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#41
KTtom
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Posted 27 November 2009 - 13:41
Who won the competition to predict the N-W Winter forecast?
WWW.cloudyskies.co.uk
#42
stewfox
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Posted 27 November 2009 - 13:58
KTtom, on 27 November 2009 - 13:41 , said:
Who won the competition to predict the N-W Winter forecast? 
Yes it would be nice to know
#43
Thundery wintry showers
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Posted 27 November 2009 - 13:58
Very interesting read indeed- just taken the time to go through it, and it certainly is at odds with some of the popular El Nino winter preconceptions (but then again as stated this is not a "normal" El Nino event!).
For those wondering about the winter of 1965/66, it was quite a snowy one and I believe most of the snow resulted from easterly winds, which were mostly imported across from Scandinavia/W Russia via a Greenland High, rather than deep continental air via the Scandinavian High. This setup first made its presence felt in the third week of November 1965, and recurred at times during a cold January and April, and also briefly affected northern areas in the middle of an otherwise mild February.
There are some hints already at a pattern approaching the above in some model runs but as yet there has been insufficient blocking to the N and NW to enable it to come off.
A word of caution arises from the mention of the 1963/64 and 2002/03 analogues, as those winters were quite cold over the continent with "easterly near-misses" for Britain, suggesting a winter which is not particularly mild but also not particularly snowy. 1979/80 comes with similar caveats- I had a run through the charts for January 1980 recently and around the 5th-9th Britain came extremely close to getting an easterly but it was always just out in the continent. February 1980- a Mushymanrob favourite- was mild, wet, and one of the dullest on record, and had a pattern consistent with what the forecast tentatively hints at for Feb.
1974/75 looks like a "one-off" analogue and so on the current evidence I am thinking that a winter like 1997/98 is looking less likely at the moment (note that 1974/75 had a relatively anticyclonic February, just as 1997/98 did, but the high was in a different place).
For those wondering about the winter of 1965/66, it was quite a snowy one and I believe most of the snow resulted from easterly winds, which were mostly imported across from Scandinavia/W Russia via a Greenland High, rather than deep continental air via the Scandinavian High. This setup first made its presence felt in the third week of November 1965, and recurred at times during a cold January and April, and also briefly affected northern areas in the middle of an otherwise mild February.
There are some hints already at a pattern approaching the above in some model runs but as yet there has been insufficient blocking to the N and NW to enable it to come off.
A word of caution arises from the mention of the 1963/64 and 2002/03 analogues, as those winters were quite cold over the continent with "easterly near-misses" for Britain, suggesting a winter which is not particularly mild but also not particularly snowy. 1979/80 comes with similar caveats- I had a run through the charts for January 1980 recently and around the 5th-9th Britain came extremely close to getting an easterly but it was always just out in the continent. February 1980- a Mushymanrob favourite- was mild, wet, and one of the dullest on record, and had a pattern consistent with what the forecast tentatively hints at for Feb.
1974/75 looks like a "one-off" analogue and so on the current evidence I am thinking that a winter like 1997/98 is looking less likely at the moment (note that 1974/75 had a relatively anticyclonic February, just as 1997/98 did, but the high was in a different place).
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Weather records for Cleadon, 1993-2011:
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My personal manifesto can be found here:
http://tws27.50webs.com/index.html
My upcoming modification for Doom 3:
http://tws27.50webs....nemy/index.html
'Views and opinions expressed in this or any other of my posts are my own'
#44
cooling climate
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Posted 30 November 2009 - 11:14
stewfox, on 27 November 2009 - 13:58 , said:
Yes it would be nice to know
#45
WhiteXmas
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Scotland's Snow-Man!
#46
Mr_Data
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Posted 30 November 2009 - 11:35
Thundery wintry showers, on 27 November 2009 - 13:58 , said:
A word of caution arises from the mention of the 1963/64 and 2002/03 analogues, as those winters were quite cold over the continent with "easterly near-misses" for Britain, suggesting a winter which is not particularly mild but also not particularly snowy.
Both those winters were preceded by very wet and mild Novembers.
#48
cooling climate
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Posted 26 December 2009 - 21:39
Was the competition canceled. It would be nice to know one way or the other. cheers.
