Pretty sure the outcome has been close to the coolest possible for the CET region, considering the setup to hand.
Yes, not even the coolest - that would have been an outcome in which the skies continued to clear at night.
Still, when that combination went on during the 2nd half of last week I was honestly in a state of dismay, as day after day came in well below the expectations of even just a few days prior. It's one thing to be wide of the mark because of the major driving forces behaving differently to what was expected, but quite another to be so because a high pressure cell centred itself maybe 500 miles too far to the northwest (a gnat's whisker on the global scale).
The CET projection has dropped by half a degree Celsius in the space of a week. That's half what I consider to be the 'okay result' error margin for the CET (1°C) and has sent my error from 0.78°C (pretty decent) to 1.28°C (not great).
It reminds me of when high pressure located a bit further south than anticipated in the first half of January this year, but such 'fickle fine detail' situations are more common in winter anyway, as differences of a few hundred miles can exchange a freezing inversion for balmy westerlies.
At this time of year, I never imagined such sensitivity could occur - that cloud cover could prove so stubborn under an anticyclone in late summer. Many of us have legitimately gone through anticyclonic gloom, in August!
Long story short, while we have our fun and games, this competition is also providing valuable insight into the challenge that long-term forecasting faces when it comes to finer details. I'm afraid it's never going to be possible to know with any confidence whether it will be a warm afternoon three weeks in advance!
...but hey, that would be a bit of a boring reality, right?
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https://twitter.com/peacockreports 2021's Homeland Extremes:
T-Max: 30.4°C 21st Jul | T-Min: -6.8°C New Years Day! | Wettest Day: 34.1mm 2nd Oct | Ice Days: 2 (27th Jan & 8th Feb)
Keep Calm and Forecast On