Moans, ramps and banter

[Metwatch]

14 hours ago, raz.org.rain said:

Yeah, I may just fly off to Spain and never come back! Don't need no horrible cool and wet weather throughout summer again.

South / south east Spain the place to be next week!

[Rob 79812010]

47 minutes ago, Methuselah said:

Absolutely; I've been obsessed with the stuff since 1963; but others haven't. I guess that's human nature? 

I wish I'd been around to see it! My dad talks about it. 79 and 2010 were Brill but not in same league !

[Penguin16]

Has anyone lost faith in background signals a bit? I mean understand favourable signals can increase our chances of cold but too much credit is given to them. The amount of times they amount to S.F.A and then there’s excuses while it didn’t materialise and you have to factor in how small we are macro vs micro etc so why not factor that in to begin with then with your ramping predictions instead of after when it goes its up. Seems to be almost an annual occurrence. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “ I was wrong” rinse repeat

[swfc]

3 minutes ago, Penguin16 said:

Has anyone lost faith in background signals a bit? I mean understand favourable signals can increase our chances of cold but too much credit is given to them. The amount of times they amount to S.F.A and then there’s excuses while it didn’t materialise and you have to factor in how small we are macro vs micro etc so why not factor that in to begin with then with your ramping predictions instead of after when it goes its up. Seems to be almost an annual occurrence. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “ I was wrong” rinse repeat

You do make some good points. Growing up from the 60s and witnessing some great wintry periods i guess forecasting then was shorterm. Nowadays ssw, easterly qbo etc give more direction in theory. Getting that into a reliable time frame is still a roll of the dice imo

[Methuselah]

12 minutes ago, Penguin16 said:

Has anyone lost faith in background signals a bit? I mean understand favourable signals can increase our chances of cold but too much credit is given to them. The amount of times they amount to S.F.A and then there’s excuses while it didn’t materialise and you have to factor in how small we are macro vs micro etc so why not factor that in to begin with then with your ramping predictions instead of after when it goes its up. Seems to be almost an annual occurrence. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “ I was wrong” rinse repeat

I haven't lost faith in the background signals, per se @Penguin16, but the usual rampers do sometimes get on my nerves. 

[KTtom]

4 hours ago, Methuselah said:

I haven't lost faith in the background signals, per se @Penguin16, but the usual rampers do sometimes get on my nerves. 

100% agree. There is absolutely no doubt telecommunications drive our weather..its obvious. The problem is finding someone who can put all the data into a credible forecast for the UK...currently we are still searching. As a poster said earlier, when things go wrong the get out clause from those who claim to know about these things  is we are a tiny island in the grand scope of things, so why dont the 'usual rampers' factor this issue in before going overboard in the 1st place ?

Edited January 20 by KTtom

[raz.org.rain]

5 hours ago, Penguin16 said:

Has anyone lost faith in background signals a bit? I mean understand favourable signals can increase our chances of cold but too much credit is given to them. The amount of times they amount to S.F.A and then there’s excuses while it didn’t materialise and you have to factor in how small we are macro vs micro etc so why not factor that in to begin with then with your ramping predictions instead of after when it goes its up. Seems to be almost an annual occurrence. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “ I was wrong” rinse repeat

It's why I'm less convinced that we'll see a repeat of previous analog years in response to ENSO changes, the global rhythm feels like it's erratic over the past few years. Not that the ENSO's link with Europe was ever that strong, particularly not in summer.

[baddie]

 

On 19/01/2024 at 17:56, Metwatch said:

30-31st March 2021, the best possible end to the first month of spring, but a shame rest of that spring went downhill from then.

This is the thing that worries me about getting warmth too early in spring, it may then end up turning colder or poor again such as the case in 2021. 2022 had a decent spell in March and the rest of the spring didn't seem too bad but I don't remember it that much. It was far from poor but wasn't anything spectacular.

Ideally i'd want the first proper warmth of spring around mid April ish, 2020 was perfect, and 2018 decent enough. 2019 the warmth began mid April too.

Looks like the Met Office models are predicting a cold first half to February and I feel like a cold first half to February always leads to a warm end to March. It happened in 2012 and 2021. If that was the case, then I would pray for an April 2021 repeat rather than the former. Cold, but sunny and dry

Edited January 20 by baddie

[raz.org.rain]

20 minutes ago, baddie said:

 

Looks like the Met Office models are predicting a cold first half to February and I feel like a cold first half to February always leads to a warm end to March. It happened in 2012 and 2021. If that was the case, then I would pray for an April 2021 repeat rather than the former. Cold, but sunny and dry

That'd be great, we're overdue a nice and warm March. My only issue is it supposedly results in a poorer summer.

[baddie]

2 hours ago, raz.org.rain said:

That'd be great, we're overdue a nice and warm March. My only issue is it supposedly results in a poorer summer.

March 2003 and 2022 were both very sunny and warmer than average, and still had a good April-August period (Though the Mays were meh)

Edited January 20 by baddie

[raz.org.rain]

18 minutes ago, baddie said:

March 2003 and 2022 were both very sunny and warmer than average, and still had a good April-August period (Though the Mays were meh)

Interesting, there's been a lot of mentions of 2003 as a good analog for this year, should be fun to see if that happens.

[baddie]

1 hour ago, raz.org.rain said:

Interesting, there's been a lot of mentions of 2003 as a good analog for this year, should be fun to see if that happens.

I fear it could be a 2013 analog (2023 resembling 2012), where March is dominated by cold and dull Easterlies and the rest of the Spring is poor, with June being cold too (Resembling an average May). The Autumn and December ends up very poor too, meaning only July and August are very good months

Edited January 21 by baddie

[raz.org.rain]

5 minutes ago, baddie said:

I fear it could be a 2013 analog (2023 resembling 2012), where March is dominated by cold and dull Easterlies and the rest of the Spring is poor, with June being cold too (Resembling an average May). The Autumn and December ends up very poor too, meaning only July and August are very good months

2013 has a somewhat great summer at least, we were treated to heatwaves after the appalling summers of the years before it.

 

edit: a year with only two decent months for warmth after a poor spring is 2023 all over!

Edited January 21 by raz.org.rain

[cheese]

4 hours ago, baddie said:

I fear it could be a 2013 analog (2023 resembling 2012), where March is dominated by cold and dull Easterlies and the rest of the Spring is poor, with June being cold too (Resembling an average May). The Autumn and December ends up very poor too, meaning only July and August are very good months

April 2013 was sunnier and drier than average at least, even though it was chilly (the entire first week of the month had lows below freezing here).

May 2013 sucked however - wet, cool and not particularly sunny.

A repeat of 2003 would be very good. Pretty much the entire April-October period that year was good or even great (October was cooler than average but very sunny and dry).

Edited January 21 by cheese

[Summer8906]

Returning to the UK today with absolutely appalling timing.

Looks like some appalling conditions in the next 2 weeks, with non stop zonality. Doesn't look like we'll get extreme rainfall, but other than that, utterly depressing.

The long spell of appalling weather we've endured for nearly 7 months now, broken by only two short 2-week spells (early Sep and the past 2 weeks) continues.

I suppose it's a case of grin and bear the next 4-6 weeks or so and hope spring is decent. This period of near-constant Atlantic domination with only short breaks has to end sometime - doesn't it? - though I fear we will have to wait until spring now, when blocking tends to happen as a matter of course. I guess it's too early to be certain about February but looking at the models it has shades of Feb 2022. However unlike 2022 we're getting a poor final third of January.

Hope the cold of the past two weeks has been enough to prevent ridiculously early appearance of spring flowers while it's still dark, dull and damp, as happened in 2016 and 2020, and potentially spoil spring.

Meanwhile here in Greece it was 18C and sunny on Friday... and now it's light snow with a thin covering. Proper interesting weather unlike the dreary rubbish that the GFS 00z is coming out with.

And of course being plunged back into darkness with the return of dark evenings and early sunsets; have been used to it going dark at around 5.30 here the past two weeks. It'll be like the end of October all over again...

I have been grateful to leave the dark evenings and damp weather of northwest Europe for the past 3.5 weeks and enjoy some time in a sunnier, drier (and snowier) climate, don't get me wrong - but it's always very depressing when you come back if the weather conditions are not good - and particularly depressing when you miss what could prove to be the only two decent weeks of the winter, and by far the best weather since mid-September. If only the weather patterns had occurred two weeks later and I had two weeks of dry, fine, crisp anticyclonic weather to look forward to...

Edited January 21 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

6 hours ago, baddie said:

I fear it could be a 2013 analog (2023 resembling 2012), where March is dominated by cold and dull Easterlies and the rest of the Spring is poor, with June being cold too (Resembling an average May). The Autumn and December ends up very poor too, meaning only July and August are very good months

Mind you the current setup and outlook is very unlike 2013; the "breakdown" that year, occurring on the 25th, lasted just a week and we were back to coldish and dry by early Feb.

An optimistic analogue could be 2022; as I said above the current pattern resembles what happened in 2022 but about 10 days earlier.

November 2013 was a decent month, predominantly dry and cold. September 2013 was a little meh but not terrible, and April 2013 had a good number of sunny days with seasonable temps in the second half. So there are arguably worse years!

Edited January 21 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

17 hours ago, Metwatch said:

South / south east Spain the place to be next week!

26c in Europe in January is a bit too extreme though - arguably a worrying sign of climate change.

10 hours ago, baddie said:

 

Looks like the Met Office models are predicting a cold first half to February and I feel like a cold first half to February always leads to a warm end to March. It happened in 2012 and 2021. If that was the case, then I would pray for an April 2021 repeat rather than the former. Cold, but sunny and dry

Not sure where this cold first half to Feb is coming from though, because the GFS seems to be suggesting the complete opposite - looks like a locked-in zonal pattern.

[Summer8906]

On 19/01/2024 at 12:20, Somerset girl said:

The winter is nearly over isn't correct as to my mind spring doesn't start until 19th March , not the first . Also we can have snow  in March as well as 18C so to say its all over is premature at best .

Given how dreary the typical southern English winter is, though, it's depressing to think of having to wait until March 19th. I'd prefer to think of 5-6 weeks of dismal conditions to come rather than 8-9!

With the dismal model output, thoughts turn to spring and it's better to think of it starting on March 1st, to preserve ones sanity!

Edited January 21 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

On 18/01/2024 at 19:22, AWD said:

I think you maybe a bit optimistic there.  We can but hope, but the current forecast looks more like the below;

There’s definitely looking likely to be a stormy finish to the weekend, and quite possibly another (albeit not so stormy for us) bout of wind around Tuesday/Wednesday.  Mild definetly, but I do expect a rather lot of cloud cover in between any rainfall, at least until towards the end of the week.

11C as a minimum in January  - warmer than some June nights. Obscene...

Edited January 21 by Summer8906

[RJBingham]

Looking benign for the foreseeable, a big chunk of what's left of winter ticked off   

[stainesbloke]

Beautiful and sunny but bitterly cold morning here in Czechia, down to -8°C overnight, currently -4°C with some laying snow. Looks like the  Atlantic crap will push in this week here too, with mild temperatures, wind and rain  

[SunnyG]

1 hour ago, RJBingham said:

Looking benign for the foreseeable, a big chunk of what's left of winter ticked off   

And not too rainy either. All praise the Bartlett High  

[Arch Stanton]

5 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

11C as a minimum in January  - warmer than some June nights. Obscene...

Agreed, and also with your other post which mentions the recent cold snap preventing early flowering in the garden.

The way I see it is that even when background signals are good, getting any sustained length of winter cold in NW Europe is highly unlikely, frankly impossible these days.

Whenever a cold spell like this one breaks down, or like the one in Dec 22,  its always replaced with a powerful & relentless barrage of zonality, sometimes, as was the case for the SE in Dec 22 for the remainder of the winter.

I remember winter Scandy highs from 30-40yrs ago bringing subzero temperatures and battleground snow to the SW many times, not any more, these days it’s all about the Bartlett High during winter months.

Cold & snow chasing for the UK, especially in the South is a hapless hobby these days, it’s quite depressing.

Anyway, roll on the clocks going forward and the spring time.

[Robin2012]

5 hours ago, RJBingham said:

Looking benign for the foreseeable, a big chunk of what's left of winter ticked off   

To me to you

[baddie]

9 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

Mind you the current setup and outlook is very unlike 2013; the "breakdown" that year, occurring on the 25th, lasted just a week and we were back to coldish and dry by early Feb.

An optimistic analogue could be 2022; as I said above the current pattern resembles what happened in 2022 but about 10 days earlier.

November 2013 was a decent month, predominantly dry and cold. September 2013 was a little meh but not terrible, and April 2013 had a good number of sunny days with seasonable temps in the second half. So there are arguably worse years!

A bit like 2006. It is remembered as a good year because of June/July and September, but it doesnt hide the fact we endured an awful Spring (especially March), a bad August and a boring Autumn

9 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

26c in Europe in January is a bit too extreme though - arguably a worrying sign of climate change.

Not sure where this cold first half to Feb is coming from though, because the GFS seems to be suggesting the complete opposite - looks like a locked-in zonal pattern.

Met Office models are predicting a cold period towards mid-month, or at least dry. I am seeing shades of Feb 2021 or Feb 2013

Edited January 21 by baddie