Increasing warmth and humidity beneath a vigorous upper low, the same which produced the worst flooding in Serbia and Bosnia history, generated strong to severe thunderstorms over parts of Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Romania yesterday.
Over 13,000 lightning strikes within 24 hours, 6,000 in an afternoon alone struck Ukraine.
Note the large amount of strikes over eastern Morocco and Algeria also, thanks to an upper low overhead.
The severe storms over Ukraine also produced large and damaging hail.
Here’s the upper setup which brought the severe eastern storminess and warmth to the west.
850mb temperature profile
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Warmth peaks today over the Southeast UK as this week’s game changing front begins to sink south. Why does it warm further ahead of an approaching front? Winds from the SW (warm source) accelerate. Rather than 23C yesterday, London and surrounding areas should hit 25C this afternoon.
Peak heating should come to the near continent (Low Countries, Denmark) tomorrow while the front progresses south over the UK.
As the main trough drops from Iceland, an unusually deep upper low forms and positions itself just off Portugal by mid week. In response, an unusually powerful upper level ridge on the opposite end of the ledger becomes anchored over northwest Russia. Temperatures should top 32C in Moscow and as far north as St Petersburg. The models have done a terrific job spotting this some 10 days ago.
While hot in the northeast, the southwest can expect plenty of showers and thunderstorms, potentially strong over Iberia where the core of the upper low is nearby. This downpours and storms up run north up through France, perhaps the UK along the near stationary boundary.
Here’s a look at the 500mb and surface charts through this week showing the progression south of the low responsive powerhouse ridge.
ECMWF 500mb at 3 hrs
Surface 3 hrs
500mb 72 hrs
Surface 72 hrs
850mb temperature profile at 72 hrs
Just look at how anomalous this SW trough/northeast ridge is. Impressive.
The NAO is currently positive hence the Atlantic trough/W Europe high but it goes back negative as the trough sinks south this week. Notice that it’s poised to go back positive, perhaps next week into the early following week which takes us towards June 1.
Here was the 7-day precip for last week.
Here’s the upcoming 7 days.
Though not as extreme as what we saw over the Balkans, thankfully, we have the focus between the UK and Iberia though I do think flash flooding could be triggered over parts of Spain, Portugal and France with this setup.
Notice there’s NO precip beneath the core of the ridge.
The GFS ensemble is sniffing out a WESTWARD progression of the ridge through next week into the following week with the break down of the trough just off Iberia. Is the model seeing the +NAO returning? Quite possible. I think warmth and humidity increases later next week into the weekend over the near continent and UK with high pressure placed back over the west in the 7-14 day.
7-14
14-16
This return of the ridge further west late month into June bodes well with longer range ideas and fits with the latest CFSv2 idea I put up for you yesterday. The CFSv2 either slows down progressive nature of this pattern (makes sense) or it has the trough returning, only to be replaced by another ridge soon after, in order for it to be a warmer, drier than normal month.
June temps
Precip
Be sure to watch today’s video. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
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