It’s a wet and windy Wednesday out there but we continue to monitor the late week/weekend situation more closely. The reason being that winds are expected to be disruptive and destructive. In the FAR NORTH that is. Is it anything out of the ordinary? No but still needs close monitoring nonetheless when people and property are involved.

Winds today are blowing out of the southwest and gusting upwards of 108 mph on top Aonach Mor, located east of Fort William in the west Highlands.

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Here’s the GFS surface charts for Friday and Saturday as two lows (Fri-Sat) pass in close succession. Note depth of central pressure and squeeze in isobars.

Second system packs more punch, especially the further north over Britain you are.

GFS shows a band of 90 knot winds at 10 metres for the Northern Isles. A touch less for Lewis and NW Mainland but I suspect 100 mph is probable even on land.

ECMWF not as extreme as yesterday, more realistic, still very stormy.

Expect widespread westerly gales with hurricane-force gusts up the west coast. Wouldn’t be surprised if high elevations get gusts to 140 mph.

Both tonight/tomorrow as well as later Saturday, cold air gets blow in on the rear of the passing cold fronts so expect rain to change to snow on hills with wintry mixes at lower levels in the north.

In comes the next cold front with rain and gales along with more cold following in behind on Monday!

Note central pressure is 940 just off Iceland!

The next is in place a day later!

And so for the next 10 days or so, expect the storm train to keep on coming but it will slow down mid-month.

The reason I believe a change is coming and this WON’T continue like last year is this… An opposite QBO equals and opposite 10mb temp profile to last year.

Current/forecast 10mb temps off NCEP GFS.

Positive heights should begin developing in the N Atlantic and Greenland as the westerlies slow in response to the upstairs warming we are currently seeing. This warming doesn’t change the 500mb pattern straight away, like water, it takes time for the air to slow and eventually change direction…

Modelling sees this change coming.

Latest CFSv2 weeklies.

Next 7 day 500mb height anomalies off the GFS ensemble.

Week 2 shows this.

GFS operational

Week 1 (note the squeeze in isobars showing the strong ZONAL jet stream)

Week 2 is different, especially over Greenland and north of UK.

See video.

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