I was at the coast last weekend and surprised to see the sea temperature still at 16C at Studland - due to the mild autumn no doubt.

That map is strange though if you look off the eastern seaboard of the USA - lots of small areas of very cold anomalies dotted among the very warm anomalies. What would cause that?

 

werent the SSTs really mild in- was it 2010?  Reason I remember was it triggered some really big showers on the north easterly that setup.  I think the chatter on here was the north sea was very mild and with such a cold wind over it created some stonking snow showers.  I remember a friend near Sunderland reporting a foot of snow over night, then another foot the next night.  he sent me photos and within 2 days his car disappeared into a large marshmallow lump in the road.  So when i see high SSTs i always hope we can get a strong cold wind to trigger similar conditions

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It will also be good conditions for forming thundery showers, including thundersnow.

Sea ice is not that important in my view as it ebbs and flows based on accompanying synoptics.

The SST anomalies are more significant locally as they play a part in driving and developing weather systems and potentially beefing up rainfall and wind strength if we get the jet in the "right" place

OT but I'm not sure where to ask. I'd like to know how many cold spells (so 5 days or longer) there have been in the UK during this century which resulted from an inversion. I can only recall one good example and I'm not sure which year it was. My point is that low level cold (or faux cold as it has been called) is actually rare because more often than not it is too windy or too cloudy etc.

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werent the SSTs really mild in- was it 2010? 

2010 anomalies for 8th November.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/oceans/crw/tsps50km/sst_anomaly/2010/sst.anomaly.field.browse.50km.n19.20101108.bmp

 

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2010 anomalies for 8th November.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/oceans/crw/tsps50km/sst_anomaly/2010/sst.anomaly.field.browse.50km.n19.20101108.bmp

 

Very similar to this year with a cold PDO, warm Atlantic although with a bit of a tripole forming in the Atlantic. That is the one thing we are so far missing in terms of SSTs is a cooler band through the mid Atlantic, if we had that then the oceans would be very favourable for blocking and cold.

 

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OT but I'm not sure where to ask. I'd like to know how many cold spells (so 5 days or longer) there have been in the UK during this century which resulted from an inversion. I can only recall one good example and I'm not sure which year it was. My point is that low level cold (or faux cold as it has been called) is actually rare because more often than not it is too windy or too cloudy etc.

Not a spell as such but wasn't it in early February 2006 when we had uppers between 5&10'c and yet temps started falling under cloudy skies during the day and resulted in -2'c air temps whilst Scottish mountains were in the clear air at 10'C? I can also recall times where cloudy warm highs lose their cloud as the air sinks leading to sharp frosts. It's what makes weather fascinating

OT but I'm not sure where to ask. I'd like to know how many cold spells (so 5 days or longer) there have been in the UK during this century which resulted from an inversion. I can only recall one good example and I'm not sure which year it was. My point is that low level cold (or faux cold as it has been called) is actually rare because more often than not it is too windy or too cloudy etc.

There were a couple of years where we had prolonged fog around Christmas which severely disrupted flights in and out of the UK. One of those was 2016 but I think the really bad one was 2007. That must have lasted a few days and it was certainly cold.

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Very similar to this year with a cold PDO, warm Atlantic although with a bit of a tripole forming in the Atlantic. That is the one thing we are so far missing in terms of SSTs is a cooler band through the mid Atlantic, if we had that then the oceans would be very favourable for blocking and cold.

 

Yes, similar general patterns, although generally a little warmer across the board in 2021. 

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OT but I'm not sure where to ask. I'd like to know how many cold spells (so 5 days or longer) there have been in the UK during this century which resulted from an inversion. I can only recall one good example and I'm not sure which year it was. My point is that low level cold (or faux cold as it has been called) is actually rare because more often than not it is too windy or too cloudy etc.

 

The last third of December 1992.

Harsh frosts, daytime temps struggling to get much past freezing, fog.

 

All from a set-up like this, with 850's around the 4-6c mark

 

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2010 anomalies for 8th November.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/oceans/crw/tsps50km/sst_anomaly/2010/sst.anomaly.field.browse.50km.n19.20101108.bmp

 

 

Not much similarity really... apart from maybe the east coast of America.

 

Maybe it was 2011... Everyone else seems to have a great memory for these years, but mines hazy as hell

 

It was the year where we had big snowfalls on the east coast

 

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New Year 2008/2009 got pretty cold through an inversion type thing didn't it?

Interesting 12z incoming BTW 

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New Year 2008/2009 got pretty cold through an inversion type thing didn't it?

Interesting 12z incoming BTW 

 

Yes nice GFS 12z. GFS in particular starting to pick up significant HLB as we head into late November. Is it onto something?

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Yes nice GFS 12z. GFS in particular starting to pick up significant HLB as we head into late November. Is it onto something?

GFS has evolved a northerly flow around 17-18th on several runs in recent days, always based on a retrogressing high pressure, moving WNW into mid-Atlantic and setting up a block and driving energy south into Scandinavia. To be honest I’ve not seen much evidence of HLB?

The 12z brews up a pretty intensive low pressure over Gibraltar which just drifts slowly towards the French/Italian coast. With low pressure in the Med we’re not going to see high pressure building to our south, so it’s hard to see an early route back to mild conditions, other than from less cold air toppling in from the NW.

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Yes nice GFS 12z. GFS in particular starting to pick up significant HLB as we head into late November. Is it onto something?

 

 

Hopefully a route to get the CET down to below 7.5c

 

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Hopefully a route to get the CET down to below 7.5c

 

 

I went for 8.3c thinking we would squeeze out another mild month. Not looking so likely now. Not that I'd care if we can have a snowy end to November 

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=20&model=gfs&var=25&run=12&time=336&lid=OP&h=0&mv=0&tr=6#mapref

 

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Wowsers. And here we go. The first really exciting GFS of the season.

More runs needed.

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Lol will be gone by 10:30

Lovely titillation.

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IMBY that looks a very wet GFS op as we go down the line. Given an Atlantic block the pattern is certainly rather meridional. Maybe not quite cold enough and too unsettled unfortunately

ecm not having any of what the gfs is showing. No surprises there. I am always very wary when I see amplified synoptic charts like the 12z gfs op and control run with no support from the strat. Not saying it can not happen but very unlikely.
Jan 87 is the only time that springs to my mind where a very potent cold spell occurred that was trop led.