My local mean to the 8th is 11.88*C which gives an anomaly of +6.67*C. Yes you read that right!
It drops a bit today having had a chilly night (1.2*C min) but thanks to a mild high (12.1*C) will still be 11.29*C and 6.15*C above the LTA.
You might think that a very mild December is a trait of strong El Nino winters, but actually the strong Euro High and westerlies from the subtropics don't usually kick in until closer to January based on the analogues, and even then it tends to be a flatter pattern with not quite so much of a draw from the vicinity of the Azores for example. So what we're seeing is unusual even against an El Nino background.
I went for 5.5*C in the hope that the pattern might amplify more and create a UK high or similar by around week 3, with chilly conditions developing at the surface. This still looks possible and would make a big dent in the figures, but the consensus isn't really pointing that way at all.
This brings me on to my CET projection estimate using the 12z GFS operational run - one of the mildest we've seen so far. There's a tricky period to incorporate during the weekend due to a very large temperature contrast setting up in the vicinity of the CET zone, but for what it's worth;
The mean edges slowly downward to the 16th to be at around 9.2*C, which is still about 4*C above the LTA.
A very balmy run of days, featuring a couple of double-digit minimums and a max of 14.5*C for the 19th (no joke!), then causes the CET estimate to soar to around +9.6, near 4.5*C above the LTA.
The lower-res output (days 10-16) sees a slow decrease to be just above 9*C to the 25th. Even if conditions were dead-on average to the end of the month from there, the final CET would be between 8 and 8.4*C, smashing the previous record and producing a monthly anomaly in the Hadley records close to +4.5*C. Phwoar
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