prediction systems and expert judgement. SUMMARY – TEMPERATURE: For November, and for November-December-January as a whole, above-average temperatures are slightly more probable than below-average temperatures.

 

Burn the heretic!

 

Seriously, thanks for your detailed thoughts, and to James for giving us a shred of hope to cling to.

 

 

 

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I’m nit a fan of these seasonal predictive forecasts but that’s not a bad one from a cold perspective and an upgrade from the previous one.

It's the sort of set-up where you'd fancy a punt on a very cold winter, if you're a gambler. Since that hoax, or whatever it was a few years ago, there hasn't been much excitement. Perhaps someone new will pop out of the woodwork in the next few weeks and try to make a name for themselves.

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Snow and Ice cover looks lower than it was this time last year how that may or may not impact winter who knows

 

2017

 

 

2018

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/mohippo/pdf/public-sector/forecast-precip-ndj-v1.pdf

Link to  3 month preciptation forecast from METO.

HP to the east ,Atlantic LP  to the west.A familiar pressure pattern which usually goes in favour of the  Atlantic

We now have rumblings about a reversal in the polar stratospheric vortex in mid Nov ( very early for such?) which might be hinting at a pretty wintery spell in December for some parts of the N.Hemisphere?

With low solar in play will it steer any impacts from the polar vortex collapse into our neck of the woods?

White Christmas anyone?

Relative to the overall setup in place, the considerable amplitude MJO phase 1 activity seems well timed for strong impacts on the stratospheric vortex at a time when the westerly QBO has yet to work its way down below the mid-levels of the stratosphere. It sure does raise some interesting possibilities!

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Yesterday the NAO and AO were both coming up in negative territory, i am keen to know why they both flipped to quite positive territory over night? 

 

 

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Yesterday the NAO and AO were both coming up in negative territory, i am keen to know why they both flipped to quite positive territory over night? 

 

 

God shuffled his feet?

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Meteorological Winter is in 3.5 weeks time and no one is talking about it!? Surprise how quiet people are? Is everyone feeling ok? Where is Gooner these days!?

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Meteorological Winter is in 3.5 weeks time and no one is talking about it!? Surprise how quiet people are? Is everyone feeling ok? Where is Gooner these days!?

If you have been following other threads on this forum such as the MO thread and read my last post on this year's autumn general chat thread, it is easy to see why it's so quite here.

I think the big problem we have just now is the fact that the waters in the NE Pacific Ocean are so much warmer than average just now. Every time this happens, we tend to also end up with high pressure over that NW quarter of North America. That sends cold Arctic air down from Canada into the eastern seaboard of the USA and when that spills out into the Atlantic Ocean, the resulting temperature contrast there tend to fuel the jet stream quite a lot and power up big storm systems.

Without actually mentioning those warm SSTs which I have described above, Gavin P. did go into the results of that quite nicely in today's main video where he stated that it is possible to counteract that if we have a negative NAO with high pressure somewhere around Greenland and/or to the north of here. If that happens, those low pressure systems are then forced onto a much more southerly track which allows the cold air to reach us here in the UK as well. Without that northern blocking in place though, there is nothing to stop those low pressure systems from heading straight towards us and thus producing a very mild, wet and stormy winter such as what we had in the winters of 201//14 and 2015/16.

At the moment, we have a positive NAO and I fear that what I have just described in the last paragraph is starting to happen again, especially as the models are pointing towards the eastern seaboard of America becoming a lot colder, probably as a result of those warm SSTs in the NE Pacific. Because of that, I fear that we have probably already had our winter with that coming in the form of that cold snap which we had at the end of October. As far as this forum is concerned, people are usually only going to be interested if there is the chance that we might get a cold winter and at the moment, I am struggling to see where that is going to come from.

 

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If you have been following other threads on this forum such as the MO thread and read my last post on this year's autumn general chat thread, it is easy to see why it's so quite here.

I think the big problem we have just now is the fact that the waters in the NE Pacific Ocean are so much warmer than average just now. Every time this happens, we tend to also end up with high pressure over that NW quarter of North America. That sends cold Arctic air down from Canada into the eastern seaboard of the UK and when that spills out into the Atlantic Ocean, the resulting temperature contrast there tend to fuel the jet stream quite a lot and power up big storm systems.

Without actually mentioning those warm SSTs which I have described above, Gavin P. did go into the results of that quite nicely in today's main video where he stated that it is possible to counteract that if we have a negative NAO with high pressure somewhere around Greenland and/or to the north of here. If that happens, those low pressure systems are then forced onto a much more southerly track which allows the cold air to reach us here in the UK as well. Without that northern blocking in place though, there is nothing to stop those low pressure systems from heading straight towards us and thus producing a very mild, wet and stormy winter such as what we had in the winters of 201//14 and 2015/16.

At the moment, we have a positive NAO and I fear that what I have just described in the last paragraph is starting to happen again, especially as the models are pointing towards the eastern seaboard of America becoming a lot colder, probably as a result of those warm SSTs in the NE Pacific. Because of that, I fear that we have probably already had our winter with that coming in the form of that cold snap which we had at the end of October. As far as this forum is concerned, people are usually only going to be interested if there is the chance that we might get a cold winter and at the moment, I am struggling to see where that is going to come from.

 

 

Yes I saw Gav's vid too! The only hope is solar minimum! We are not the only ones suffering - eastern Europe is balmy right now and some places are measuring 20 or 21c some 15 or 16c above normal now.

Anyway, nice to see some contributing to the winter discussion and prognosis. I couldn't help but feel I was the only one talking to myself on this topic if you see above and ended up as a one man's discussion thread. 

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Yes I saw Gav's vid too! The only hope is solar minimum! We are not the only ones suffering - eastern Europe is balmy right now and some places are measuring 20 or 21c some 15 or 16c above normal now.

Anyway, nice to see some contributing to the winter discussion and prognosis. I couldn't help but feel I was the only one talking to myself on this topic if you see above and ended up as a one man's discussion thread. 

I have just noticed my typo where I said the eastern seaboard of the UK instead of what I meant to say, which was the eastern seaboard of the USA. However, I have now fixed that in my original post.

 

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With temperatures in the mid to high teens later next week in the forecast it's hard to imagine snow and ice.....
The board is finely balanced but the UK always seems to have a weighted dice when it comes to cold winter weather.
I'll pretty sure we'll get some snow this winter even in the south but it might not be the four months of arctic weather the media were peddling 🙄

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It's a month since my initial thoughts on the upcoming Winter, so let's see how things are progressing now.

October 2018 featured a High Pressure anomaly over the UK with a Low Pressure anomaly over central-western Russia. This particular anomaly does seem to feature in Octobers that progress on to cold Winters.   Also, the Octobers of 1963,  1985, 1986, 1995 and 1996 appear to be the best synoptic matches to 2018, all followed by cold Winters. Interestingly these years were all close to Solar Minimum!    

Also, I think 1986 is a particularly good match to 2018, with a similar ENSO trend, Solar cycle match, and also both Septembers were similar synoptically.   It still is evolving in a similar way, even into November.  

The transition to a wQBO for me, does not look very convincing at the moment. The Stratospheric forecast charts appear to be showing a new chunk of eQBO working into the top stratosphere over the next week or so.  Not sure what to make of this.   If there are any QBO experts who can explain what's going on, please comment!

In any case, I still feel that 1977 is the best match to 2018 in terms of the QBO, and that saw a very weak wQBO through the Winter of 77/78.  I'm more convinced now that it will only be weak wQBO through the coming Winter, and a better chance of sustaining cold weather patterns into later in the Winter.

We continue to see a very unusual Atlantic SST profile, with cold water around Greenland.  Checking back through the SST archives, I can find no match to this since 1996!  Not sure what the effect would be of this anomaly in the heart of Winter.  You could argue it would result in colder Polar Maritime air since it would be blowing from a colder source, but also give extra fuel to the jet stream of course.

Putting everything together, I feel the best analogues to 2018 currently are:

1976 (ENSO, Solar cycle, early November synoptics) 

1977 (ENSO, QBO, PDO)

1986 (ENSO, Solar cycle, Autumn synoptic progression)

2009 (ENSO, Solar cycle, early November synoptics)

Well, a month ago I said that things were looking good for cold weather fans, and perhaps with this set of analogues, there's reason to be even more optimistic now.  In my opinion, a cold Winter for 2018-19 now looking increasingly likely!

 

 

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Yesterday the NAO and AO were both coming up in negative territory, i am keen to know why they both flipped to quite positive territory over night? 

 

 

 

Scatter and given the blocked and drier and some colder ensembles end of November STARTING TO COME IN now each run - it does look like God has shuffled his feet again because both NAO and AO have gone more neutral to negative - maybe as a response to the models? Yesterday both models were in quite positive territory! 

But who knows this may flip' back!?> But with Met Office still confident about a cold end to November - i Doubt it very much!!

 

BTW - interesting Andy thanks for this! Fingers crossed! 

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It would be good to have a summary as to how the early winter cold spell of 2010 developed; the conditions and teleconnections involved, etc 

I remember Retron being particularly active and on the ball concerning WAA up the western side of Greenland, which would create a very stable block.

But do we understand what led to this?

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I think 1986 is a particularly good match to 2018, with a similar ENSO trend, Solar cycle match, and also both Septembers were similar synoptically.

I think there is some mistake here. Sept 1986 and Sept 2018 were total opposites in the vicinity of the British Isles. Sept 1986 was the 15th coldest Sept in the long CET record, Sept 2018 was the warmest Sept for Europe as a whole [not CET]. Sept 1986 had frequent blocking to the NW of Britain and was consequently very dry and sunny in NW England, Sept 2018 was poor in the NW.

On the subject of the coming winter there seem to be two camps regarding whether current and recent synoptics are a good or bad indicator for anyone wanting a cold winter. My view is that the weather pattern so far this autumn slightly favours a cold winter, but not strongly. Regarding the warm SSTs in the NE Pacific, I do not share the view that this is likely to cause a persistent mild pattern for the UK. The current North Pacific SST pattern is highly unusual with very widespread warmth and the warmest anomalies are in the NW Pacific rather than the NE Pacific.

 

I think there is some mistake here. Sept 1986 and Sept 2018 were total opposites in the vicinity of the British Isles. Sept 1986 was the 15th coldest Sept in the long CET record, Sept 2018 was the warmest Sept for Europe as a whole [not CET]. Sept 1986 had frequent blocking to the NW of Britain and was consequently very dry and sunny in NW England, Sept 2018 was poor in the NW.

Thanks John,  I meant to state that both Octobers (2018 and 1986) have similar synoptic anomalies.  Not the Septembers.

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It would be good to have a summary as to how the early winter cold spell of 2010 developed; the conditions and teleconnections involved, etc 

I remember Retron being particularly active and on the ball concerning WAA up the western side of Greenland, which would create a very stable block.

But do we understand what led to this?

There may well have been specific factors behind the 2010 cold spell but what always encourages me is that cold spells can come out of nowhere with little warning and for no apparent reason. KevBrads1 has does an occasional "Where did that Easterly come from?" and what is surprising is how quickly these cold spells can arise sometimes. Indeed, I did one of these last winter at the end of January IIRC. Kev very generously didn't sue me for breach of copyright for stealing his idea. It was about the 1950 Easterly which kicked in at the beginning of February to give a severe spell despite a fairly average winter beforehand. At that time, I was beginning to give up on winter 2017/18. Then, we got the Beast from the East and I saw my heaviest snowfall since 1982(or possibly even longer). From recollection, it was relatively late on before we knew that we had a real cold spell on the way and even then, we had all the warnings that it could still all go belly up.

Yes, I would be very interested in the conditions and teleconnections in 2010(and also a recap on last February) but these things can only tilt the balance to encourage cold and most of it will always be down to random luck IMO.

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Updated met office Ensemble-mean maps showing plenty of northern blocking over winter