January 2024 CET and E.W.P. forecast contests

[baddie]

25 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

I think it has been unusually Atlantic-dominated for the past 7 months (since June 26) though.

Normally we would get a number of anticyclonic, northerly and easterly interludes and they have been (generally) notable for their absence. We've had just two meaningful two-week breaks in that 7 months, and the last month that could be described as remotely settled was June.

We'll likely have had seven calendar months on the trot with above average rainfall by the end of this month. And seven calendar months on the trot with above average CET and above average rainfall. That isn't normal.

And other climates manage to avoid being an arid desert, basically because they have high-intensity but short-duration rainfall with plenty of dry, settled weather in between.

Im thinking a dry February-April would be up for grabs, and a particularly warm and sunny March + First 10 days of April

We might be lucky to be "average" for January, but rain days quite low

Edited January 22 by baddie

[Summer8906]

9 minutes ago, baddie said:

Im thinking a dry February-April would be up for grabs, and a particularly warm and sunny March + First 10 days of April

We might be lucky to be "average" for January, but rain days quite low

Mind you, will rain days be that low? Looks like Jan 1-4 all recorded rain, maybe Jan 5 as the low moved away, and if it stays as unsettled as currently the month could end with 11-12 consecutive raindays (did it rain on Saturday? Not sure) making rain on half of the month's days.

 

Edited January 22 by Summer8906

[baddie]

3 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

Mind you, will rain days be that low? Looks like Jan 1-4 all recorded rain, maybe Jan 5 as the low moved away, and if it stays as unsettled as currently the month could end with 11-12 consecutive raindays (did it rain on Saturday? Not sure) making rain on half of the month's days.

 

Rain wasnt even an issue for the past few days, it was the wind, and the only significant rain in my area for the foreseeable will be tomorrow. In fact, Wednesday and Friday looks sunny despite the wind

I recorded 6mm yesterday even though the forecast said rain rates of 16mm+/hr will hit my area

Edited January 22 by baddie

[damianslaw]

Whilst cold Januaries have been hard to come by past 13 years, other than 2020 we've not had any notably mild ones i.e. above 6 degrees, and despite a very mild remainder to the month I doubt 2024 will join the 6 club.. 

 

[Summer8906]

12 minutes ago, baddie said:

Rain wasnt even an issue for the past few days, and the only significant rain in my area for the foreseeable will be tomorrow. In fact, Wednesday and Friday looks sunny despite the wind

Perhaps, I'm guessing down here on the south coast with frequent SW-lies there's likely to be fairly frequent drizzle, even if there are few deluges. Certainly yesterday evening there was heavy and prolonged rain and tomorrow there's forecast to be another spell of significant rain.

Not convinced about a dry Feb though, the latest model runs suggest a further deterioration, potentially turning very wet - shades of Feb 1990 or 2020 about the GFS 06z and 12z. Wondering whether we'll end up with a very wet, very mild Feb but a significantly drier March, bracing myself for Feb to be potentially a very difficult month to be honest.  My money remains on March to be the next settled month.

I'm wondering just how many named storms there will be. Apparently the J storm arrives tomorrow, so at least 10 by end of Jan, possibly more. I'll now go with a further 3 in Feb as a conservative estimate (M) - on a par with 2022 - and then one more in March during short unsettled spell (N). So my guess would be 14.

Edited January 22 by Summer8906

[baddie]

1 minute ago, Summer8906 said:

Perhaps, I'm guessing down here on the south coast with frequent SW-lies there's likely to be frequent drizzle, even if there are few deluges.

Not convinced about a dry Feb though, the latest model runs suggest a further deterioration, potentially turning very wet - shades of Feb 1990 or 2020 about the GFS 06z and 12z. Wondering whether we'll end up with a very wet, very mild Feb but a significantly drier March. My money remains on March to be the next settled month.

Maybe wet first half and dry second half?? I often believe Met Office/BBC outlooks. They are both predicting a cold and somewhat dry first half to Feb. Mind you, Im seeing shades of Feb 2021, as it even had a wet start before becoming cold

[Summer8906]

3 minutes ago, baddie said:

Maybe wet first half and dry second half?? I often believe Met Office/BBC outlooks. They are both predicting a cold and somewhat dry first half to Feb. Mind you, Im seeing shades of Feb 2021, as it even had a wet start before becoming cold

I do find raging zonality at the start of Feb tends to persist through the month more often than not though, months in which the zonality hits the buffers before late-month are rather rare. I hope I'm wrong but I'm suspecting Feb will be very mild and somewhat wet - hoping the GFS 06z/12z which potentially show very wet rather than merely somewhat wet are at the disturbed end of the pack.

Edited January 22 by Summer8906

[damianslaw]

27 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

I do find raging zonality at the start of Feb tends to persist through the month more often than not though, months in which the zonality hits the buffers before late-month are rather rare. I hope I'm wrong but I'm suspecting Feb will be very mild and somewhat wet - hoping the GFS 06z/12z which potentially show very wet rather than merely somewhat wet are at the disturbed end of the pack.

Perhaps some of these posts should be placed in Feb CET thread rather than Jan CET thread. 

[Don]

6 hours ago, TillyS said:

Yep up 0.3C over those 24 hours.

The month will go above the January average with Wednesday’s update. Then it’s a relentless rise until the end by the look of it.

Cold spells often easily outweighed by mild now.

[Dancerwithwings]

39 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Perhaps some of these posts should be placed in Feb CET thread rather than Jan CET thread. 

Or rather it’s turning into a deep dive all months, this year that year, CET discussion

It’s a CET & E.W.P. contest….Keep it simple, otherwise it’ll turn in to what the Model thread has been of late

Edited January 22 by Dancerwithwings

[North-Easterly Blast]

1 hour ago, damianslaw said:

Whilst cold Januaries have been hard to come by past 13 years, other than 2020 we've not had any notably mild ones i.e. above 6 degrees, and despite a very mild remainder to the month I doubt 2024 will join the 6 club.. 

 

Yes very true, although there were two notably mild Januarys in 2007 and 2008. 

Edited January 22 by North-Easterly Blast

[Don]

1 minute ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

Yes very true, although there were two notably mild Januarys in 2007 and 2008, and shortly before the cold one in 2010.  

January 2009 was also cold, albeit not massively, with a CET of 3.1C and was the coldest at the time for 12 years.

[emmett garland]

15 minutes ago, Dancerwithwings said:

Or rather it’s turning into a deep dive all months, this year that year, CET discussion

It’s a CET & E.W.P. contest….Keep it simple, otherwise it’ll turn in to what the Model thread has been of late

Yes this thread is normally 6 or 7 pages at end of month and always sticks to current CET forecast and EWP .Please lets keep it tat way.

[Roger J Smith]

Would rather not see a lot of chat in the Feb (or any) thread during the forecast period (i.e., from opening day on 20th usually, to 2nd or 3rd of contest month, when forecasts are largely posted and tabulated) -- it is very difficult to plow through a lot of chat posts to collect the forecasts. TIA.

Personally, I don't mind seeing discussions like the above in the current thread. It doesn't matter how any pages separate the table of forecasts from the results, it is bound to be some number of pages, so not sure why it would matter how many. 

But perhaps we should say, discussions of future month outcomes could go better in the existing "2024 predictions" thread. Unless it's a technical post based on analysis of current month indications, those are probably good material for contest threads. 

Edited January 22 by Roger J Smith

[Roger J Smith]

6 hours ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

For Roger..

I found your data for January end of month rises very interesting.

After seeing the CET graphic above for January, i wondered whether you could possibly do the same for the January warmest last 10 days for the period since 1679.?

Also a graphic of the CET for the 30 year periods showing how they have changed with time.

If too much time taken in producing them then thanks for all the data anyway.

MIA

I can do the graphic comparison, but my tables of daily data averages included all data we have, going back to 1772. I think you meant to say 1659 above, but we have no daily data from 1659 to 1771. I have seen one or two references to dates of events in that period like the summer heat followed by great fire of London in 1666 and the Daniel Defoe storm of 1703 (it was 26-27 Nov o.s. and 7-8 Dec n.s.), also  some details of the great cold of winter 1739-40 (set in late Dec old style, early Jan new style), but in general there are fewer reliable indications of what was going on inside the months before 1772.

I will work up the graphic comparison, it could take several graphs because some of the consecutive periods are not far apart and occasionally the trend is not upwards. 

(added) Reading it over, did you want to see a graph of all averages for 21-31 Jan from 1772 to 2023? I could easily do that.

Edited January 22 by Roger J Smith

[Roger J Smith]

Graph showing successive 30-year averages for winter months: 

rather than showing 36 largely overlapping intervals, I just show every third one, starting 1661-1690, then 1691-1720, etc, until finishing at 1991-2020.

In the graph, red is January (almost always colder)

green is February (usually holds middle position, sometimes warmer than Dec, and sometimes equal or near-equal with January)

and blue is December (usually a bit warmer than February)

 

The numbers 1 to 12 refer to each 30-year interval

The vertical scale is C deg.

[Roger J Smith]

Same setup for spring months, obviously blue is March, red April and green May.

Note how March started to warm faster than April around mid-19th century.

March in periods from 1661 to 1720 (1,2) was no warmer than Dec or Feb nowadays.

March returned to a similar chilly average in 1781 to 1810.

[Roger J Smith]

The three summer months have always been in the same order, red here being July, green August and blue June.

July and August have warmed more significantly than June. 

[Midlands Ice Age]

3 hours ago, Roger J Smith said:

I can do the graphic comparison, but my tables of daily data averages included all data we have, going back to 1772. I think you meant to say 1659 above, but we have no daily data from 1659 to 1771. I have seen one or two references to dates of events in that period like the summer heat followed by great fire of London in 1666 and the Daniel Defoe storm of 1703 (it was 26-27 Nov o.s. and 7-8 Dec n.s.), also  some details of the great cold of winter 1739-40 (set in late Dec old style, early Jan new style), but in general there are fewer reliable indications of what was going on inside the months before 1772.

I will work up the graphic comparison, it could take several graphs because some of the consecutive periods are not far apart and occasionally the trend is not upwards. 

(added) Reading it over, did you want to see a graph of all averages for 21-31 Jan from 1772 to 2023? I could easily do that.

Yes please and thanks for the ones above,

MIA

[Roger J Smith]

Finally, the autumn comparisons. 

Note that Sep (blue) warmed to near modern levels 1721-50, and fell back, while Oct (red) was notably lagging for 1871-1900.

Nov (green) has shown a more steady warming trend since hitting its coldest values in the Dalton minimum. 

[Roger J Smith]

As the summer months are on a different scale from the other graphs, I took 10 off their means and came up with this look for a more direct comparison: 

June shows a different pattern with a cooling trend that ended only in 1901-1930.

August has tended to march lock-step with July although in the 19th century it tended to be relatively cooler than July.

These second-order variations on general themes are interesting and might hold some insights. For example, I wonder if the October chill in 1871-1900 might have been partly related to the rise in coal-fired smoke; October is a month where incoming solar radiation is weak, and there are still anticyclonic intervals; November on the other hand is almost always zonal and so smoke pollution might not have chilled air masses relatively speaking. 

[LetItSnow!]

4 minutes ago, Roger J Smith said:

As the summer months are on a different scale from the other graphs, I took 10 off their means and came up with this look for a more direct comparison: 

June shows a different pattern with a cooling trend that ended only in 1901-1930.

August has tended to march lock-step with July although in the 19th century it tended to be relatively cooler than July.

These second-order variations on general themes are interesting and might hold some insights. For example, I wonder if the October chill in 1871-1900 might have been partly related to the rise in coal-fired smoke; October is a month where incoming solar radiation is weak, and there are still anticyclonic intervals; November on the other hand is almost always zonal and so smoke pollution might not have chilled air masses relatively speaking. 

Thought that when looking at the charts for October 1879 which was a cold month but the charts look mild, even warm at times. I think if you had a lot of winter, spring and autumn synoptics from that era today, AGW aside, the surface conditions would be quite a lot different.

[Midlands Ice Age]

9 hours ago, Roger J Smith said:

Would rather not see a lot of chat in the Feb (or any) thread during the forecast period (i.e., from opening day on 20th usually, to 2nd or 3rd of contest month, when forecasts are largely posted and tabulated) -- it is very difficult to plow through a lot of chat posts to collect the forecasts. TIA.

Personally, I don't mind seeing discussions like the above in the current thread. It doesn't matter how any pages separate the table of forecasts from the results, it is bound to be some number of pages, so not sure why it would matter how many. 

But perhaps we should say, discussions of future month outcomes could go better in the existing "2024 predictions" thread. Unless it's a technical post based on analysis of current month indications, those are probably good material for contest threads. 

Good point, and especially for the graphs above..

This thread has been successful as it has been with the existing format, and we shouldn't change the format.

At the same time I feel there is worth in having information on the historical CET, and the take on the data where  discussion can be held.

The AGW people have a group thread devoted to their needs. Would it be worth setting up a general one in here for Historical CET discussion and its data?.

I am not aware that we have had one in recent years, I feel that it would be a useful addition to the site.

 I am aware that you have set up sites when the CET was upgraded..  I think a new one loaded with some of your data could be a useful addition as the MO (who hold the data afterall) hardly ever mention the data outside the span  of the 1961-1990 timescale.

There is a lot of useful information buried in there I am sure.

????? THoughts

MIA 

Edited January 23 by Midlands Ice Age

[Summer Sun]

3.6c to the 22nd

0.2c below the 61 to 90 average
0.9c below the 81 to 10 average

[Methuselah]

4 hours ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

Good point, and especially for the graphs above..

This thread has been successful as it has been with the existing format, and we shouldn't change the format.

At the same time I feel there is worth in having information on the historical CET, and the take on the data where  discussion can be held.

The AGW people have a group thread devoted to their needs. Would it be worth setting up a general one in here for Historical CET discussion and its data?.

I am not aware that we have had one in recent years, I feel that it would be a useful addition to the site.

 I am aware that you have set up sites when the CET was upgraded..  I think a new one loaded with some of your data could be a useful addition as the MO (who hold the data afterall) hardly ever mention the data outside the span  of the 1961-1990 timescale.

There is a lot of useful information buried in there I am sure.

????? THoughts

MIA 

Can't, for the life of me, see what the 'AGW people' having a thread has got to do with this one; this thread simply has data; make of that what you will?