Winter 2023/24 - Discussions & Forecasts

[bluearmy]

ah well 

just pleased I never mentioned expectations for this winter to anyone - judging by what ec has just chucked out, one of you lot must have !!

only crumb of comfort from this update is feb’s precip and pressure anom wouldnt take much movement south to become v interesting 

[northwestsnow]

5 minutes ago, bluearmy said:

ah well 

just pleased I never mentioned expectations for this winter to anyone - judging by what ec has just chucked out, one of you lot must have !!

only crumb of comfort from this update is feb’s precip and pressure anom wouldnt take much movement south to become v interesting 

Not me,I've fallen into that trap too many times.

It looks ,at face value at least,a mild wet and windy winter if EC is to be believed.

Let's see what Glosea says but with GW in mind it's hard not to feel pessimistic..

Edited October 5, 2023 by northwestsnow

[Don]

54 minutes ago, northwestsnow said:

EC goes wet and mild..

Dec

jan

feb is similar so one gets the picture 

Just as I feared sadly!  I think it's possibly taking into account the positive IOD more with this update.  Taking everything into account now, very difficult to see how winter will be anything other than mild!  A shame as I felt things were shaping up quite well until the end of August.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Don

[Met4Cast]

Ouch..

[mountain shadow]

1 hour ago, CoxR said:

avert your eyes people, it's not a good one: 

Would that indicate a few decent storms do you think or just mild and wet?

[northwestsnow]

2 minutes ago, Met4Cast said:

Ouch..

That looks horrific.

The Euro heights look more noticeable ,is the Euro high becoming a permanent feature ?

[Don]

1 minute ago, mountain shadow said:

Would that indicate a few decent storms do you think or just mild and wet?

Mild, wet and stormy?  Yuck!

Just now, northwestsnow said:

That looks horrific.

The Euro heights look more noticeable ,is the Euro high becoming a permanent feature ?

Seems to be yes, sadly, courtesy of climate change.

[Mike Poole]

3 minutes ago, Met4Cast said:

Ouch..

Well, as we get closer to winter, there gets less room for a bad run (especially from ECM), and so this moves the swingometer in the wrong direction.  Let’s hope GloSea6 goes the other way in a few days time!

[Don]

2 minutes ago, Mike Poole said:

Well, as we get closer to winter, there gets less room for a bad run (especially from ECM), and so this moves the swingometer in the wrong direction.  Let’s hope GloSea6 goes the other way in a few days time!

Always hope, but I wouldn't bank on it!

The ECM has done little to lift my spirits today! 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Don

[northwestsnow]

How utterly depressing ..

Wonder what has prompted this flip ...

[cheeky_monkey]

Looking forward to this winter here...everything looking back at previous strong El Nino points to mild relatively snow free and dry winter with an early spring..in my part of the world El Nino seems to trump everything else

[Don]

8 minutes ago, northwestsnow said:

How utterly depressing ..

Wonder what has prompted this flip ...

I suspect the forecasted persistence of the positive IOD until winter has likely contributed?

I said yesterday that I feared the CFSv2 was onto something and now that the ECM has flipped, this has made that all the more likely!

[summer blizzard]

Just now, cheeky_monkey said:

Looking forward to this winter here...everything looking back at previous strong El Nino points to mild relatively snow free and dry winter with an early spring..in my part of the world El Nino seems to trump everything else

My early analysis pointed towards you potentially having a colder and snowier December and March but probably being largely mild and dry through January and February (of course, I imagine in your part of the world that's minima around 0C rather than -20C). 

[Snowphie-bird]

I have no skill at reading models but I often read how we cannot accurately predict weather more than a few days ahead let alone months so why is it that the posts I’m reading appear to be taking the models at face value? Are long term models showing averages for a whole period more accurate than day to day models that show very specific dates? 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Snowphie-bird

[stewfox]

3 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

Looking forward to this winter here...everything looking back at previous strong El Nino points to mild relatively snow free and dry winter with an early spring..in my part of the world El Nino seems to trump everything else

Do you ever get bored of snow out there ? I lived in kansas for a year in mid 90s. I guess was a snowy winter for them and my fascination with snow got less and less as the season went on.

I remember in mid March trying to park the car and it was probably hi 40s or 8c but still massive piles of snow to melt.

Here it's often lamp post watching at 4am

 

 

 

 

 

[sundog]

The warm September curse ...ready to strike again........

[Don]

Just now, sundog said:

The warm September curse ...ready to strike again........

It's looking more likely that winter 2023/24 will be added to the very warm September/mild winter list, yes!

[Chesil View]

Lack of continuity suggests a lack of reliability to me. The background signals haven't changed enough to warrant such diametrically change.

[Met4Cast]

43 minutes ago, Mike Poole said:

Well, as we get closer to winter, there gets less room for a bad run (especially from ECM), and so this moves the swingometer in the wrong direction.  Let’s hope GloSea6 goes the other way in a few days time!

It does make you wonder if the ECM is more aggressively factoring in the +IOD compared with previous updates, something has led to a rather dramatic flip within the seasonal output. Having said that, because of such a flip and very little consistency it’s difficult to put any degree of confidence in the outputs.

The wildcard for this winter is the eQBO + El Niño combination increasing the likelihood of an SSW, but if we’re going through winter hoping that 1) an SSW occurs and 2) it propagates downwards and imprints on the troposphere in a way that leads to UK cold, it’s going to be a long, nail biting “chasing the pot of gold” style winter! 

It’s still too early I think. We need to see how the polar vortex develops through October & November, will be be strong & uniform throughout the atmosphere and coupled to the trop? Will there be a disconnect?

We also need to see whether or not El Niño will fully connect with the atmosphere, it’s currently giving it a go with an increase in westerlies across the Pacific and a recent rise in AAM tendency, although that looks as if it’ll be short lived. We need to see how this progresses in the coming months too. 

All in all, a very, very tricky season to forecast. 

[Rain All Night]

36 minutes ago, Snowphie-bird said:

Are long term models showing averages for a whole period more accurate than day to day models that show very specific dates? 

Thankfully, no!

[summer blizzard]

28 minutes ago, Met4Cast said:

It does make you wonder if the ECM is more aggressively factoring in the +IOD compared with previous updates, something has led to a rather dramatic flip within the seasonal output. Having said that, because of such a flip and very little consistency it’s difficult to put any degree of confidence in the outputs.

The wildcard for this winter is the eQBO + El Niño combination increasing the likelihood of an SSW, but if we’re going through winter hoping that 1) an SSW occurs and 2) it propagates downwards and imprints on the troposphere in a way that leads to UK cold, it’s going to be a long, nail biting “chasing the pot of gold” style winter! 

It’s still too early I think. We need to see how the polar vortex develops through October & November, will be be strong & uniform throughout the atmosphere and coupled to the trop? Will there be a disconnect?

We also need to see whether or not El Niño will fully connect with the atmosphere, it’s currently giving it a go with an increase in westerlies across the Pacific and a recent rise in AAM tendency, although that looks as if it’ll be short lived. We need to see how this progresses in the coming months too. 

All in all, a very, very tricky season to forecast. 

Do they produce 200hpa vorcity charts for the seasonals, that would indicate if things have changed radically in the Indian Ocean. 

[cheeky_monkey]

53 minutes ago, summer blizzard said:

My early analysis pointed towards you potentially having a colder and snowier December and March but probably being largely mild and dry through January and February (of course, I imagine in your part of the world that's minima around 0C rather than -20C). 

The last two strong El Nino resulted in very little in the way of severe cold and snow ..interestingly 1997-98 was the only year i could find on record for my location where it was green Xmas there was no snow at all through Nov and Dec first snow arrived after the new year ..2015-16 was pretty snowless up until Xmas and the new year but there was a very cold slot in early Jan..both years snow was gone by end of February 

[Redbull165]

Yeah lets wait at least for november when the new ECMWF update comes out. It could be again quite different then this one which was posted today. I would say everything is possible. After all this heat/warm over Europe in last weeks/months, when the change will come it will be probably even more extreme. This anticyclone wont last forever. Fingers crossed.

[cheeky_monkey]

55 minutes ago, stewfox said:

Do you ever get bored of snow out there ? I lived in kansas for a year in mid 90s. I guess was a snowy winter for them and my fascination with snow got less and less as the season went on.

I remember in mid March trying to park the car and it was probably hi 40s or 8c but still massive piles of snow to melt.

Here it's often lamp post watching at 4am

 

 

 

 

 

snow in winter here is like rain in winter back home..nobody likes it and nobody wants it...its just a pain in the backside 

[Mike Poole]

35 minutes ago, Met4Cast said:

The wildcard for this winter is the eQBO + El Niño combination increasing the likelihood of an SSW, but if we’re going through winter hoping that 1) an SSW occurs and 2) it propagates downwards and imprints on the troposphere in a way that leads to UK cold, it’s going to be a long, nail biting “chasing the pot of gold” style winter! 

The bold bit is standard procedure these days, isn’t it?

(Last time it came good was 2018, and even then it paid off in March rather than winter.)