It’s been a seemingly endless road of storminess for Ireland and the UK over the last 5 weeks with one flood alert and warning after another but that cycle is coming to an end and a lot of that is thanks to a shift in the upper height field and position of the cold on the other side of the hemisphere. When a shift takes places in one place, that shifts takes place down the road.

As it warms over North America, so the upper pattern shifts, allowing pressures to rise where they were lowest before. I.e, between Scotland and Iceland. As heights building NORTH of the UK between Greenland and Scandinavia with a weakening of the Icelandic low, so cold air gets pulled into Europe and thanks to the SST profile, I don’t believe there will be any threat of a lingering Azores high which holds back the cold from reaching the UK. It could be a stepping down process. Modelling is having problems, first with a turn to much colder, now not so much but in today’s post I will attempt to show you why I believe the earlier, colder solutions without appearing bias without evidence.

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With the trans-Atlantic jet stream weakening and crucially the AO ‘negative’ with the polar vortex staying off it’s default position (pole), so the cold should shift and enter Europe but as stated already, the models are having difficulty with the positioning of the ridge-trough.

As we enter the heart of winter, we should see more ocean to atmosphere feedback now that the Atlantic is loosing it’s STRONG ZONAL FLOW. The strongest positives (heights) should go to where water’s are warmest and lowest heights to where water’s are coolest. See charts (below) and just look at the striking similarity between now and this time back in 2010.

Modelling is having difficulty with next week’s solution as it’s went from a turn to much colder with positives to the north of the UK, back to Atlantic dominance with strongest heights EAST over the continent, however I’m struggling to buy that. Tough forecasting for sure.

I found it interesting, the somewhat close correlation in this past 5 week pattern, hemispherically to that of 1994. The recent arctic blast which hit the US was in many respects the worst since 1994. Many temperatures recorded in the last 7 days were seen to be ‘worst since ’94, yet on this side of the pond, Wales saw it’s wettest December since ’94. While there should be plenty more winter for the US this year, like we saw back in ’94 for the US, the UK also went from soaking to freezing that year.

Below is a look at the latest runs of the ECMWF Deterministic, GFS operational and the ECM Control. The control holds Atl low pressure further west and south while deterministic and GFS keeps the low OVER the UK, keeping the cold easterlies east of the UK.

These charts look at the period between next Wed and Sat.

ECMWF (Deterministic)

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GFS has a warmer look with the Atlantic (low pressure) dominated.

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ECMWF (Control) has the coldest of the solutions for UK with low pressure held further west allowing easterlies to reach the UK.

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Check out the similarity in water temps between now and this time back in 2010 which as you well know was the benchmark cold winter of recent times. The reason for the slower start despite similarity in the North Atlantic? Look at the Pacific temperature profile currently compared to 2010. It’s different with significant warmth over the Gulf of Alaska. This year’s Pacific profile has supported COLDER early on over North America while it was more evenly spread back in early 2009-10. With that focus of cold early over NA, that lead to the continuation of an already stormy pattern during November here and as the cold intensified over NA, so the storminess did here, delaying the development of blocking compared to it’s commencement back in mid-December 2009 when it wasn’t as cold over North America in December 2009. Given the classic Atlantic tripole of warm-cold-warm currently and the warming and shift from cold to warm over North America, I believe we will start going towards the late December 2009 into January 2010 pattern now…

Jan 7, 2010

Jan 9, 2014

I’ve followed Joe Bastardi for years and learned a lot of what I know today, through him. He stated that the ocean-atmosphere feedback often only truly kicks in once we head into the heart of winter onwards and we are now doing that.

I expect heights to start building from Greenland to Scandinavia but the cold air has to enter Europe and it’s definitely going to do so over the next 5 days.

I still think the modelling has too much low pressure over the northeast Atlantic and that Scandinavia right should back west out over the Norwegian Sea where those warmest SST values are.

So, let’s wait and see as the newer model runs come in. Will it prove me right or wrong. Either way I have shown you reasons to back up my colder theory and why we shouldn’t right off this winter and also why we shouldn’t simply buy into the models which btw have had issues over North America. The ECMWF had a warm winter over North America and that certainly hasn’t been the case so far.

The type of pattern, SST profile in the Pacific and Atlantic, low solar and strat temps supports further cold blasts into the US.

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Tags: cold, europe snow, europe weather