Luckily for us seasonal forecasting models are very broad brush in their outlook. In reality we could have a cold and snowy week in each of the winter months and still have a mild winter overall. That's why I don't give them much credence.

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Quite a sudden increase in snow cover for Scandinavia and Siberia!??

Don't know how long this will last but certainly some impressive early snow over Scandinavia!? 

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Quite a sudden increase in snow cover for Scandinavia and Siberia!??

Don't know how long this will last but certainly some impressive early snow over Scandinavia!? 

I'm not sure this is especially early particularly for (say ) N Sweden. Figures for Kiruna here https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/sweden which show that snow cover is normal at this time.

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Quite a sudden increase in snow cover for Scandinavia and Siberia!??

Don't know how long this will last but certainly some impressive early snow over Scandinavia!? 

 

Actually, Scandinavia has looked like that for approx 2 weeks now.  But there seems to be a big swathe expanded into central Eurasia that wasn't there before.

 

This picture is quite radically different to previous years.  Its usually well into November before Scandinavia and mid Russia gets this white

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Is it me, or is there a lot of snow cover for October

https://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif 

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Is it me, or is there a lot of snow cover for October

https://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif

 

Hi Surrey John - quite literally the conversation going on further up there ^

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Is it me, or is there a lot of snow cover for October

https://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif

This gives an indication of current cover compared with the climatic mean for the date: https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_daily.php?ui_year=2019&ui_day=293&ui_set=2 

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Every year its an obvious question what will the winter be like this year.
With a mixture of potentially foggy days around bonfire night and with the jet stream moving further south with lows moving west to east right over us, this set up takes me back to my childhood days where were 'guaranteed' a two week spell of very wintry weather, usually in January.
Something happened to the weather during the seventies which has affected the weather since.
No more pea soup fogs - could be due to cleaner air.
Lack of summer night thunderstorms trundling up from France - enough form on the other side of the channel, but they seem to be deflected to the east just missing us.
Snow and cold spell - very rare and erratic nowadays while it used to happen every year for two weeks during the sixties.
I remember Bert Ford commenting on a forecast in the early seventies and looking at the "atlantic chart" in November where a high formed over Scandi and he said it would more or less sit there until April. Since he said that, that Scandy high has found it very difficult to keep a foothold in that area.
It's the same for Europe also during winter. It seems there is more mobility in the atmosphere which makes it hard for a cold spell to get established.
I hope every year we return to the seasons as they should be, or as they were, and the hope is there again this winter.
Not holding my breath though!

Morning All

I havent been to active here of late - however its certainly worth noting the forecasting outputs appearing especially over the last 36-48 hours

If you like pretty winter 'like' synoptics we have been pretty lucky through late October & this next week - of course its not been a snow fest however the UK has delivered below ave temps & this continues for early November-

This past week the modelling of the strat rapidly increase the zonal wind to almost record levels ~ 40 M/S however at the same time the contrast of the lower levels of the strat ( Sub 150 HPA ) has become even more stark.

Overnight ( again usual caveats apply ) the GFS & to a lesser extent ECM are forecasting the AO to implode - I have the 00z GFS AO behind a paywall site & it was bottoming out sub -5 which is very rare-
Last time that happened 22/12/2009...

Had a bet on Norwich white Xmas at 12/1 couple of weeks back - think this year has a good chance. Anyone else?

I have just been watching Gavin P.'s final winter update for this year which has some very interesting analogues, based on this month's estimated CET and the England and Wales rainfall totals for both this month and this autumn.

Of course, I'm sure that there is a very good and valid reason why it is the CET and the England and Wales rainfall totals which are used for these analogues, rather than any sort of UK-wide data (which for a so-called UK-wide site, would be a lot fairer).

In terms of precipitation, I do agree that both this month and this autumn have been substantially wetter than average across England and Wales, but it has actually been a completely different story here in Scotland which is never (or hardly ever) emphasised in Gavin P.'s videos (although that takes nothing away from the excellent work which he does in that regard).

As for this autumn, it has been wetter than average here in line with the rest of the UK and that is true for the south of Scotland in general. However, this autumn hasn't actually been as wet here as what it has been down south and central and northern parts of Scotland have actually had a drier than average during this autumn. This means that Scotland as a whole, has generally had a drier than average autumn overall rather than a wetter than average one.

For this month alone, that pattern is virtually the same except that our rainfall total for this month doesn't even look as though as though it is going to be much above average, and might not even get above average at all.

Now, let's imagine that there was a Scottish YouTuber who did the same sort of stuff as Gavin P., and that he had someone similar to James Ackrill on board to help him with his analogues. Let's also imagine that this Scottish YouTuber used only Scottish data, rather than the CET and England and Wales rainfall data in order to produce his analogues. If that was the case, I'm sure that the picture of this upcoming winter which would be provided by that, would then be completely different from what we have seen from Gavin P. in his updates.

To me, it would therefore be interesting to see how different those projections of the coming winter actually were as a result, and what these projections actually looked like.

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I have just been watching Gavin P.'s final winter update for this year which has some very interesting analogues, based on this month's estimated CET and the England and Wales rainfall totals for both this month and this autumn.

Of course, I'm sure that there is a very good and valid reason why it is the CET and the England and Wales rainfall totals which are used for these analogues, rather than any sort of UK-wide data (which for a so-called UK-wide site, would be a lot fairer).

In terms of precipitation, I do agree that both this month and this autumn have been substantially wetter than average across England and Wales, but it has actually been a completely different story here in Scotland which is never (or hardly ever) emphasised in Gavin P.'s videos (although that takes nothing away from the excellent work which he does in that regard).

As for this autumn, it has been wetter than average here in line with the rest of the UK and that is true for the south of Scotland in general. However, this autumn hasn't actually been as wet here as what it has been down south and central and northern parts of Scotland have actually had a drier than average during this autumn. This means that Scotland as a whole, has generally had a drier than average autumn overall rather than a wetter than average one.

For this month alone, that pattern is virtually the same except that our rainfall total for this month doesn't even look as though as though it is going to be much above average, and might not even get above average at all.

Now, let's imagine that there was a Scottish YouTuber who did the same sort of stuff as Gavin P., and that he had someone similar to James Ackrill on board to help him with his analogues. Let's also imagine that this Scottish YouTuber used only Scottish data, rather than the CET and England and Wales rainfall data in order to produce his analogues. If that was the case, I'm sure that the picture of this upcoming winter which would be provided by that, would then be completely different from what we have seen from Gavin P. in his updates.

To me, it would therefore be interesting to see how different those projections of the coming winter actually were as a result, and what these projections actually looked like.

 

Yes south has been far wetter than where you are - which is rare as it's usually the north and north west of the UK that is the wettest but it's the exact opposite - although Yorkshire saw a deluge few weeks ago,. We really need time to dry out. Hopefully next weekend.

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Yes south has been far wetter than where you are - which is rare as it's usually the north and north west of the UK that is the wettest but it's the exact opposite - although Yorkshire saw a deluge few weeks ago,. We really need time to dry out. Hopefully next weekend.

What's even more remarkable as well, is that it wasn't all that long ago that the southerners were moaning about a lack of rainfall and drought conditions.

 

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Love to know what weather set-up could produce this for Christmas Day?

 

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/forecast/Christmas-weather-forecast

 

The Computer says

• It's expected to be too mild for snow in the south


• Cold but dry conditions are expected in Wales


• It's expected to be too mild for snow in the Midlands


• It's expected to be too mild for snow in the north


• Cold but dry conditions are expected in Scotland


• It's expected to be too mild for snow in Northern Ireland


• Cold but dry conditions are expected in the Republic of Ireland


• Cold but dry conditions are expected in the Netherlands

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Not seen a discussion thread so I'll pop this in here....

I've read somewhere, that of the winters that follow a combined wetter than average (by how much I dont know) Oct and Nov since 1900 have all been very cold.

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For what it's worth (probably not a lot) I have had 6 air frosts since Autumn and last winter I had just 3 by New Years Day for the same period.

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After our colder than average autumn, this winter actually started off on a cold and frosty note here on its very first day. However, all of that is now a completely distant memory as it has all completely gone downhill ever since then and continues to get even worse over time as I write.

I could add more to that but that, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to do so anywhere on this thread, other than the latest winter moaning thread.

 

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There was a few LRF comments that perhaps pointed at a rerun of 2014. Unfortunatley the next 2 weeks of GFS look very much aimed towards this kind of outcome. I hope not 2014 brought alot of disruption to local coastal parts and offerd nothing more than wet windows and wet toes.

Currently the charts show Lots of LPs deepening and gowing just off shore and depositing their energy harvest over the UK. Although this does seem colder than 2014 was.

Lets hope this short term unsettled spell isnt a continuation of what was looking a fairly decent prospect of a winter.

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What's even more remarkable as well, is that it wasn't all that long ago that the southerners were moaning about a lack of rainfall and drought conditions.

 

"None so surely pays his debt / As wet to dry and dry to wet"

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