Courtesy of Landscape Photography Magazine
Conditions are setting up nicely tonight through tomorrow for what could be a particularly cold night by October standards. How cold? Well, given the air mass of arctic origin blanketing the country tonight and establishing itself tomorrow, the -5 to -10C temperatures at 5,000 feet and how clear skies are likely to be tomorrow night following a cold day, IF winds are light enough, I could see widespread -3 to -6C readings across much of rural Scotland, extending into Northern England Friday night into Saturday which of course would produce a fairly hard frost with ice in places.
The Central Highlands and even the Southern Uplands may be the place to watch tomorrow night, it is tthese two hilly regions here where cold air drainage takes place. While any residual warmth generated by day quickly radiates back up to space at night, cold air gently pours down hillsides, collecting on valley floors and so the air grows increasingly colder with this process of warmth escaping through radiational cooling and cold air which is denser than the warmer air, falls down to the surface and collects. Lows may push -10C in a few sheltered Glens north and south of the Central Lowlands. A mid-winter level and that would certainly be impressive for this early.
The coldest ever in October for England is -10C, in Wales -9C, in Northern Ireland -7.2C and in Scotland -11.7C and I think it would take a lot to beat the lowest for Scotland but certainly if winds are light and skies clear, there is a chance at getting to -10C tomorrow night I believe.
AccuWeather Pro
As posted in recent days, Greenland has been brutally cold lately and two mornings ago, the low at Summit Camp in the heart of the icecap, hit -49C or -57F.
The temperature exactly 48 hours later (this morning) was up to -34C and continuing to rise as a ridge builds up from the south. These height rises over Greenland meaning warming temperatures which means the vortex gets displaced and forced south. Height rises over Greenland mean lower heights and temperatures for Scandinavia and here over the UK.
Last October saw the warmest day on record, Coldest is the theme this October…
What’s interesting is that back in July, we saw some rather unseasonably cold nights with a near frost is spots, in August, several spots from Caithness to Oxfordshire saw their coldest ever night for the month and in September there was some very cold readings too. This month will follow that trend.
What’s even more interesting is that these colder readings fall in line with the multi-month trend of a negative NAO.. Last autumn the trend was prodominantly positive and in October last year, the UK set a new monthly record high. During last winter the NAO was stubbornly positive too and this promoted record or near record highs. So could this be a sign of what’s ahead later down the road? Perhaps more near record cold next month and through this winter?
Below is a graphic explaining our current pattern setup with the tanking NAO.
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