Courtesy/Owned by WeatherBELL Models

A somewhat unimpressive system which brought a few inches of snow to the US Mid-Atlantic and ice to parts of the South is now pushing out into the North Atlantic like most do but what the models are picking up on is what is capturing the attention of the meteorological community. The models for days now have shown this low ‘bombing out’ south of Greenland and Iceland en-route to Europe. If models are correct this would be no ordinary ‘deep’ North Atlantic storm but one with pressure expected to fall into rare territory at near or under 930mb. As you can see from the above ECMWF pressure chart valid back on the 25th, it shows a storm with a pressure down to an incredible 927mb with two days earlier models having this system down at 920mb!. While later and later runs are raising it’s peak minimum pressure, the very latest run as of this morning has pressure still down to 931mb.

What is looking pretty certain is that this storm is becoming a monster and menace to North Atlantic shipping. The ‘explosive cyclogenesis’ is incredible with reports of 22mb pressure falls within 6 hours and within 36 to 48 hours the pressure is expected to go from 988 to 927mb. This could turn out to be the 2nd deepest North Atlantic storm in recorded history at a worst case scenario. The deepest is said to have been a 913mb storm off Shetland, Scotland in 1993. This was the lowest pressure ever recorded outwith a tropical cyclone or tornado.

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Check out these forecasted wave heights to the east of the storm centre and west of Ireland.

Wave Watch chart courtesy of The Weather Channel & Stu Ostro

Thankfully this beast will no longer be a monster by the time it reaches the UK, however it will still pose a substantial threat nonetheless with strong to gale force southwest winds and flooding rains. Keep in mind that the pattern we are now returning to is a very wet one. A warm mean southwest flow for the UK is an active one and now that the blocking high over the North Atlantic amd Greenland has broken down and headed south, so the storminess returns to the UK and Northern Europe while the Med calms down and returns to some better, warmer weather.

Here is some interesting info courtesy of The Weather Channel (source: Weather Underground)

• Most Powerful Atlantic Extratropical Cyclones on Record (Source: Weather Underground)
• 913 mb (26.96″) on Jan. 10-11, 1993 near Scotland’s Shetland Islands (lowest sea-level adjusted barometric pressure ever observed on the earth’s surface besides tropical cyclones and tornadoes)

  920.2 mb (27.17”) by the ship Uyir while she sailed southeast of Greenland on December 15, 1986. The British Met. Office calculated that the central pressure of the storm, which was centered some distance southeast of the ship, was 916 mb (27.05”).

  921.1 mb (27.20″) on Feb. 5, 1870 measured by the ship Neier at 49°N 26°W (another ship in the area measured 925.5 mb)
  924 mb (27.28“) on Feb. 4, 1824 at Reykjavik, Iceland (the lowest on land measured pressure in the North Atlantic)
  925.5 mb (27.33“) on Dec. 4, 1929 by the SS Westpool somewhere in the Atlantic (exact location unknown)
  925.6 mb (27.33“) on Jan. 26, 1884 at Ochtertyre, Perthshire, U.K. (the lowest pressure recorded on land in the U.K.)

I will have a post coming right up at 5pm which looks at the new work week as well as February!

Stay tuned.

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