The much anticipated colder, snowier pattern has emerged and progresses south, southwestwards into central and southern Europe. Stopping it from spreading westwards is a very strong ridge anchored over the British Isles which reached record strength as we greeted 2019. This pressure pattern has resulted in a rather mundane Christmas to New Year period here but for parts of Europe, a wild one.

It’s coincidence that the turn to colder is directly related to the late December SSW and split which occurred around the 2nd. Upper level winds are turning easterly and with the positioning of the twin vortexes, we’re in a good place for some very impressive winter conditions during the second half of January.

Interesting times.

https://twitter.com/MJVentrice/status/1081930512527060993

https://twitter.com/MillinMan1/status/1081957781706465280

Atmosphere and geography merge to produce spectacular snowfall

Between the the strong positive anchored over the UK and deep negative over Greece is a feed of bitter cold air driven by powerful northerly winds. As Atlantic/Mediterranean collides meets incoming polar/Siberian and is forcing to rise, incredible orographic snowfall rates and totals occur along particularly the northern flank of the Austrian and Swiss Alps as well as the mountains of Poland.

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1081817699171352577

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1081963628536971264

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1081785007994220545

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1081835534845136896

The mountains of Greece were also hammered.

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1081902046725443584

While the Alps get slammed, polar air has made made it out over the Med and Adriatic bringing snow to the beaches.

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1081982254363172866

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1081832790688231425

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1081888168327217152

Yep, the cold even made it into Libya.

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1081938519969411079

With powerful bitter northerly winds crossing a steep west-east mountain chain, you get some amazing variation in weather with relatively short distance.

Bitter cold and heavy snow on the north side but on the leeward south side, those strong winds cross over the ridges and descend the southern flank. As the air travels downslope, it compresses, drying it and heating it to very comfortable levels.

Now that we’re seeing the tropospheric response and interaction, the modelling is now seeing what has been suggested here all along.

With our atmosphere now in reverse, look for the ridge currently over the UK to be positioned over Greenland and where the cold trough is now, that should be over the UK and near continent in 6-10 days from now.

Check out the latest run of the CFSv2 weeklies.

Still some ways to go and things can still change for better or worse but it’s looking promising from a forecast point of view.

FEATURED IMAGE: Petrich Greblo

Tags: easterly, polar vortex, strat warming