Rest of Europe
It was the perfect setup for an historic March day. An unusually strong anticyclone sandwiched between two cut off lows. The tight pressure gradient and orientation between the low off Morocco and high over the western Med drove a powerful southerly wind which transported hot west Saharan air north over Europe. 500mb height anomaly This […]
Not much write up required here. Quite the rollercoaster this week with taste of summer Monday-Tuesday but winter makes a return by Good Friday. You can see in the below GFS ensemble 5-day mean 500mb pattern the dramatic shift in the blocking high between day 1-5 and 6-10 with retreat from Europe to Greenland. 5-day […]
March 2021 has been a changeable month with flips between high and low pressure, mild and cool and with variable rainfall amounts and distribution. One of the most noteworthy aspects has been the cooling of the continent thanks to cold, continental air flowing west, southwest beneath a persistent area of high pressure often placed west […]
A strong ‘atmospheric boulder’ of high pressure positioned from Azores to Arctic created an atmospheric traffic jam over recent days and presented an unusual temperature profile. This highly amplified, omega block located west of Scotland forced subtropical air into the arctic circle and arctic air south back across Europe. Here was the 500mb setup back […]
The La Nina test (and perhaps in the broader sense the solar minimum) may well have passed a ‘relatively short term’ test when it comes to global temperature over the last 12 months… Here’s the 1st of 2 excerpts from my 2020-21 winter forecast issued early December 2020 Big test coming up La Nina As […]
The CFSv2 weeklies continue to show a blowtorch for Europe next 2-3 weeks, it simply sees ‘no cold’. Despite the +AO/NAO and ‘lack of winter’ now over Western Europe, there’s still plenty of residual cold floating within the mid latitudes in the wake of the strat warm. The CFSv2 (as usual) no longer sees any […]
With the AO heading for strong positive along with collisions of polar and tropical air over east Asia and North America, so we see extended zonal jets strengthening over both Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Goodbye arctic high pressure and hello the lows dancing around the pole! Check out the 969 low near the pole. Just […]
February 2021 was a wild, extreme and historic month with a one of the most abrupt mid-month flips on record. The UK among other European continents endured one of it’s greatest monthly temperature swings on record. From -23C to 18.4C within 2 weeks. That’s an impressive 41.4C. Despite a record to near record warm 2nd […]
Winter 2020-21 will likely go down as a cold winter overall for the Northern UK, Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, Mongolia and northern China. Warm across Southern Europe and perhaps Canada and even the USA despite the incoming cold now. For the UK, despite a warmer than normal December, January was coldest since 2010 (but by […]
Focus of heavy snowfall has shifted from Scotland to SE England this weekend as low pressure drops south and high pressure drifts east from Iceland to Scandinavia. The building high and south descending low opens the door to polar-continental air and it will only grow colder as we progress through the next 48 hours. Significant […]
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