While we’ve received a taste of winter this week, I believe this is merely a sign of something much greater for later down the road. I want to draw your attention to what’s going on across the other side of the Atlantic with major snow and cold settling into much of the US. We must pay attention to that as well as the building cold across Europe.

Yes, we are warming up later next week as the Atlantic ridge builds in but if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that as the trough shifts east, so the air mass grows colder as we see a reinforcing shot of arctic air into central and eastern Europe. That means major Alpine snows over the next 10 days, great news for the ski industry of course and this pattern should set them up nicely for much of the winter ahead.

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Now, if we watch closely, both North America and Europe fills with cold next week. The coverage or area this covers expands and so my believe is that we see the arctic air mass expand over Europe through next week and may very wel; retrograde back west into the UK and eventually Ireland forcing the ridge west out into the Atlantic again.

Snow cover is sure to significantly expand next week as the arctic hound comes acalling. That increase in reflective white should support a stronger and more expansive arctic pool.

The CFSv2 500mb height anomalies (below) have a warm signal over the next 2-3 weeks for the UK BUT notice week 3 that the strongest heights build NORTH of the UK and week 4 the model is trying to hook up the Alaskan and Greenland ridge with negative heights and arctic air underneath, stretching from the eastern US to western Europe.

Week 1-2

Week 3-4

The ECMWF deterministic and GFS show the cold air over Europe building west late next week and towards the end of the 10 day forecast period. It would note surprise me if we turn colder again towards the end days of November into December but timing is iffy. It’s not IF but WHEN, when it comes to the cold returning to the UK and likely in a much more impressive fashion.

Check out the ECMWF Control for 222 hrs!

360 hrs

This is the type of pattern where cold eventually takes charge and it overwhelms both Europe and North America (East) as we head deeper into December with the blocking highs building over the warmest SST anomalies in both the North Atlantic and Pacific. Remember what I’ve been saying about the cooling down of waters surrounding the UK in vital for taking the ridge far enough west. The strongest positive should build over the warmest SST’s.

We can see a slight cool down in just the last few days around the UK with the colder weather coming down from the north, this should feedback, allowing colder air which will build over the continent to spread west. I’m looking for a mean blocking high to set up between Iceland and Labrador where waters are warmest as well as south of Alaska where the other mean ridge should position itself. The models do indeed support this this upper pattern as we progress through December.

It’s also well worth pointing out the dramatic pattern difference over North America now compared to around this time last year. Much of the Eastern US could be facing one of the coldest Thanksgiving week’s in years next week while last year it was one of the warmest.

Going purely by trend, this winter for the US should be VERY different compared to last year where it was largely warm December through mid-February!

Back here in Europe, I think December could start off in a come and go fashion regarding the cold but I think we’ll start to see it fighting back more frequently with less mild in between. There will be a back and fourth battle between Arctic and Atlantic but eventually the arctic should win out.

Here’s the latest CFS surface temps for December.

500mb height anomalies

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Tags: europe weather, Europe winter forecast, uk winter, UK Winter Forecast