We all know the first cold spell of the season is on the way with brisk, wintry days and cold, frosty nights but I believe this coming cold will play a much greater role for later down the road. The … it’s important to look beyond the coming pattern shift as this may tell us more about the longer term pattern.

Firstly, here the 15z GFS surface temperatures each afternoon Monday through Wednesday.

Mon

Tue

Wed

It’s very clear to see that each day is colder than the last. Hope you enjoyed today’s mild temps across Scotland and Northern Ireland. It will be a while before we see double figures again.

Check out the latest GFS 144 hour snow chart.

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I think the white’s could potentially represent snow in the air while blue is potential snow cover. Many hills beyond 800ft could see accumulating snow this week.

Next Week’s Cold Could Be Crucial For The Longer Term!

MANY aspects including warm SST’s over the arctic and N Pacific/N Atlantic, low solar etc point to a winter heavily influenced by northern blocking and we here in the UK, Ireland and Western Europe are about to experience the first block which will set up to our WEST allowing arctic air in for the first time this season. However, while many will focus on the cold and possible snow, I want you to look beyond this and see what important influence this may very well have on the winter itself. Keep in mind that this is still the development stage and a vital time in the intricate ‘seeding’ period to the upcoming winter.

I have made several mentions now about the importance of shifting the warmest SST’s compared to normal AWAY from the UK and this, in theory, should also shift the blocking high.

Below is the global SST anomalies as of the 14th and you can see the ribbon of cold extending east from Newfoundland while patches of colder than normal water is now showing around the UK.

2009 was a benchmark cold winter for both Western Europe and eastern North America and notice the similarity to around this time back in 2009 over the North Atlantic to now.

Here was water temperatures by Christmas Eve and you can see the cold has extended all the way to the UK.

As stated in previous posts, that warm-cold-warm is the classic North Atlantic tripole in which a Greenland block is favoured. The very warm bubble that should help draw arctic air our way this winter.

In theory, next week’s cold should help further cool the surrounding waters around the UK which in turn should encourage cold further west over the continent while the warmest waters focus aid high pressure feedback further west.

Check out the water temperatures around December 5th, 2011 which ended up producing one of the warmest Christmases on record.

Notice the warm waters around the UK. If you recall, the ridge held much of the winter close by and thus the cold remained  to the east over Europe.

Another likely significant player in the warm winter for the US and UK was the solar influence.

Notice the tanking around 2009-10 while since then there has been a trend towards the current maximum of cycle 24. I guess the one fly in the ointment to this winter with regard to solar and temperature is that we’re hovering on a maximum but I believe that ‘peak’ occurred in 2011-12.

I also believe the second year strong La Nina with the same type of water temperature profile, can have the opposite to a first year Nina and so this may have helped keep North America and the UK mostly warm that winter.

Now I want to draw your attention back to SST’s and specifically to the equatorial Pacific. Notice the warm waters over the CENTRAL Pacific in 2009 and look at the below projected water temperatures during this upcoming winter!

Very similar. Warm waters indicate a potential weak, central Pacific based El Nino or warm La Nada which supports a colder North America and Europe winter aside from the likely blocking via the North Atlantic water temperature profile.

The NAO/AO trend is looking good, so too is the much greater arctic sea ice compared with any year since 2009. Yes, there’s 2009 showing up again…

 

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Tags: europe winter, europe winter forecast 2013-14