>18 April, 2011

Written by Mark Vogan on April 18, 2011 in Rest of Europe with 0 Comments

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TODAY’S TOP WEATHER STORIES
On Weather & Climate Through the Eyes of Mark Vogan

Fires burn across Texas with no end in sight
CNN

Hard-hit areas of South in ‘recovery mode’ after deadly tornadoes
CNN

At Least 44 Killed After Deadly Storms Ravage Southern U.S., North Carolina
FOX NEWS

Snow greets morning rush hour

WGN-TV CHICAGO

TODAY’S WEATHER ACROSS UK & EUROPE By Mark Vogan

Rest of the week to be bright, sunny and warm and getting even warmer by the weekend across Britain!

High Pressure that’s currently in contol is doing enough in bringing warm highs of up to 18 to 20C across areas of interior Scotland and England, however as this high builds over the next few days, we should see skies become sunnier, rather than mostly to partly cloudy and this intensification of the high will not only burn off and surpress cloud formation over most of the UK in the next few days but temperatures should warm for much of Scotland to 18C or warmer with a potential for 21, or 22C by Friday or Saturday. This would mark the warmest weather over central Scotland so far. As for England, well highs even tomorrow may reach the warmest levels of 2011 so far with a possible 24C or warmer in London. Could there be a 25C show up? Sure!

If you notice the European model above which is for today (Monday), there is high pressure overhead. It;’s modest, but strong enough to bring us mostly dry for much of the country and temps of 16 to 18C, however pressures aren’t striong enough to erode a good deal of cloud covering a large portion of Scotland and other areas of Britain

Here is the European for tomorrow (Tuesday), right away you can see why London and the southeast may approach 25C tomorrow, the darker yellows have creeped across Greater London from France and this illustrates stronger pressure heights aloft. Not only helping keep clouds away and warm the upper-levels, but the depth (within the atmosphere) in which the air sinks, compresses and therefore heats up, increases! Making for warmer temperatures at the surface. This should help produce the highest temperatures of 2011 in the UK so far over London tomorrow…

DRIER THAN NORMAL SOILS MAY BE AIDING IN THE STABLE, SETTLED PATTERN WE’RE SEEING

For this time of year, most of us living in this part of the world have seen pretty good, settled weather, it could be a lot worse. Heck, only last year at this time did we endure cold, even snowy weather. The chilly even lasted well into May last year. It couldn’t be more different this year as we’re struggling to see frosts by night and by day, well.. the shorts are getting worn despite the fact we’re not even into the later part of April yet. It’s been more like May while it was more like March or even February than April.

The overall fairly stable spring pattern we’re finding ourselves in may bode well further down the road as the persistence in the dry weather may continue drying out an already dry ground. That dry ground then feeds back to the atmosphere and can help intensify upper-level ridges aloft and thus provide persistent warmth and even much above normal temperatures.

964mb heights reach into northern England by Saturday!
THOSE DARK ORANGES ON THE EURO MODEL PROGRESS NORTH BY LATER THIS WEEK, PORTRAYING A VERY WARM LATER PART OF THIS WEEK

This is the Euro for Thursday, as you can see the pale yellows are all but restricted to only northern Scotland while the rest of Britain should see mostly sunny skies and highs pushing 20C or higher with the warmest places in Scotland topping 22 to 24C and the warmest places in England (around London) reaching 23 to 26C. The pressures are building by this stage in the week across most of the Western half of Europe across to this model and with similar upper-level flows seen10 days ago with that southerly push of air from Africa and Spain!

Amazingly, this run which stretches to Saturday and of course, this far out, this is likely to have errors in it. However, this run shows a 964mb thickness value pushing north and up into the north of England. This this held true, then the upper levels would be warm enough to have practically clear skies covering the majority of Britain with perhaps some hilly thunderstorm development over say the Pennines and the Highlands depending upon winds etc (something you’d see more during warm spells in midsummer!). Temperatures would more than likely reach 23 to 26C in the warmest spots in Scotland and perhaps 27 to 29C over the warmest spo3:S=0xdZZKzgGHADMFmA; blogger_TImore on this warming week ahead.

TODAY’S WEATHER ACROSS AMERICA By Mark Vogan

Large north-south temperature contrast today, Chicago saw snow this morning and still at 37 degrees while it’s 72 degrees in downstate Illinois

Tornadoes may return to the US weather map as early as tomorrow

As sickening as the title above may be, it’s reality in a season such as this one. The latest, in a long line of Pacific storms will enter the Plains tomorrow and like the last storm, a cold front will push out ahead of it, bringing the exact same potential across the same areas that endured the severe thudnerstorms and tornadoes in just the past few days.

Dry continues feeding back on itself over Southern Plains

Unfortunately, in the New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma region of the world and at this time of year, a dry late winter and spring can be a recipe for a long, hot and dry summer ahead. Once a dry and or wet pattern establishes itself over a given region and you tend to have a stable high pressure cell naturally over you anyway, this dry ground and high pressure feedback begins to intensify. Because this region lies beneath the sub-tropical high pressure belt and the soils are extremely dry, we may see much hotter than normal temperatures during at least the first half of the summer. The dry ground helps intensify the high aloft and thus hotter temperatures are produced. The hotter and dry the air beating down, the drier things will become.

Unfortunately, because of storm systems riding west to east across the central portion of the country, we’re seeing windy conditions persistent and this is helping fan those flames. The process just goes on and on unfortunately.

WEATHER TALK
By Mark Vogan

IT ISN’T TOO LATE JUST YET… IT SNOWED IN CHICAGO THIS MORNING!

You only have to look at what just occured from the Southern Plains to North Carolina and Virginia in the past 48 hours to see just how extreme the spring weather season is across the US. What’s futher added to it’s wild and fickle moods is the snow which fell and accummulated across the Chicagoland area this morning (Article). While today may struggle to see 40s and 50s across the north, 90s and even low 100s will roast Texas. The snow is a good reminder as to how much chill remains over the North, in fact you only need to glance at the current temperature chart across the lower 48 to see the very warm air to the south and very chilly air across the north. This is the major problem with all this very actice weather we’re seeing. Those large contrasting air masses is what is intenifying the Pacific jet and the storms in which ride along it.