Media ‘Heatwave’ Hype & Thoughts On Europe Winter…

Written by on August 8, 2013 in United Kingdom & Ireland with 1 Comment

Ireland, UK and really much of western Europe is now firmly stuck is a benign summer endgame pattern through next week and beyond. We’ve seen quite the shift in height field from mid to late July with lower pressure tending to hang over the above normal SST’s now and as the cool starts to build further north, the combination of those warm waters surrounding the UK (caused by the heat last month) and the progression of season, means lowering pressures with effect on jet orientation and strength.

One must keep in mind that our atmosphere naturally changes with the season and with much warmer than normal surrounding waters and the fact it’s 30-40 days on, means change. With our very setup right now, the strongest heights tend to shift east into central and eastern Europe like we see now. I suspect that mid to late next week, we’ll see a mainly zonal or west to east flow across much of Europe with heat possibly lingering up into Poland and Russia as well as confined to the Med.

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You’ll notice the predominantly westerly air flow well into next week which will eventually slash heights across Europe too. Warm and sunny days here and there yes but no means is it a particularly wet pattern either but more progressive. It’s a classic late summer setup.

I was rather surprised to hear reports on Radio 4 this morning that our ‘heatwave’ was supposedly set to return. I thought, am I missing something? The fact is, there’s no indication that heatwave conditions like we saw last month is coming back. Our atmosphere has altered course and will continue to evolve as we head towards autumn and the jet stream begins to strengthen once again as cold starts to build and expand to the north.

This article in today’s Daily Mail is utter nonsense. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/420486/Scorching-new-heatwave-to-hit-UK-and-the-hottest-day-of-the-year-is-STILL-yet-to-come

We have an area of rain sweeping across Ireland today and the UK overnight tonight but it’s not a big deal and should be largely clear by mid morning with sunshine and showers to follow. Saturday looks like a decent day with fewer showers and more sun but by Sunday another system pushes in bringing potentially a spell of wetter weather. As we progress through next week, embedded pulses of wet weather are set to push across Ireland and the UK from off the Atlantic and temperatures should be around average for this time of year.

The ECMWF total precip chart shows the projected rain over the next 120 hours.

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Notice western areas capture most of the rainfall as you’d expect with a westerly flow straight off the Atlantic.

Recent US posts have looked at the upcoming Autumn and Winter and while there is little guidance in the CFSv2 for Western Europe, there are hints within these model runs at what we may have in store too.

Firstly, below are the water temperature anomalies globally as of Aug 5th. Look at how warm they are compared to normal across the North. This straight away may help lead to stronger high latitude blocking and stratospheric warming events this upcoming winter IF waters remain considerably warmer than normal through autumn. High latitude blocking can lead to dumping of arctic air into the mid-latitudes (where we live).

anomnight_8_5_2013

Check out these projected water temperatures for December via to CFSv2.

glbSSTMonInd5

I want you to pay attention to the water temperature profile over the North Atlantic (just south of Greenland). That ‘warm-cold-warm’ set up can support a Greenland blocking high which allows the arctic air that comes south to drop into both western Europe as well as eastern North America.

Here’s the forecasted temperatures over the arctic for the Dec through Feb period. The warmer than normal over Greenland more or less suggests that the model is seeing the Greenland high which bodes well for winter weather over the UK/Ireland and western Europe.

arT2mSeaInd5

I continue to work on my autumn forecast which I hope to release in the next couple of weeks but although this is just one long range forecast, I can see where it’s coming from. We must consider many aspects including the status of the ENSO index, solar activity, summer arctic sea ice melt, autumn rainfall distribution, the trend in the summer and autumn NAO, AO, PNA etc.

Check out this graph which shows the arctic sea ice level which is low yes but considerably more extensive compared to last summer and back in 2007.

ssmi1_ice_area

Check this out.. the CFS for January!

45634_419306844853793_745712343_n

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  1. perry says:

    Cold by the looks of things then

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