Winter Arrives Early Over North, East Europe, Ridge Holds Firm In West

Written by on September 26, 2013 in Rest of Europe, United Kingdom & Ireland with 1 Comment

There is a large temperature spread across Europe these days with a highly amplified pattern bringing unusual late season warmth to Iberia with highs reaching the low 30s across northern parts of Spain but in stark contrast we’re seeing the first snows fall across Scandinavia as well as in cities such as Helsinki, Riga, Tallinn and down as far as Moscow over the past couple of days. Last night saw the coldest overnight lows yet with Sweden plummeting to -7.6C or 18F. There are countless tweets coming out of Scandinavia about how cold it’s gotten and the fact it’s only September.

Check out yesterday’s high temperatures and note the contrast between southern France and southern Sweden. While it was just as hot in the south of France today, it was even cooler in southern Scandinavia today so the contrast was even larger.

eurtx

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]

The reason for the unusual chill over Scandinavia and early snow is all thanks to a large low pressure system spinning east of Finland which is drawing arctic air from off the Arctic Ocean and pulling it south around the backside of the circulation. Moisture associated with the low is of course falling as snow.

Here’s the ECMWF surface/precip chart for late Thursday which shows the low responsible for both the cold and snow.

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

As for 5000ft temperatures, well this chart shows you just how cold the air is driving south over northern Europe today. Highs in central parts barely managed 0C and factor in a brisk northerly wind and it felt downright bitter. This air mass is more suited to late November while down across Iberia, it’s July-like.

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

As for here in the UK, we sit in a weather ‘no man’s land’ or basically in between the two extreme air masses.

While conditions should improve slightly across Norway, the chill shall remains over Sweden, Finland down into the Baltic nations as well as across western Russia. In fact, computer models remain persistent in bringing even colder air into eastern Europe early next week as a blocking high builds into Scandinavia. Yes, the cold will ease later this weekend into early next week over Norway and Sweden but it looks like Russia gets colder and more snow is likely.

Here’s the ECMWF chart for tomorrow and that’s one heck of a cold upper low spinning over northern Europe with arctic air cycling around it but compare it to early next week.

Tomorrow

Geopotential3250032hPa32and32Temperature32at3285032hPa_Europe_24

Tuesday

Geopotential3250032hPa32and32Temperature32at3285032hPa_Europe_120

Thursday

Geopotential3250032hPa32and32Temperature32at3285032hPa_Europe_168

Notice the cut off, blocking high parked over Scandinavia next Thursday which promotes much milder conditions from Norway to Finland, however, this is forcing even colder air straight from northern Siberia into western Russia and perhaps extending as far west as Poland. Notice heights are too strong between Iberia and the UK for any signs of this cold getting further west.

The ridge at the moment is too strong and perhaps a feedback from the abnormally warm waters extending from off Morocco up beyond the UK into the Norwegian Sea. Nonetheless we should pay close attention to what’s going on. The recent +AO has done a work in building cold air faster and stronger and now that it’s negative and released south, we can see even at this extremely premature stage, just how much punch the arctic air mass may have this upcoming winter.

Looking ahead through the next 10 days, the UK looks to stay in a firmly POSITIVE HEIGHT FIELD and so we remain relatively settled but I use the word ‘relative’ because heights are too strong that they keep fronts out but what they will do is likely keep any real cold at bay FOR NOW!

While I’m struggling to see any real cold over the next 2 weeks, we should watch the cold in the east carefully because I do think through October, heights will begin to lower over western parts of the continent and if there’s any cold around our parts of the hemisphere as heights lower, we may find ourselves all of a sudden, shivering.

I still believe this winter will have it’s share of bitter cold and plentiful snows. Yes, the ridge appears to be holding stubborn just now but through time, the pattern will shift as the season progresses and seasonal feedback kicks in proper. What’s important is that we watch what’s going on with the big early snows over the western US and Canada and the early taste of winter in northern and eastern Europe. This is nature’s way of showing us what we might face later down the road and right now, the pattern is telling me that we have plenty of winter coming up this year and the arctic atmosphere has well loaded, much more so than in recent years given how cold it is so early on.

As for the end of next week. The ECMWF shows a big and very cold upper low cutting off as it dives across Moscow and heads towards the Ukraine and SE Europe. Don’t be surprised if we see an accumulating snow next week in Moscow and perhaps as far south as Kiev.

Geopotential3250032hPa32and32Temperature32at3285032hPa_Europe_216

The Icelandic Met Office shows some very cold nights this upcoming weekend across Iceland.

Check out the projected lows Sunday morning over the eastern Central Highland region… That’s impressive for late September!

130926_0000_078

[/s2If][s2If is_user_logged_in() AND current_user_cannot(access_s2member_level1)]

That’s it, [s2Get constant=”S2MEMBER_CURRENT_USER_DISPLAY_NAME” /]!

To continue reading, you need to have a valid subscription to access premium content exclusive to members. Please join a subscription plan if you would like to continue.[/s2If][s2If !is_user_logged_in()]

Sign in to read the full forecast…

Not yet a member? Join today for unlimited access

Sign up to markvoganweather.com today to get unlimited access to Mark Vogan’s premium articles, video forecasts and expert analysis.
[/s2If]

Tags: , ,

Follow us

Connect with Mark Vogan on social media to get notified about new posts and for the latest weather updates.

Subscribe via RSS Feed Connect on YouTube

1 Reader Comment

Trackback URL Comments RSS Feed

  1. Julie Grey says:

    Mark an American psychic told me we wil have muggy rain for the winter here in Kerry!Being on the south west coast of Ireland you wouldnt need any powers to tell that!lol I just hope it wil be a bit dry,it can get very depressing here!

Leave a Reply

Top