Models are in good agreement about the upcoming 10 days with it’s 500mb height anomalies. Front running 7 days shows both models with the Iceland to Italy ridge and deep troughs either side.

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The trough-ridge-trough orientation has the UK and west, central continent mild and settled while cold air strives to drop out of Scandinavia towards Ukraine and SE.

FOR BREAKDOWN OF THE UPCOMING 7 DAYS, SEE TODAY’S VIDEO!

Backed up energy out over the Atlantic, not that far west of the UK cannot go east so it’s taking the southerly route into Iberia. Looks like a rather unsettled next 7 days for any holiday makers hoping for some early sun and warmth in Spain or Portugal.

Still keeping an eye on a potentially stormy spell late next week. ECMWF still had a storm pushing into Portugal next Thursday in the newest run.

The split in agreement always becomes more apparent when heading into the week 2 timeframe but both models appear in the same camp with stronger than normal heights over the UK up till day 10 with a sharp change in the height field beyond day 10. Heights eventually appear to lower over the UK again. How much so is open to question. How unsettled we would become is also open to question. This is important when considering the pattern further down the road. Rainfall distribution if very important when looking at potential summer conditions. If your wishing for a warm, dry summer similar to last, well we better hope things remain drier through much of April.

In today’s post I thought I would show you the similarity in both ECMWF and GFS with it’s 7 day mean 500mb height anomaly solutions.

Here’s the ECMWF for the front running 7 days.

Day 3-10 shows this.

GFS is in the same camp with the front running 7 days.

GFS holds positive heights over the UK up till day 10 or up till April 7.

By the 8-14, so the following 7 day, heights appear to get chopped. We see the reverse with a positive down over Iberia while the trough tries to come back into the UK.

The lowering of heights progresses further in the 9-16 day.

Through the upcoming 15 days, the GFS ensemble has a -NAO which favours blocking over Europe. A drier pattern would be likely.

El Nino Update

Thought I would show you the latest CFSv2 forecast for the Nino 3.4 region.

Note the almost immediate drop off once the threshold is reached mid summer. This is likely because the model quickly shifts the warmest waters west ionto the central Pacific rather than nearer to South America. This would favour colder next winter in North America and most likely Western Europe.

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