As expected, colder air has arrived on the rear of yesterday’s strong cold front and has changed precipitation from liquid to frozen over some Scottish peaks.

This is the current scene on Cairngorm Mountain which recorded gusts of 104 mph yesterday as the front pushed through.

Expect more snow above 3,500ft in the coming days as plenty more precipitation is on the way along with cold air.

The next batch of wind and rain sweeps in proper tomorrow evening with severe gales likely through the Irish Sea and North Channel. This WILL cause disruption to ferry travel to and from Ireland.

ECMWF has southerly gusts to between 50-60 knots. 60 knots is around 70 mph and with a southerly wind direction, waves build and will be high enough to cause issues.

Expect winds to blow hard from a southerly direction right across Ireland and the UK late Sunday through much of Monday then expect a rash of heavy, blustery showers to follow with another reinforcing ‘fresh feel’.

That system clears only to be followed by another mid to late next week.

Healthy rain amounts over Western Europe through the next 10 days.

Let’s watch carefully where the core of wettest weather set’s up between now and Dec 1.

Here’s NAO data between Sep 1, 2009 and Jan 31, 2010. Notice the negative during autumn 2009 despite it being WARM and wet, not cold. As stated in a recent post, a negative NAO doesn’t always signal cold, especially in a transitional period such as autumn. The important thing right now in my opinion is that the NAO is heading into the tank and should remain predominantly negative through the rest of this year while our pattern becomes wet for the foreseeable future. Notice also that the NAO dropped below -3 during the very wet period in November and then hovered negative much of the rest of the time. It went from dry in Sept, early Oct to increasingly wet late Oct into November with a NEGATIVE NAO before the freeze hit around Dec 15 on.

2009  9  1 -2.081
2009  9  2 -1.907
2009  9  3 -1.294
2009  9  4 -0.279
2009  9  5  0.035
2009  9  6  0.096
2009  9  7  0.656
2009  9  8  1.266
2009  9  9  1.468
2009  9 10  1.578
2009  9 11  1.488
2009  9 12  0.954
2009  9 13  0.763
2009  9 14  0.457
2009  9 15 -0.096
2009  9 16 -0.493
2009  9 17 -0.610
2009  9 18 -0.465
2009  9 19 -0.480
2009  9 20 -0.681
2009  9 21 -1.079
2009  9 22 -1.735
2009  9 23 -2.414
2009  9 24 -2.401
2009  9 25 -1.405
2009  9 26 -0.057
2009  9 27  1.382
2009  9 28  2.738
2009  9 29  2.539
2009  9 30  1.507
2009 10  1  0.554
2009 10  2  0.137
2009 10  3 -0.012
2009 10  4  0.646
2009 10  5  1.226
2009 10  6  1.791
2009 10  7  1.774
2009 10  8  1.146
2009 10  9  0.985
2009 10 10  0.347
2009 10 11 -0.791
2009 10 12 -1.756
2009 10 13 -1.030
2009 10 14 -0.016
2009 10 15  0.528
2009 10 16  0.389
2009 10 17  0.027
2009 10 18 -0.104
2009 10 19 -0.300
2009 10 20 -0.661
2009 10 21 -0.589
2009 10 22 -0.446
2009 10 23 -0.874
2009 10 24 -1.140
2009 10 25 -0.449
2009 10 26  0.755
2009 10 27  0.822
2009 10 28 -0.450
2009 10 29 -0.942
2009 10 30 -0.070
2009 10 31  0.961
2009 11  1  0.829
2009 11  2 -0.233
2009 11  3 -1.023
2009 11  4 -1.023
2009 11  5 -1.316
2009 11  6 -2.112
2009 11  7 -3.138
2009 11  8 -3.888
2009 11  9 -3.769
2009 11 10 -3.624
2009 11 11 -3.630
2009 11 12 -3.848
2009 11 13 -3.759
2009 11 14 -3.887
2009 11 15 -3.509
2009 11 16 -3.250
2009 11 17 -3.409
2009 11 18 -3.502
2009 11 19 -2.366
2009 11 20 -0.927
2009 11 21 -0.389
2009 11 22 -0.072
2009 11 23  0.437
2009 11 24  0.541
2009 11 25  0.380
2009 11 26 -0.296
2009 11 27 -1.259
2009 11 28 -1.369
2009 11 29 -1.102
2009 11 30 -0.955
2009 12  1 -0.782
2009 12  2 -0.076
2009 12  3  0.440
2009 12  4  0.548
2009 12  5  0.265
2009 12  6 -0.228
2009 12  7  0.028
2009 12  8  0.058
2009 12  9  0.487
2009 12 10  0.861
2009 12 11  0.884
2009 12 12  0.746
2009 12 13  0.723
2009 12 14  0.758
2009 12 15  0.632
2009 12 16  1.051
2009 12 17  1.792
2009 12 18  2.176
2009 12 19  2.161
2009 12 20  1.663
2009 12 21  1.026
2009 12 22  0.711
2009 12 23  0.784
2009 12 24  0.551
2009 12 25  0.672
2009 12 26  0.814
2009 12 27  0.568
2009 12 28  0.320
2009 12 29  0.038
2009 12 30 -0.550
2009 12 31 -1.063
2010  1  1 -1.391
2010  1  2 -1.646
2010  1  3 -1.722
2010  1  4 -1.791
2010  1  5 -1.711
2010  1  6 -1.585
2010  1  7 -1.621
2010  1  8 -1.495
2010  1  9 -1.646
2010  1 10 -1.529
2010  1 11 -0.918
2010  1 12 -0.684
2010  1 13 -0.345
2010  1 14  0.104
2010  1 15  0.347
2010  1 16  0.455
2010  1 17  0.582
2010  1 18  0.543
2010  1 19  0.238
2010  1 20 -0.042
2010  1 21 -0.432
2010  1 22 -0.813
2010  1 23 -0.731
2010  1 24 -0.634
2010  1 25 -0.511
2010  1 26 -0.273
2010  1 27 -0.393
2010  1 28 -0.677
2010  1 29 -0.708
2010  1 30 -0.746
2010  1 31 -0.928

Here’s the latest NAO forecast. See where I’m going with all this…

CFSv2 rainfall forecast

If the pattern continues the way it’s going, expect flooding to become an issue once again and from flood we should go to freeze by December just like 2009.

Remember this?

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