>Well as we continue on the mild side of things, all i’ll say is this.. enjoy it while you still can because sometime between Jan 25 and Feb 5 the cold air will return and may last the first half of Feb for us here in Scotland and perhaps until March for the US (East of the Rockies).

We’re in a positive Arctic Oscillation and thats allowing the storm machine to crank into high gear with massive influence on the American West Coast and is bringing major weather headlines cross-country.

For us here it’s all about the rain showers, breezes, the odd frosty night and the odd wet, windy night as another Atlantic storm drives through.

The Arctic Oscillation for those of you wanting to know more is all about a positive which basically means containing and holding the cold air over the polar region, therefore bundling all this cold will allow it to mature and intensify. Between Dec 15 through Jan 10 we saw cold, snowy weather here and that was when the Arctic Oscillation was negative which meant all that bottled up cold air drove southward into our latitude. With this upper-atmospheric pattern Europe, East Asia and the USA saw a brutal period not experienced since the 1970s.

What bagged a brutal cold period for us Scots was a negative North Atlantic Oscillation. When that is positive (like it is now) we see an open door to Atlantic low pressure systems barraging us with wind whipped rains and persistent waves of storminess. The Atlantic jet stream hurtles a continuous train of oceanic storm systems west to east across the US and southern Canada, across the open Atlantic where they often intensify over the relatively warmer ocean waters before slamming us. Recent winters with warmer North Atlantic waters to what we have seen this year produced stronger storms (1990s and early to mid-2000s saw some of the worst gales to hit Britain in 50 to 100 years, thanks to warmer N. Atlantic ocean). When it’s negative however (like it was during the cold spell) a ridge of High Pressure forms or builds over Greenland and therefore the push “north” of the jet stream and thanks to this warm pool (high pressure) over Greenland, this therefore pulls all the cold air south into Britain and Europe as well as down into eastern North America. It’s fairly simple, when warm air replaces cold air, cold that’s normally over frigid Greenland, that cold air must go somewhere else, it doesn’t just dissappear, so therefore an atmospheric air mass conteraction takes place.

Like a stone in a stream, the water (cold air) detours around the “blocking high”.

So, combine a negative AO (release of Arctic air south and out from the pole, which is the source region of the severely cold air) and a negative NAO (High over Greeland) this is two main components as to why we saw bitter cold. Well they set the atmosphere up, but in order to drive cold air south towards us, there must be enough cold available to tap into…

Other aspects that must be considered is also how much cold air there is available over the pole to start with, we have seen in the past 20 to 30 years “warmth” and even when the atmosphere has engaged in the right format for colder weather here, it has at times been nothing because there wasn’t enough severity or coverage of cold in the first place to bring it south. This winter so far and the pattern we have just seen, to me, points to an overall cooling world and rebuilding of the Arctic Ocean Ice.

El Nino is another major player as well as solar activity. Weak to Moderate El Ninos are well known for producing cooler NW Europe and UK winters. As for the solar cycles, well the lowest activity on the sun in 75 to 100 years may have also proven to be a big factor. It is well known that looking at quieter times on the sun, less sunspots and surface activity for a long period of time, conteracts to cooler global temperature. This colelates extremely accurately with each other. When it’s been active to very active, we have seen warmer times here on earth and with prolonged quiet times, the earth has cooled. During the 60s and 70s, the sun saw quiet solar cycles, what worries me a lot is we’re entering a DEEPER period of quiet on the sun not seen in at least 75 years and we may be entering the lowest activity since the late 1800s, which by the way was during the very worst winters in Britain. Which saw even worse winters than in the 60s and 70s….

So combining all these aspects and merging them all together with negative AO and NAO’s flipping from positive to negative right in the heart of winter, well that’s a one in 30 to 50 year event all in itself.

For me, I believe it is my duty as well as passion and enjoyment to inform you of what I believe to be happening both in the near and long term.. Winters will grow worse and will likely continue for the next 30 years ahead.

I shall talk more on this later..

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to comment below or email me at [email protected]

Thanks for reading.
-Mark