Today marks the mid way point of summer 2015 and it’s very apparent that the ocean and it’s cold and warm anomalies are reflecting the land temperature and precipitation distribution anomalies this year.

Where surrounding waters are cold and the ground is wet, it’s cool overall and where waters are warm and ground is dry, it’s warmer than normal, i.e Southern UK down over France, Iberia and into central Europe.

Despite the warm start to July, the longer term pattern remains a constant with the colder than normal trend over an increasingly wet Ireland, N England, Scotland, Denmark and throughout Scandinavia.

In areas that are cool but started July warm, we’re chipping away at those positive departures as we progress through July. It’s looking highly likely that the cooler areas mentioned, may well wind up below normal in all three summer months this year, solely down to a cold North Atlantic.

Yesterday’s temp anomalies reflect the big picture.

Notice the strong positives are flipping back to normal and will likely go into negative territory before months end.

Remember, here was June and this followed the coldest May since 1996.

Air temperature and 500mb anomalies practically mirror SSTA’s this year!

Looking ahead at the next 1-3 weeks and I see very little change. The jet stream accelerates this week, riding the boundary between warmer and colder waters over the Atlantic. This is helping drive a much more active pattern. Notice how one system after the next piles into Ireland and the UK through the next 10 days from a WSW direction, right along the ocean thermal gradient.

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The battle between Atlantic trough and Europe ridge continues through the remainder of July. Brief surges of heat will continue to lift out of France into the SOUTHERN UK while Northern Ireland and Scotland remain predominantly left out. It’s that kind of summer I’m afraid.

Here’s the GFS ensemble 5-day mean 500mb height anomalies and the setup remains persistent.

Temp anomalies reflect well.

Precipitation distribution next 10 days along with soil moisture also perfectly reflect the warm and cold anomalies on land.

El Nino Approaching STRONG

As for the El Nino in the Pacific, well it continues to strengthen and this looks to be one of the strongest ENSO events in the last 50 years and is certainly the strongest since 1997-98. The impacts from this will be global and should become more apparent later in the year. Like most aspects of our atmosphere, there’s a lag in the atmosphere’s response to the ocean below.

When it comes to the upcoming autumn here in Europe. Based all going on right now, I expect it to be a wet and possibly warm one for much of Western Europe, especially areas such as Iberia, France, Southern UK etc.

Winter could well be wet too like the CFSv2 suggests.

However, my greatest issue is temperature. Had waters in the North Atlantic been warm, then I recon this winter may have been one of our warmest. Afterall the winter of 97-98 was a record warm one with January temps reaching 18C and 19C in February. Waters this time around look likely to be considerably colder than normal.

Exactly what influence these cold waters will have on our air above remains very much open to question as I believe it’s another +NAO winter but as we saw last winter, that doesn’t mean a warm winter. Unsettled and at times stormy, yes.

SSTA’s Dec 1997

Current SSTA’s.

CFSv2 temp anomalies for winter 2015-16

Be sure to watch today’s video for the detailed discussion on the above.

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Tags: 2015 el nino, Atlantic multidecadal oscillation, Cold AMO, el nino, ENSO, Europe heat 2015, europe summer 2015, europe weather, heat wave 2015, UK heat wave, uk weather