The weather winter 16/17

Gach Rud Eile
#1

Very unusual benign weather all autumn so far, and it’s set to continue on into November for the foreseeable. I can’t remember an Autumn without one Atlantic storm. Even the last hurricane unusually travelled up into Greenland as opposed to us. Bizarre.

Meteorological winter starts in December, but I think we’ll have some colder weather starting midweek this week. There are signs that a Greenland High Pressure cell will set in. If it does, and if it settles, we will most likely have some much colder weather to deal with, and potential for some wintery showers. Too difficult to tell at this range, but I will monitor the models and keep you all in the loop!

Moral of the story… buy rock salt now!

#2

Will there be a white Christmas, Father?

#3

Thought green & red are the trad Xmas favors? :slight_smile:

It’ll be lonely this Christmas…

…if you only want a white Xmas and are in Uganda.

#4

Looking like after this current cold spell passes, we’ll have some windier and slightly milder weather to deal with. I’m fairly confident however, that we will go colder again in the last week of November and into December. Quite how cold and if it will snow is too far away to hazard a guess, but as always, get the cold air entrenched, and you’ll have a chance of snow!

More anon.

Al, have you seen how disjointed the Polar Vortex is for this time of year? Bizarre!

#5

It’s been a really unusual pattern for the time of year, especially into november. Is it starting to change though? Typically november and December are very Greenland vortex-dominated, with lots of Atlantic wind & rain for here.
If the current set-up holds it will mean further cold-snaps in the coming weeks, with the potential for more serious cold by the end of December/early january.

Whatever happens, there shirley can’t be a third winter in a row of intense cold for weeks in North-America & eastern Canada, while we bathe in endless boring mild mush, can there? In the good old days twas said that ‘what they have in the northeast of North America will come to Europe after a couple of weeks’. Not true anymore!

Seems like the modern climate ‘wave’ or ‘bell’ shaped upper atmospheric pattern I’ve read about that means alternating cold & warm in one relatively small part of the hemisphere is holding true. In the past if cold was coming to the northern hemisphere it would hit a large swathe, from North America across to Europe & Western Russia. Hence winters like 46/47, 62/63, 1978/79, 81/82, 84/85.

Not since winter 86/87 have we had a serious spell of bitter easterly winds here. That’s 30 years! The cold winters of the start of this decade came purely from the north.

The current set-up has both Greenland region & Scandinavian heights, but the forecasts are predicting heights falling. Long-range suggests the vortex might start to move to Scandinavia which could bring very cold northerlies here but experience tells me that the current no-mans land of us between Greenland, Scandinavian heights & Azores ridge will continue more or less, with ongoing tease forecasts of easterly & northerly blasts taking over.

The outcome is usually watered down, somewhere between, that’s the pattern for a while now, so why change? Most of the forecasts show it. If the Scandi high sinks south then we badly need the Azores high to move north, northwest.

Ahh, scratch all that though, november looks like it has woken up now, forecasts all showing decline of all except Azores heights and vortex setting up in typical spot to bring us our late autumnal and early winter Atlantic gruel

#6

That’s not really true though Al, it’s not what you would call a forecasted strong vortex. There are plenty of poleward heights forecast and a lot of the 10 days plus (I know, I know) showing patterns of heights to our NW and Iberian lows. The anomaly heights charts make very interesting viewing.

Have you read Stewart’s (Glacier point) thoughts on netweather? His record is exceptional on 4-8-12 week seasonal forecasting.

#7

Haven’t followed it so far this year because of the let-downs of the last three years. I’ll be tempted in sooner or later though!

#8

You won’t be disappointed!

#9

Cold snap later this week, after some seriously mild weather the next two days, up to 16 degrees in places, most likely Dublin area. The Azores ridge is tilting and retrogressing northwest, temporarily, allowing a deepening trough between us and Greenland to introduce a strong polar-maritime airflow from the northwest by Thursday, with heavy blustery showers, turning wintery later, the worst in the west and north.

Arctic heights declining still though, it appears, so the cold will not really be maintained, or get colder, and the 2nd half of the month looks like becoming fairly wet & non-descript in terms of a pattern. We might get some fairly stormy weather, at last but only very sporadic. About a week from now is one possibility of that.

With the Jet stream weakish, disrupted, & moving south, and the vortex still split & moved, it’s one of those situations where cold could really come to these shores but the lack of persistent, strong arctic heights, and with the Scandi/Northwest Russian high receding, means we will stay in middle-of the road stuff.

We may end up with a mid-latitude high to our northwest/north, sinking over us to bring frosty nights and chilly days.

#10

Well Rochey your forecast was right, cold spell setting in well, heavy wintery showers today with the wind getting up again after the morning rain, which will make it feel really cold today and into tomorrow. The higher northern hills will have white tops by tomorrow I’d say. Not many more beautiful sights than the brown/gold/copper Irish mountains with snow.

After tomorrow the wind drops off but it’ll still be cold over the weekend with increasing frost, and no doubt some ice after all the heavy showers. Into early next week and some weather systems moving north or northeast into Britain look like they might side-swipe the east/southeast of Ireland a bit, at least producing a freshening northeast wind and maybe some showers or even rain, with snow on the Wicklow mountains. It will feel bitter on the east coast.

So could be good evening for a walk on the long pier at Howth, white tops at sea, and high tide waves breaking across the pier. Nice!

If this chart comes off (5 days away, so it’s somewhat possible) Britain will have floods and the east here will be very cold:

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=euro&MODELL=gfs&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=prec&HH=120&ZOOM=0&ARCHIV=0&RES=0&WMO=&PERIOD=

#11

Snow falling in town already!!!:snowflake:

#12

Snowing East Point.

#13

And then it decided to go the way of many dull winters past. All the indications are for a prolonged spell of mild weather with a very middle Europe blocking pattern. Some chilly, frosty weather this week but mild all the way after that. Possibly remaining dry for the most part.

#14

Reliable timeframe shows us under a large HP cell keeping us dry, some days bright, some with lingering fog and overcast, but all the while on the cold side of normal with some harsh night frosts.

Long term, now that’s the tough one. I’m going against you here Al, I am opting for an arctic flow from a Greenland high pressure, with conditions conducive to snow nearer 2nd half of December. I’m quite confident of it really.

#15

Yes, I get you …

1 Like
#16

Awaiting further instructions on the Rock salt Herr Rochey:)

#17

Beyond 7 days impossible to know anything in weather, some people are fairly good at general patterns/trends over longer time-frames. What happens weatherwise on a smaller regional basis, from larger patterns is the really hard bit. There were some indications that a Greenland area high and a vortex near Scandinavia would bring us cold northerlies but the pattern recently has spent most of the time with middle-latitude slow-moving high pressure blocking most chance of incursions and any retrogresssion has not been strong enough to bring the northerlies down, except very briefly.

Trend currently is that by the weekend the block will have shifted orientation to bring milder air to us and it’s not at all uncommon for that sort of block to sit over middle Europe for long periods. One thing that’s clear is the Vortex seems to be staying dislocated and weak, which is usually a sign of patterns that produce cold here in winter. However other factors are not really falling into place for that to happen, yet.

Overall it’s starting to look more like this region being in a mild bulge/bell between two cold flows down the sides of the ‘bell’, again not dissimilar to the last few years in many ways. Cold highs will tend to sit over the continent, and the western Atlantic tends to get long spells of cold air flowing out of Canada and Greenland. We need a strong high between Greenland & Scandinavia, or at least a strong vortex over Scandinavia. I’m not sure if it isn’t warmer sea temperatures between Greenland & Scandi, and/or loss of ice from and around Greenland that has prevented these sort of patterns happening except very rarely (2010 & 11, previous to that a long time ago.)

We need a shift, not a huge one mind. At the moment, based on previous years, the shift needs to come from the west, as to the east looks locked and tends only rarely to move west. SO though it wouldn’t take a big shift distance wise, it could be just out of reach for weeks on end, as so often before.

#18

Not really Al. There are only a handful of the GEFS runs, maybe 2 or 3 that show the Euro high remaining to the end of the run. I sincerely think we’ll start to see the op runs of GFS start to throw up some snowmageddon runs soon, and with time ECM will follow. There is a distinct feel of 2010 about the background noises some of the more experienced LRF people are discussing on netweather.

One thing for sure, it has been one very strange experience this Autumn. Where are our Atlantic storms? Think we had one, and it was mild enough. Even the lone hurricane this year went up to Greenland in September (I think) instead of driving across us as per usual.

I’d say come back to the charts in 5-7 days Al, and we can discuss this some more?

#19

Using DM or PM is far more secure … :smirk:

#20

You need to work on your irony.

1 Like