Today marks the start of the coldest 90 days of the year. Meteorological Winter has begun. Will it be one to remember or forget?

It was certainly a cold, frosty, icy and for some, SNOWY open to meteorological winter 2015-16 but today ends significantly milder as a surge of warmer air lifts northward, courtesy of the latest Atlantic system.

November ended warmer than normal across Europe.

December looks to follow the mild and wet legacy left behind by November.

CFSv2 500mb height anomalies for December.

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]

CFSv2 is probably a little too aggressive with the ridge over the continent.

Here’s why December should be largely mild with strong Atlantic influence! Polar vortex is about as strong as it gets, hence strong +AO/NAO.

This bottling of cold over the pole allows warmer air from the sub-tropics to push further north than normal, increasing the thermal gradient and stronger west-east jet stream in between, hence the bombardment of Atlantic low pressure into the UK and Western Europe with warmth ahead and colder behind.

ECMWF shows a powerful jet roaring across Pacific and Atlantic at 96 hours.

A very wet pattern shall continue well into December.

I don’t think January, February will follow November, December. Don’t miss this morning’s video for more.

This morning’s mess or winter wonderland is simply thanks to warm, moist air colliding with cold air over Scotland. Once the cold air has warmed, all will see snow turn to rain and temps will go from 0 to 2C this morning to 9-12C later this evening.

To start the day.

It was a tricky morning for driving on Scotland’s high road routes.

Rush hour this morning in Perth.

By the end of the day.

A slow moving plume of moderate to heavy rain marking the boundary between high and low pressure will act like a hose mid week over England and Wales where further flooding issues are expected. This rain band also seperates mild air to the south and colder air, fresher air to the north.

As we head into the weekend, the next low approaches and this looks to bring another batch of heavy, possibly flooding rain but it’s most noteworthy feature is likely to be it’s wind!

Severe gales and storm force gusts expected over the Western, Northern Isles and far NW mainland.

More wet and windy weather with the temperature rollercoaster piles in Sunday on through next week.

Hints Of Change Towards Christmas?

A little heads up. No question, December’s opening 10-15 days is dominated by a deep Greenland ridge, strong Europe ridge but into day 10-15 off the GFS ensemble, there’s hints of the Canada ridge building towards Greenland. Worth watching period from December 18-20th onwards…

See today’s video for the discussion and a look at the longer range!

[/s2If][s2If current_user_cannot(access_s2member_level1)][magicactionbox id=”18716″][/s2If]