New UK January and Scotland winter temperature record

[Summer8906]

A great shame IMO it fell due to a foehn effect, and not a rare combination of very mild and very sunny of the Jan 27th 2003 type. The latter type is more "worthy" of the record IMO.

[Methuselah]

  :   @Summer8906: No, I don't think so; the all-time maximum temperature is what it is -- the 2003 event was also down to the Foehn effect.

[Summer8906]

  @Methuselah Ah ok, I thought 2003 was just down to the mild/sunny combination which I recall being distinctly unusual for January.

[Derecho]

  @Summer8906 That was also caused by the foehn effect with the record temperature in eastern Scotland at Aboyne. The wind that day was from the west.

[Summer8906]

  @Derecho OK thanks, for some reason I recall a southerly but looks like I got that wrong!

[Metwatch]

13C at almost 850hpa at 11:00 further south from Camborne Ascent Cornwall, about as high as it gets for January! freezing level 3200m.

 

[Geordiesnow]

  @WYorksWeather

I think the issue for me and it's one climate deniers will argue is that this is a localised temperature anomaly aided by natural factors(fohen affect) and it does not truly reflect on what the temperatures were really like on the day itself(think for most areas temperatures ended up slightly lower than forecast).

However one thing climate deniers can't argue is the temperatures at 850 level are very high for a continental airmass with high thicknesses over Spain recently and you can't help but feel this is a warning sign of things to come over the med.

[WYorksWeather]

Foehn effect temperatures are just as 'valid' as any other record, e.g. a cold minimum under the snowfields of Braemar in mid-winter probably doesn't represent much outside of its immediate environment, but it's still countable.

It still raises an interesting question, though. What's the most 'widespread' mild day in winter? Probably a bit subjective depending on how you define widespread, but have there been any days that have seen e.g. 17-18C or above recorded across a significant region of the country? Say 20-30 stations or more?

[Derecho]

  @raz.org.rain The thing is, prolonged phases above 30C are more likely to be prolonged days of anticyclonic weather with temps of 31-33C typical.

The hottest days are often plumey now and this heat intensifies the temperature gradient between the oceans and continent.

That in turn often fires up the Atlantic which explains the transient nature of the most intense heatwaves.

However at some point I do think there could be a plume that does bring heat to the UK and gets stuck. That would be exceptional and also very unpleasant.

In a warming climate I would still expect that synoptic to be very difficult to achieve.

Edited January 28 by Derecho

[Snowandrocks]

Absolutely not a climate denier (as much as I dislike that term) but it is interesting just how localised the hot spot was today. When I saw the temperature online this afternoon I messaged a friend on Skye (just across the water, maybe 30 miles away) to ask if he was sunbathing. I got a slightly confused reply to say that it was 8 degrees and blowing a gale!

 

[WYorksWeather]

1 minute ago, Geordiesnow said:

I think the issue for me and it's one climate deniers will argue is that this is a localised temperature anomaly aided by natural factors(fohen affect) and it does not truly reflect on what the temperatures were really like on the day itself(think for most areas temperatures ended up slightly lower than forecast).

However one thing climate deniers can't argue is the temperatures at 850 level are very high for a continental airmass with high thicknesses over Spain recently and you can't help but feel this is a warning sign of things to come over the med.

To be fair, though, that logic applies to every single record that is set. There is nearly always some sort of extreme natural factor required to produce a record. The point is that we've seen other days with similar natural factors, but in the past they recorded lower temperatures.

For example, a simulation of the 19th July 2022 showed that instead of 40.3C, we might have seen 36-37C on that day with the same pattern in pre-industrial times. The same is true today - you'd still have seen a very extreme Foehn effect temperature, but it might have reached say 17-18C rather than 19C.

The other aspect is the sort of expectation creeping we see. For example, it no longer feels notable across most of England to have a day in winter reach double figures. That has become much more common. Same happens in summer. Only around 50% of years in the 20th century saw an annual max above 32C. Now, that feels like the absolute minimum you'd expect. The modern equivalent is probably near 35C.

Another brilliant contextual record - 36C happened in only three years in the entire 20th century. We've now seen it in six years this century, or about a quarter of all years. So again, what once required an absolutely remarkable, once-in-a-generation level heatwave to achieve that, and only in an odd isolated spot, is now just a fairly standard hot summer.

4 minutes ago, Derecho said:

The thing is, prolonged phases above 30C are more likely to be prolonged days of anticyclonic weather with temps of 31-33C typical.

The hottest days are often plumey now and this heat intensifies the temperature gradient between the oceans and continent.

That in turn often fires up the Atlantic which explains the transient nature of the most intense heatwaves.

However at some point I do think there could be a plume that does bring heat to the UK and gets stuck. That would be exceptional and also very unpleasant.

In a warming climate I would still expect that synoptic to be very difficult to achieve.

The September 2023 heatwave was a little bit like that, in a way. The heat got stuck for a whole week, and we had seven consecutive days above 30C. The exact same synoptic in mid-July could have delivered, say, seven consecutive days over 35C, surely?

[Derecho]

  @WYorksWeather  Could well have done, the forcing behind the build of any pressure to our east would have to overwhelm any Atlantic push. It's definitely possible. I find the long heatwaves are often the most uncomfortable. For me August 2020s heatwave felt a lot worse then July 2022 because he had 32C+ for about 6 consecutive days I think.

I like to make educated guesses into how hot things might get in the future but I think we will continue to see surprises.

[WYorksWeather]

1 minute ago, Derecho said:

I like to make educated guesses into how hot things might get in the future but I think we will continue to see surprises.

On that, you're certainly right. I was following the possibility of date records for the last couple of weeks, and correctly picked up the period between 22nd-24th January. I'm also keeping an eye on the 1st-3rd February. But this one came out of nowhere. I don't think there was a single model that had a spot maxima above 13-14C today, unless something came out very late last night or overnight. Usually to see 19C I'd have expected to see at least 16-17C on one of the models in their raw output.

[Metwatch]

23 minutes ago, Derecho said:

However at some point I do think there could be a plume that does bring heat to the UK and gets stuck. That would be exceptional and also very unpleasant.

September 2023 was pretty much an extended plume with the high pressure to our east taking a while to shift, and bring colder air in from the west. Cut-off low stuck to the west of Iberia as well. Had it happened 4-6 weeks earlier and it may have topped August 2003 for both intensity and duration of heat. That cut off low was the remnants of Hurricane Franklin and phased with another low over Iberia. I would say the reason that would be much more difficult in peak summer is that the Atlantic hurricane season is much quieter.

Edited January 28 by Metwatch

[Methuselah]

Some folks might not like it, but a record is a record is a record. 

[Scuba steve]

  @Methuselah unless it’s a CD

[Metwatch]

I'll be the first to say it. The hottest temperature this year will probably be in May

Only happened 3 times in modern records; 1922, 1944, 1965. It's got to happen again at some point!

[MattStoke]

  @Metwatch Well last year June and September were warmer than July and August. Very unusual.

[raz.org.rain]

  @Metwatch my thoughts are that May and July will be notably dry and hot, June and August will see a lot of hot weather but with a lot of thunderstorms too. 

[Scorcher]

  @WYorksWeather If we're talking about the whole winter there's a clear winner of the most widespread warm day in winter- February 26th 2019. Widely in the high teens and above 20C in a number of places.

[Daniel*]

  @WYorksWeather  I don’t completely agree while they are valid the unpredictable and sparse nature of these foehn records can be more easily blown away than low level sites. Perhaps in past we underachieved? 

[Methuselah]

It was one teacher, Alan Lakin, that taught me about means and such (1966). So, thank you, Mr Lakin, I owe you so much! 

[hillbilly]

  @Methuselah That might have been me!

[Methuselah]

  @hillbilly: Really? Where did you teach?

[hillbilly]

  @Metwatch Just to note that in 1965 the hottest day of the year in Whitby was in March which remains the National March record high!

Edited January 28 by hillbilly