The Weather Outlook

Remove ads from site

Brian Gaze
09 January 2025 18:10:55

I agree with most of that, except that my impression is that it's far rarer for eastern Europe and European Russia to be severely cold than it used to be. I've been taking an interest for many years in the list of temperatures for European cities that is posted in my newspaper each day. It's been quite a few years now since I last saw a daily maximum temperature for Moscow of less than zero Fahrenheit (-18C), which used to happen every now and again. If Napoleon or Hitler had invaded Russia with the present climate, they would probably have found it a lot easier! 

Originally Posted by: jhall 

I used to check the temperatures in Warsaw, Moscow and Helsinki in the Guardian on a daily basis. I agree that lower values were more common.

Brian Gaze

Berkhamsted

TWO Buzz - get the latest news and views 

"I'm not socialist, I know that. I don't believe in sharing my money." - Gary Numan

doctormog
09 January 2025 18:14:06

I agree with most of that, except that my impression is that it's far rarer for eastern Europe and European Russia to be severely cold than it used to be. I've been taking an interest for many years in the list of temperatures for European cities that is posted in my newspaper each day. It's been quite a few years now since I last saw a daily maximum temperature for Moscow of less than zero Fahrenheit (-18C), which used to happen every now and again. If Napoleon or Hitler had invaded Russia with the present climate, they would probably have found it a lot easier! 

Originally Posted by: jhall 

Last January (2024) Moscow had maxima below -20°C.

Aberdeen

Current conditions (personal WS) 

aceandy79
09 January 2025 22:25:57
This is an interesting discussion and honing in on something that's bothered me for years. Happy to accept that the increase in temperatures reduces the access to cold air pools but I've not seen anything to explain the change in synoptics that seems to have eliminated the chances of easterly winds during winter. 

I've always lived on or near the south coast, and can recall 4 maybe 5 significant snow falls up to 1991 when I was 11. Since 1991 I think we've had no more than probably 4 or 5.

Andy

Hedge End, Hampshire, 26m asl

DEW
  • DEW
  • Advanced Member
09 January 2025 22:35:42

This is an interesting discussion and honing in on something that's bothered me for years. Happy to accept that the increase in temperatures reduces the access to cold air pools but I've not seen anything to explain the change in synoptics that seems to have eliminated the chances of easterly winds during winter. 

I've always lived on or near the south coast, and can recall 4 maybe 5 significant snow falls up to 1991 when I was 11. Since 1991 I think we've had no more than probably 4 or 5.

Originally Posted by: aceandy79 

Agreed

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography - Ambrose Bierce

Chichester 12m asl

lanky
10 January 2025 08:36:33

This is an interesting discussion and honing in on something that's bothered me for years. Happy to accept that the increase in temperatures reduces the access to cold air pools but I've not seen anything to explain the change in synoptics that seems to have eliminated the chances of easterly winds during winter. 

I've always lived on or near the south coast, and can recall 4 maybe 5 significant snow falls up to 1991 when I was 11. Since 1991 I think we've had no more than probably 4 or 5.

Originally Posted by: aceandy79 

We still quite often get the set up for a cold easterly in other seasons typically April or May but not very rarely in the mid winter period of mId Jan to Mid Feb. OTOH we do see what looks like a promising start to a set up with transient high pressure over Scandinavia or a more Westerly Siberian Anticyclone but this then collapses or moves too far south to give any chance of a sustained cold spell

My educated guess (and only that !) is that the typical jet stream trajectory of SW Atlantic to Iceland has got stronger and more prevalent over recent decades leading to more intense depressions and this is relocating or preventing the full establishment of Anticyclones in the right position and strength

Martin

Richmond, Surrey

+1
jhall
10 January 2025 10:50:18

Last January (2024) Moscow had maxima below -20°C.

Originally Posted by: doctormog 

Yes, It still happens occasionally, but I'm moderately sure that it's much rarer than it used to be.

Cranleigh, Surrey
jhall
10 January 2025 11:04:45
That the Arctic region has warmed by a lot more than mid-latitudes may have had a impact on where anticyclones, including the Scandi High, are commonly positioned. I was thinking that it would be nice to have an AI tool that would look through all the archived daily charts, tabulate the number of days with Scandi Highs in each winter, and then produced an average for each decade. You would have to be careful about how you defined a Scandi High, of course. Perhaps more practical would be to tabulate the number of days in each winter where the wind over a specific UK location was between NE and ESE. Indeed such data might well already exist somewhere. If not it ought not to be too hard to extract from weather station records in spreadsheet form.

Incidentally ISTR once reading in a book that there have been periodic changes in how "westerly" our weather has been typically lasting over a few decades. The period between the two World Wars had only one really cold winter - 1928-9 - and might well have been more westerly-dominated than the periods before and after.

Cranleigh, Surrey
+1
Rob K
10 January 2025 12:08:21
Anecdotally I think we have got lots more snow in the last 15 years than we did in the 15 years before that.  Between about 1995 and 2009 snow was basically nonexistent around these parts, but since 2009/2010 we have had some pretty decent falls, albeit not much in recent years. The last time we had "proper snow" (by which I mean enough to build a snowman and go sledging) here was January 2021. Before that, Feb 2019 and March 2018 both delivered.

We've also had annoyingly many days of falling snow without settling in recent years. April 2024, then November 2024 and two this month.

Yateley, NE Hampshire, 73m asl

"But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand." — Jerome K. Jerome

Remove ads from site