings, it has been quite extreme in this sense, but the record books will show it as a rather average winter overall.

[damianslaw]

1 hour ago, Summer8906 said:

Interesting that this month is mild overall to date, despite regular frosts in the past week.

There has been some ground frost here every night since Saturday night, though Sat night was slight, Wed night it melted by morning, and Thurs night it didn't form until after midnight.

The day maxima seem to have been surprisingly high for early in Feb, in air cold enough to produce some good frosts. Around 9C has been typical - basically an equinoctial temperature profile of mild days and cold nights, more typical of March, April, September or October.

We don't seem to get cold-by-day conditions in anticyclonic setups anymore, except in the mid-winter months of Dec and Jan when the daylight is restricted. It seems that cold in February requires a potent injection of air from the north or east - a static high won't do it.

Nonetheless this seems to have been a good winter for frosts. Wondering whether we'll get anymore frosts now, though, as this evening we seem to be getting an injection of cloudy Atlantic air,  and then next week we seem to be getting first southerlies, and later, W-lies or SW-lies.

It's been enough to prevent any overly-early flowering, compared to 2020 or 2022. For example one local plum tree came into full flower at the very end of January in 2020 and 2022, while this year there is just the first sign of flowering on one of them now, so we're perhaps two weeks behind last year. However I do worry whether predicted mild weather in the coming week will cause nature to get ahead of itself again - albeit to not the extreme extent that occurred in 2016, 2020 or 2022. Let's have spring flowers in actual spring!

It's good to see the dry weather now though, which seems to be the favoured outlook.

The recent cold frosty nights in the south, courtesy of very dry air, no mixing and a slight continental airmass, conversely the uppers have been high and temps have climbed quickly in the day, with the warming sunshine, if this was summer, a major heatwave scenario. As we move further into latter winter, it becomes more difficult to achieve low maxima unless there are cold uppers, need an injection of polar air, and ridge development. Ice days can and do occur even into March, but less likely than earlier in the winter. Snow cover can help. I think our latest last ice day was 11 March 2013. We did have many many days late March when the max failed to go above 3 degree even under abundant sunshine - a truly exceptional spell that was. The 18th March 2018 may well have been an ice day just, we had heavy snow late on the 17th and I remember the snow lay crisp deep and even through the day.

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by damianslaw

[Don]

10 hours ago, Earthshine said:

Maximum CET could get rather high over the next 10 days or so if forecasts are to be believed.  Temperatures regularly above 10C by day with perhaps even getting as high as 15C if conditions become just right in places.

Perhaps some early days in the garden if it's sunny!

[The PIT]

Sunny Sheffield down to 6.6C +2.1C above average. Rainfall 0.2mm 0.3% of the monthly average.

Well the lawn has had it's 1st cut of year as the ground was dry enough to do it. Getting a regular feature in recent years.

[damianslaw]

1 hour ago, The PIT said:

Sunny Sheffield down to 6.6C +2.1C above average. Rainfall 0.2mm 0.3% of the monthly average.

Well the lawn has had it's 1st cut of year as the ground was dry enough to do it. Getting a regular feature in recent years.

Signs of spring are in the air, many early spring flower bulbs / shoots are springing up, I can some daffodils about to emerge in places, and crocuses are out in some localised spots, all quite normal behaviour in recent years, other than 2018 and 2021 which saw delayed spring activity. 2019, 2020, 2022 brought very early spring growth. This year we are behind those years, but recent mild conditions are helping to quicken the pace.

Fully expecting daffodils and crocuses to be in abundance before the month is out, these are hardy plants and can withstand late winter freezes.

 

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by damianslaw

[Summer Sun]

5.2c to the 10th

1.4c above the 61 to 90 average
0.5c above the 81 to 10 average

[Don]

4 hours ago, damianslaw said:

Signs of spring are in the air, many early spring flower bulbs / shoots are springing up, I can some daffodils about to emerge in places, and crocuses are out in some localised spots, all quite normal behaviour in recent years, other than 2018 and 2021 which saw delayed spring activity. 2019, 2020, 2022 brought very early spring growth. This year we are behind those years, but recent mild conditions are helping to quicken the pace.

Fully expecting daffodils and crocuses to be in abundance before the month is out, these are hardy plants and can withstand late winter freezes.

 

 

Some daffodils already out where I am and plenty of crocuses.  Despite a more interesting winter this year, it will be another mild one overall.