When looking at the weather charts for the late week/weekend period, you may be wondering if this is a mere repeat of last year. In today’s post I will show you the reason’s why that’s not the case. Up till now, we’ve actually had TWO ‘cold spells’ with hard frosts/freezes and snow that we didn’t get last year. However, there’s a jet stream and storm developing by the end of this week which may have striking similarity to what we saw all too often last year.

We’ve got very different global drivers in play this year compared to last and let’s not forget that we’re coming off a solar max, not in one.

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The stratospheric temperature profile is near opposite of last year. Up till now, it’s looked similar I know but as forecasted back on Nov 1 in my official release, I stated that MID TO LATE WINTER SHOULD BE WORST FOR THE UK AND WESTERN EUROPE and I also said that many ‘could’ see snow before Christmas and that happened before Christmas and in the week between Christmas and New Year.

It’s a wet and windy Wednesday coming up but the two systems coming Friday and Saturday look to pack more punch, particularly Saturday’s.

The GFS now shows a fierce 220-240 knot (276 mph) jet which will force the development of a weather bomb north of Scotland. Central pressure within this low could dip below 940 mb.

The latest ECMWF 10 metre winds suggest 100 knot gusts for Lewis and NW Scotland! That’s 115 mph gusts!

Some very chilly air follows as this jet is driving Canadian-Arctic air across the ocean and into the UK. Watch for ‘low level’ snowfall for some following the passage of the storm’s cold front.

Widespread -5 to -10C at 850 in the storms wake.

Ok, so why am I feeling strong about the whole, ‘it’s going to get colder’ thing?

The first big difference factor is that we’re coming OFF a solar max. The very thing which likely drove our warm, stormy winter last year but another big factor, likely in response is the QBO. OPPOSITE with strong easterly vs strong westerly. A strong westerly almost always brings a +NAO, mild, wet and windy winter (I missed this big time!). East QBO’s with the reverse of wind flow helps force more -AO/NAO winter’s.

More importantly as we head in the meat of the season, let’s take a look at the strat temps because this can give indications way in advance on whether it’s going to stay warm or turn cold.

Here’s from just 5 DAYS ago.

Note where the warmth is, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE POLE LINKING ASIA WITH ALASKA while there’s a lot of cold aloft linking North America across Greenland to Europe. That’s near identical to last winter and a mild, zonal signature for us.

But because we’re heading into the heart of winter with the atmosphere in a much more winter state, the feedback between favourable SST’s/central El Nino and east QBO is now beginning to kick in.

This is the 10mb temp profile now and through the next 10 days.

144h

240h

Notice it’s opposite of a week ago and opposite last year. We didn’t see this happen last year probably because of the polar max which laid to a stronger cold pool over Greenland.

Because there’s a 10 day lag, I am not worried about the lack of cold showing in the models as they are often slow to catch on with any SSWE.

The trouble I’m having is because of a lack of model guidance, it’s tough to make the call as to what kind of cold spell we’ll get. I believe it’s stronger, more widespread than late December and because I believe a -NAO/AO is developing, it’s going to have more similarity to what we saw back a few years ago.

GFS ensemble is showing the -NAO signal with cold building over Europe by the end of the upcoming 16 day period.

See video for the discussion.

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