So after the slightly cold winter (DJF) of 17/18 what does winter 18/19 hold for us?
Are we likely to revert to a normal ie mild and wet winter?Or does the blocking that created a record summer look like persisting into a blocked winter? Low sunspot numbers and the solar minimums have been identified by both the Met office and Reading as producing more winter blocked patterns around the solar minimum.
Here is a quick look at the main indicators
1.ENSO
Latest discussion papers from NOAA give a 70% chance of an El Nino in the northern hemisphere during winter 2018/19.Forecasters favour a weak El Nino developing by early fall,growing t by late fall and winter into weak or possibly moderate event A weak to moderate El NIno goes produces mixed signals in terms of the accompanying NAO
2.QBO
The QBO recently peaked at -21,9 dropping to -20.41 in August.It is likely to keep falling towards neutral or weak -ve.So no strong signal.
3.SSTsT
The main features of the current charts ( July )is warmth over NW Europe but with a belt of negative anomalies stretching across the north Atlantic from Newfoundland to the west of the UK.I find it difficult to interpret SST,s as indicators,but there have been several years that have had this pattern and generally mild winters have followed
4.Solar activity
Sunspot numbers fell to just 1.6 in July and moved up to 8.8 in August,.These are low values already and as we proceed towards the solar minimum forecasts show the average falling to below 10 an then in the zone 0-5.
Will winters around the solar minimum have more blocked patterns.Time will tell.But in the absence of any strong indicators from ENSO,QBO and SST,s I think we have a reasonable chance of a blocked 2018/19 winter!
Edited by moderator
01 March 2019 08:44:25
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