The above chart pretty much sums up our upper level height fields right now. This is keeping winter going this year and may produce one of our coldest Marches in 30 years for not only the UK but Europe.

With an Atlantic cold front sweeping across the UK, temperatures hold up tonight but just above freezing and despite the wind, rain and blustery showers that follow, this weekend will be modestly milder as low pressure really just spins around the cold air that remains in place.

With the AO and NAO remaining well into negative territory through pretty much the remainder of this month, there is no reason to believe this very cold March won’t continue, in fact the models support the indexes with increasing the depth of cold over Scandinavia and sends further waves of unusual cold south next week. Prepare for yet another blast of arctic air across the UK, Ireland as well as the western and southwest mainland of Europe. While the UK sees a little less cold and more unsettled conditions through this weekend, the cold persists over the snowfields of France, Low Countries and Germany. This snowcover will act like a traintrack for the next lobe of arctic air next week.

Both GFS and ECMWF show another plunge of arctic air early next week with more disruptive snow likely.

Let me show you the 850mb chart off the ECMWF for the next few days.

Here’s Saturday.

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]

Note it’s still fairly cold aloft, this chill will be felt at the surface too and don’t be surprised to see mixed precipitation within the heavier showers.

Next Mon

Wed

By Wednesday the -10 to -15C temps return to the 850 mb level over parts of the UK. The thing is this is the ECMWF run from earlier this morning and believe it or not, this tends to be a warmer run. In other words the later runs tend to trend colder and so in coming days it will be interesting to see whether this model gets colder for next week. It did that last week ahead of the cold blast we’ve just went through. If so this would be quite amazing and most certainly on track for one of the coldest Marches in a long time.

What about snow?

Here’s Saturday, note it has snow for the higher ground over the UK as well as across the Pyrennes, higher elevations of northern Spain, Alps and a a significant swath stretching from northern Greece, the Balkans up through southern Poland and into the Moscow area. Boy what a winter they’ve had in winter with all the snow.

By 96 hrs or Monday, the model shows more snow for the high ground, so don’t be surprised to see higher routes through the Highlands, Southern Uplands, Pennines which loose snow, regain that snowcover early next week again.

Check this out by 144 hrs or Wednesday, note the snow filling more areas and not just to high ground. Areas of the Central Lowlands and North of England could have snowcover once again by mid next week. Also notice the amount of ground that gets blanketed. There’s solid white from the Netherlands-Germany border all the way to Russia. Impressive! This is very plausible given what’s coming back down early and mid next week.

Like I say, it will be interesting to see the new runs as they come out through this weekend to see whether they trend colder for next week. The indexes shout out the potential for more cold and snow for the UK and truthfully, I don’t see any break in this cold till early April now.

In order for us to see warmer weather return, we’ve got to see a spike in the indexes back towards neutral and because their so much into the tank, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

The constant feed from the north should also promote a drier than normal period through the next 10 or more days.

Why So Cold This March Compared To Last March?

I want to take a step back by explaining why we’ve been so cold.

When you’ve got an AO as deep as it is and is expected to go through the next 10 days, this basically means strong high pressure which is typically positioned across the mid and more southerly latitudes, is currently positoned up over the high latitudes (polar region). With this setup, warmer air at high altitude floods north in the polar region and in turn this forces the arctic air drain of it’s cold air into the mid-latitudes.

With the help of a negative NAO with a blocking high, positioned over the North Atlantic and Greenland, this directs the arctic air into Western Europe as well as eastern North America. These indexes are unusually strong, especially for March and so this is why the cold is as intense as it is.

Another possible explaination for the depth of cold may have something to do with the low solar energy being immited from the sun. While the overall solar cycle is providing fewer sunspots than normal, we may be within somewhat of a minimum within the current cycle. The lower sunspot cycle, the fewer solar flares and ultimately less energy and heat released towards earth.

Last March couldn’t have been more different with record warmth like no other. The UK was abnormally mild but here in Scotland it was the warmest it’s ever been with highs topping 23C (73F) in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire. This was due to the opposite AO/NAO, which was strongly positive but there was a higher sunspot cycle to coincide. The United States was far more extreme with heat records tumbling left right and centre.

So, the conclude, with as strong of an AO as you’ll get, along with a strong blocking over the North Atlantic, extending up over Greenland, the polar vortex spinning over Scandinavia is acting as the wheel which is driving extremely cold late season arctic air in Western Europe. How cold has our source region been of late? Yesterday morning saw a record -38.2C recorded up in Northern Finland. The low this morning in Helsinki was -8F or -22C, considered cold in January never mind mid-March. The vortex which is responsible for this intense Scandinavian chill is also the wheel sending that cold our way, helped to modify far less with the deep snow cover extending from Finland all the way to Britain. That’s why we saw record lows set in Belgium, Netherlands as well as the UK and likely other countries.

Amazingly, given what we’ve seen and what’s on the table, don’t be surprised to see more tremendous cold and snow next week and maybe even late in March!!

[/s2If][s2If current_user_is(s2member_level0)]

Join a subscription plan, [s2Get constant=”S2MEMBER_CURRENT_USER_DISPLAY_NAME” /]!

[warning]You do not have a valid subscription to access premium content exclusive to members. You will need to join a subscription plan if you would like to continue.[/warning][/s2If][s2If !is_user_logged_in()]

Sign in to read the full forecast…

Not yet a member? Start your 7 day free trial

Create your free markvoganweather.com account today to get unlimited access to Mark Vogan’s premium articles, video forecasts and expert analysis for 7 days.
[/s2If]

Tags: cold, europe freeze, march cold, record cold