Yes astonishing warmth across Europe - as I said yesterday remove the date and one would guess the chart was early October.

Southerly flow all the way from North Africa. Not really 'astonishing' is it?

 

 

Yes astonishing warmth across Europe - as I said yesterday remove the date and one would guess the chart was early October.

Is the warmth really that remarkable? Running through the latest GFS run most of western and southern Europe has negative T850 anomalies for virtually the entire run. Further east the anomalies turn positive.

Meteociel - Cartes du modèle numérique GFS pour l'Hémisphère Nord

The greatest positive anomalies are over northern Canada - up to 25C above average over the coming days!

ECM shows similar anomalies - cooler than average in the west (including UK), warmer than average in the east. Meteociel - Modèle Numérique ECMWF CEP

 

 

Yes astonishing warmth across Europe - as I said yesterday remove the date and one would guess the chart was early October.

What you actually said was NE Europe?

 

 

Yes astonishing warmth across Europe - as I said yesterday remove the date and one would guess the chart was early October.

And that is the 7th warmest out of the ENS so I'd ignore that if I was you , so its on the high side and at that distance its a JFF comment , not to say it can't happen of course 

Someone will be happy 

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In fact many could be very happy 

I'm not suprised the models are showing quite a bit of snow.

The upper level temps are easily low enough for snow provided its caused by ana fronts in a stagnant environment.

The -6C or -7C benchmark that people use for 850hpas only applies if the wind is strong and the precipitation is convective. Snow can easily fall with uppers around -3C given the right sort of conditions.

The wind speed is just as important as temperature when it comes to forecasting snow. The lower, the better. High wind speeds require colder temperatures.

ICON6Z going for a spell of snow next weekend courtesy of an occluded front.

In fact actually, I'm going to say this now. The -6C benchmark sucks.

In convective situations -6C is actually too warm for snow usually. I'd say you need to be closer to -8C. And in frontal situations (except cold fronts), -3C is closer to the norm (but it can be as high as 0C).

-6C seems like a crude average that never actually applies in any normal situation (too high for convective snow, too low for frontal snow).

If we do get some snow which sticks around due to cold nights the -6C benchmark will become even less useful as the lower atmosphere is cooled and makes further snow more likely.

We actually had a snow event at the end of the 2010 cold spell that had uppers at +1C.

Someone will be happy 

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In fact many could be very happy 

Oh this is very yummy indeed. Just need a correction South and East haha

 

I agree with Brian. there are some really interesting synoptics which in any other year would give us a memorably wintry December. But there's no nearby source of seriously cold air for the synoptics to tap into.

Still as a believer in the persistence of patterns across a season, the current set up gives me hope if/when it returns in January

Would they? Why? There hasn't been any nearby source of seriously cold air in other Decembers recently either.

Can't really grumble with this , my only nagging thing is we will no doubt look back at December and say " A great set up but we should have done so much better "

 

 

Yes astonishing warmth across Europe - as I said yesterday remove the date and one would guess the chart was early October.

Well yes and no. Remember last winter was one of the warmest on record for Europe. December is looking like the UK could be one of the chillest parts of Europe.(relative to its mean)

I would say the cold is starting to be build, I certainly wouldn't say " astonishing warmth "

Someone will be happy 

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In fact many could be very happy 

Right over Shropshire.

Someone will be happy 

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In fact many could be very happy 

What is most encouraging about this is that there is relatively little sign of the coastal/Lancashire plain rain you often seem to see on these forecasts, I'm sure Saint Snow can relate to that! If this verifies (and it's a big if of course) then given my altitude it could be very interesting indeed, perhaps not even 'marginal'.

I'm not suprised the models are showing quite a bit of snow.

The upper level temps are easily low enough for snow provided its caused by ana fronts in a stagnant environment.

The -6C or -7C benchmark that people use for 850hpas only applies if the wind is strong and the precipitation is convective. Snow can easily fall with uppers around -3C given the right sort of conditions.

 

I would take issue with the use of "only applies" with regards to -6C or -7C and while it does happen  to say "easily" at -3C is pushing it a bit. 

Gfs continues to look great with regards blocking we just need it to get abit colder. 850s are still to high for my liking.  But the longer the blocking stays the colder it will get. The question is how long will it last?