It’s not the first time I’ve done this, but what the hell, here are all the Christmas Day 1200 UTCUTCCoordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).MSLPMSLPMean sea level pressure is the pressure at sea level, or, when measured at a given elevation on land, the station pressure reduced to sea level assuming an isothermal layer at the station temperature. and 500 hPahPaA Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the MillibarGPHGPHGeopotential height (GPH) is a vertical coordinate that represents the height of a pressure surface above mean sea level. reanalysis charts, from CFSCFSThe Climate Forecast System or coupled forecast system (CFS) is a medium to long range numerical weather prediction and a climate model run by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) to bridge weather and climate timescales. Version 2 became operational as CFSv2 in 2011. and NOAANOAANOAA is an agency in the Department of Commerce that maps the oceans and conserves their living resources; predicts changes to the earth's environment; provides weather reports and forecasts floods and hurricanes and other natural disasters related to weather., from 1836 to 2023, courtesy of Wetterzentrale. If you’re reading this in December, and it’s before the 25th, have a very Merry Christmas 😁
For some reason weather types occasionally seem to flip over the Christmas period, a cold spell at Christmas can sometimes come to an abrupt end by New Year, and sometimes what looks like a milder Christmas, can suddenly give way to much colder weather as we get into the New Year. Out of curiosity, and with nothing much else to do on a rainy day, I decided to duplicate and refactor my Christmas viewer to produce mean anomalies (or temperatures) from the CETCETCentral England Temperature daily series for the periods before (22nd to 28th December), and after (29th December to 4th January) to see what I could find. As you can see from the results, Christmas 1866 was one of the most schizoSchizoA combining form from the ancient Greek meaning 'I split'. Christmases Central England has seen since 1772, starting mild, with anomalies of +2.1°C, but becoming very cold, with anomalies of -6.5°C into the New Year. The Christmas of 1796 was another classic, this time starting very cold, with anomalies of -8.1°C, but then turning much milder with anomalies of +1.4°C into the New Year. The most recent example of a schizo Christmas in Central England was that of 2010, Christmas that year was very cold, with anomalies of -6.8°, but New Year, although still cold was much milder than Christmas, with anomalies of -1.0°C.
I revisited some code I wrote many years ago and smartened it up a bit, it fills a grid with mean temperatures and anomalies for the Christmas period (21 December to 4th of January) from the daily CETCETCentral England Temperature series which started in 1772. It simply calculates a mean temperature and anomaly for each year for that period and then adds it to the grid. The coldest Christmas by far was that of 1870 with a mean temperature of -3.6°C and anomaly of -8.1°C. All the cold Dickens Christmases of 1853, 1860, 1890 & 1892 are in top 20. One unusual cold Christmas that I noticed was the forgotten Christmas of 1961 (#4), which surprisingly was fractionally colder than that of 1962 (#8). The most recent cold Christmas besides those were the ones in 1992 (#18), 1996 (#19), 2010 (#20) and 2009 (#31). The mildest Christmas since 1772 in Central England was that of 2015, which just edged 2023 from the number one spot, with a mean temperature of 8.7°C, which was 4.2°C above the 1991-2020 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. Five Christmases from the 21st century feature in the top ten mildest since 1772. The coldest Christmas day was that of 1796 (-10.8°C), the mildest 2023 (10.7°C). All in all a fascinating little addition to my Daily CET application. I’ll give you two guesses to where this one will end up.
When I worked at Strike Command at High Wycombe back in 1972 as an assistant for the UKMOUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, we had a chart that we had to continually update that everyone knew as ‘The Grid’. The Grid was an A1 sized thick card, with a grid of all the airfields that Strike was responsible for (and there were many back then) down the left hand side, and along the top the hours 00-23 for that day. At the bottom there was an extra grid for any ‘specials’ if memory serves. So each hour it was someone’s job to keep The Grid up to date by plotting all the observations, and any specials that came along. The local forecasters did occasionally look at it, but I think it was as much there to give the assistants something to do, because there were a lot of assistants, and forecasters, down in that underground bunker, and doing the tea round there was no fun, I can tell you! So this new addition to my SYNOPSYNOPSYNOP (surface synoptic observations) is a numerical code (called FM-12 by WMO) used for reporting weather observations made by manned and automated weather stations. SYNOP reports are typically mad hourly and consist of groups of numbers (and slashes where data is not available) describing general weather information, such as the temperature, barometric pressure and visibility at a weather station. application is a homage to The Grid. It plots 18 stations, north to south down across the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. for the latest 24 hours. When a cold or warm front went through the forecasters drew a diagonal coloured line across the chart to mark its passage. How times have changed
Using the objective LWTLWTLamb Weather Types are often used in UK-based analyses, with individual weather patterns based on the eight primary cardinal directions (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) plus cyclonic (C), anticyclonic (A) and unclassified (U) types. as a guide, the most anticyclonic December since 1871 across the British Isles occurred as recently as 1991.
Despite being so anticyclonic, 1991 only managed #41 driest December in the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. since 1836, with a total of 83 mm of precipitation (65% of average). A much drier December occurred more recently in the cold December of 2010, when just 47 mm fell (37% of the 1991-2020 long-term average).
6 Dec 2024 12 UTCUTCCoordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Surface analysis MSLPMSLPMean sea level pressure is the pressure at sea level, or, when measured at a given elevation on land, the station pressure reduced to sea level assuming an isothermal layer at the station temperature. falling 10.4 hPahPaA Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar in the last 3 hrs at Belmullet (1), with dewpoints of 11°C coming into Valentia (2).
6 Dec 2024 13 UTC 3 hr Pressure Tendencies The central pressure of Storm Darragh may not be explosive cyclogenetic, but 3 hr pressure falls of 12 hPa across W Ireland at present are not to be sniffed at. 🤨 The Belmullet barograph is showing a roller coaster ride 😉
6 Dec 2024 15 UTC Surface analysis Dewpoints of 13°C into SW Ireland. Cold front getting close to Valentia Big pressure fall across Ireland of 10 hPa or more over 3 hrs. Weather buoy K2 goes offline – can you beleive it! No double structures here!!
6 Dec 2024 18 UTC 3 hr pressure changes
6 Dec 2024 21 UTC Surface analysis Big pressure rises at Valentia (1) First signs of very strong northerly to the W of Ireland Sleet at Aboyne (2)
7 Dec 2024 08 UTC Highest overnight gusts It looks like Capel Curig, aka as the Snowdonia wind tunnel, has recorded the highest gust of 81 kts or 93 mph overnight.
7 Dec 2024 09 UTC Total Precipitation [33 hrs] Estimates from weather radar A wet night in many places away from the far SE, with areas of 40-50 mm over high ground of Argyll & Bute, N Ireland, Lake district & Snowdonia,with white pixels indicating >80 mm in wettest places.
7 Dec 2024 09 UTC A selection of anemographs Notice the high gust-mean ratio at Capel Curig. The rapid increase of speed at Crosby at 06 UTC. Inland gale at Yeovilton.
7 Dec 2024 03-14 UTC Total Precipitation [11 hrs] Estimates from weather radar. The heaviest of the rain in Wales seems to have been further W than the AMBER warning area so far, with >80 mm over Snowdonia.
7 Dec 2024 16 UTC Aberporth Still blowing a force 10 NW’ly with gusts of 85 mph. Gale force 8 for 24 straight hours. 😱 That’s where the BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom, based at Broadcasting House in London. It is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, employing over 22,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 19,000 are in public-sector broadcasting. & ITV should have sent their film crews today 😉
7 Dec 2024 19 UTC Max Gusts [mph] You can hear the wind moaning in the bell tower at Notre-Dame… The bells, the bells…
7 Dec 2024 19 UTC 24 hr MSLP difference The pressure is close to 47 hPa higher at Belmullet than it was last night.
Was there a gust of 96 mph or not at Berry head? The original tweet from the UKMOUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has just vanished.
Snow on CairngormCairn GormCairn Gorm (Scottish Gaelic: An Càrn Gorm) is a mountain in the Scottish Highlands. It is part of the Cairngorms range and wider Grampian Mountains. With a summit elevation of 1,245 m (4,085 ft) above sea level, Cairn Gorm is classed as a Munro and is the seventh-highest mountain in the British Isles..
Using my DIYDIYDo It Yourself global temperature series that I glean from the NOAANOAANOAA is an agency in the Department of Commerce that maps the oceans and conserves their living resources; predicts changes to the earth's environment; provides weather reports and forecasts floods and hurricanes and other natural disasters related to weather. reanalysis data I download, I make the mean temperature for November 2024 9.73°C, this is lower than the 9.81°C of November 2023 by 0.08°C, which doesn’t look a lot, but when it comes to global temperatures it’s really quite large. The recent surge in global temperatures over the last two years has now peaked, as can be seen in the 365 day moving average. Where it goes in the coming year is anyone’s guess and dependent on ENSOENSOEl Niño–Southern Oscillation is an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, affecting the climate of much of the tropics and subtropics. The warming phase of the sea temperature is known as El Niño and the cooling phase as La Niña. and the SSTSSTSea Surface Temperatures in the world’s oceans which are currently still close to record levels.
A very bland kind of month temperature wise across much of NW Europe. In the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. a mild first half to November was cancelled out by a colder second half. The central Atlantic was above average, but both to the north and south it was a little colder than average.
Higher than average pressure in a band from southern Greenland, across Iceland (+9 hPahPaA Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar), the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. and down into Italy, with lower than average pressure south of Newfoundland (-11 hPa) and the Barents Sea, helped produce a drier than average November across large parts of the UK.
Autumn 2024 was rather an anticyclonic affair at times, particularly from late October to mid November, punctuated by cyclonic spells through October, and two named storms, Ashley on the 20th of October and Bert, between the 23rd and the 25th of November. It’s hard to beleive there is only one 12 UTCUTCCoordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).UKMOUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy analysis chart this autumn, from the whole 91, completely free of fronts of some kind around the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland..
I thought that I’d look back at the three month outlook for autumn 2024 [SONSONMeteorological Autumn - September, October and November] issued by the UKMOUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the 27 August. The outlook is split into three distinct areas, temperature, precipitation and wind speed. It’s relatively easy to assess how accurate the outlook was for temperature and precipitation, but not so for wind because the UKMO don’t issue monthly gridded mean wind speed data. They must have this data because the three month outlook itself contain three month anomaly charts for wind speed. The one climate statistic that they did omit is sunshine, important not only summer, but also in autumn and winter, as this gloomy November highlighted only too well. Here’s a table of climate statistics for the UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. for the three months that make up meteorological autumn and anomalies for temperature, precipitation and sunshine.
How accurate was the forecast of temperatures?
The outlook stated that there was a 40% chance of it being a warm autumn, with a fifty-fifty chance of near average temperatures. In the end, the mean temperature for the three months that make up meteorological autumn was +0.3°C above the 1991-2020 long-term average, so it was only marginally warmer. WRONG, autumn was not noticeably warmer than average, although they were right about ‘cool spells’ later in the season, but cold spells towards the end of autumn are far from uncommon.😉
How accurate was the forecast of precipitation?
The outlook stated that there was a 35% chance of autumn being wet, with a 55% of it being near average. In the end precipitation in autumn 2024 ended up 89% of the long-term average. So a drier, rather than a wetter autumn. Despite flooding from storm Bert, the first half of November was very dry across the whole country, WRONG.
How accurate was the forecast of mean wind speed?
The outlook stated that there was a 35% chance of autumn being windier than average, with an increased risk of stormy conditions. As I said earlier, there’s not an easy way of measuring the accuracy of this one. There were three named storms during autumn, one of them named by the KNMI, the other by Met EireannMet ÉireannMet Éireann, the Irish National Meteorological Service, is the leading provider of weather information and related services for Ireland.. The first half of November was anticyclonic which would have reduced the mean speed for the whole of autumn a fair bit. UNDECIDED.
The 30 year average of ERA5ERAERA stands for 'ECMWF Re-Analysis' and refers to a series of research projects at ECMWF which produced various datasets (ERA-Interim, ERA-40, etcetera). global temperature anomalies will reach +1.5°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial age by the 27th of October 2029. That’s what an extrapolation forward of a linear trend for the last 30 years daily anomalies indicates. The daily series has already had values over +2.0°C in the last year, and the estimated annual mean for 2024 (as of 30 November) already stands at +1.59°C. The 30 year mean is important because 30 years is the period that the WMOWMOThe World Meteorological Organisation is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. use for climatological averages.
A month of two distinct parts, that were not truly represented well in either the anomaly maps or climate graphs. The first 16 days of the month were dry and mild. In the south they were particularly overcast and gloomy. The second half was colder, with frost and snow in places, with three named storms, storm Bert bringing snow, heavy rain and flooding to some places. These two halves effectively cancelled each other out.
The mean temperature during Autumn 2024 in central England was 10.9°C, which was +0.11°C above the 1`991-2020 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO., making it the joint 21st mildest since 1659 in the series. Autumn 2024 also set three new daytime maxima (red stars) and one nighttime minimum temperature (blue star). All three months had a cold spell, the most significant occurring from the 19th to 22nd of November. Autumns in central England have been gradually warming by around 0.12°C per decade since 1878.
November 2024 ended up with a mean temperature very close to the average of 7.2°C in central England, and just 0.1°C lower than the 1991-2020 LTALTALong Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. Curiously, the linear trend from 1878 shows a rise of +0.11° per decade in the last 136 years, whilst the most recent 30 year trend from 1995 shows that November temperatures seem to have plateaued.
Despite a pause for much of July, and another at the end of August that lasted into the first week of September, the 2024 tropical cyclone season in the North Atlantic ended up being quite a busy affair, thanks in a large part to a very active September & October, and of course SSTSSTSea Surface Temperatures in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico being at all time record highs.
I haven’t examined all the forecasts that predicted a record breaking season, but I’m sure that 2024 ended up being a bit of a disappointment, despite the record SST.
As far as the raw statistics of the matter were concerned I made it ◾The joint 5th for number (two category 5) ◾The 22nd for total ACEACEAccumulated cyclone energy (ACE) is a metric used by various agencies to express the energy released by a tropical cyclone during its lifetime. It is calculated by summing the square of a tropical cyclone's maximum sustained winds, measured every six hours. The resulting total can be divided by 10,000 to make it more manageable, or added to other totals in order to work out a total for a particular group of storms. (162.5) ◾The 31st for total longevity (99 days) ◾The 54th for total distance (27,127 NM) All data is of course provisional until the HURDAT2 data series is updated next spring.
The long-running England & Wales Precipitation [EWPEWPThe England Wales Precipitation series began in 1766 and is the longest instrumental series of this kind in the world.] series began in 1766, and is the longest instrumental series of this kind in the world. It’s part of the HadUKP series of datasets of UKUKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. regional precipitation. Here are five charts of seasonal and annual totals from 1766 to 2024. To each of them I’ve added a 10 year centred moving average, along with a linear trend from 1766 to 2024. Data for Autumn 2024 isn’t in yet, but I’ll update it when it has. Basically in the last 258 years precipitation across England and Wales:-
Winters have got a much wetter up from 198 mm to 276 mm (+39.4%)
Springs have got rather wetter up from 175 mm to 195 mm (+11.5%)
Summers have got drier down from 245 mm to 212 mm (-13.6%)
Winters have got a little drier down from 273 mm to 268 mm (-1.9%)
Annually things have got wetter from 890 mm to 952 mm (+6.9%)
Is there a four year cycle in global temperatures? The short answer to that question is probably not. But the last three well defined peaks in the 12 monthly average in 2016, 2020 and 2024, do fit very nicely with the idea of four year cycle. Before that you have to twist the theory quite a bit to find another vague, but much less well defined series, with the years 1998, 2002, 2006 & 2010.
Added a bit more logic to the Extremes viewer in my Reanalysis MSLPMSLPMean sea level pressure is the pressure at sea level, or, when measured at a given elevation on land, the station pressure reduced to sea level assuming an isothermal layer at the station temperature. application to distinguish if the centre of the vortices it found, be it high or low, was on the edge of the chart. Here are the results from all Decembers back to 1948.
I’ve just added a search routine to find the lowest and highest MSLPMSLPMean sea level pressure is the pressure at sea level, or, when measured at a given elevation on land, the station pressure reduced to sea level assuming an isothermal layer at the station temperature. in a given rectangular area for any period back to 1948 from reanalysis data I’ve downloaded. It was not too difficult to do in code, except when the area spanned the Greenwich meridian! Unfortunately the grid is rather coarse at 2.5° x 2.5°, but it suffices because the amount of data for a finer grid would be enormous. Here are the results I’ve generated for the highest and lowest MSLP around the British Isles for all Novembers back to 1948. The latest reanalysis data I have only extends to the 19th of November this year, so it may well be that storm Bert has beaten the 950.8 hPahPaA Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar from 2010 in the last few days.
Highest MSLP November 1948-2024Lowest MSLP November 1948-2024
Just a compilation of posts to my new Blue Sky account of this week long early cold spell across the country.
15 Nov 2024 1500-2100 UTCUTCCoordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Temp changes I generated this chart to see how the cold air was progressing into the NW behind the cold front. Then I noticed just how quickly this evening had cooled across S England under near perfect radiation conditions.
15 Nov 2024 06-20 UTC Precipitation Totals Estimates from weather radar. Just 0.6mm of rain from cold front in StrathpefferStrathpefferStrathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469..
16 Nov 2024 1112 UTC 1097 M Snow already starting to accumulate on the Cairngorms at 1097 M. It’s -3°C at 1245 M so freezing level ~500 M 🤔
16 Nov 2024 2153 UTC Some snow in these heavier showers on the Velux windows in Strathpeffer.
18 Nov 2024 1610 UTC Looking down from the Nevis range over Ft William & the top end of Loch Linnhe if I’m not mistaken. It looks like the SW end of the Great Glen has been in fog all day.
18 Nov 2024 NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. Worldview You can see the extent of the snow cover across the N of Scotland this lunchtime. Loch shin stands out very sharply.
18 Nov 2024 21 UTC Surface analysis An absolutely fascinating chart, I wish I had more time to analyse it more properly. It’s already -8.3°C at Glascarnoch, beating this mornings -7.8°C at Tulloch Bridge, and it’s on[y 21 UTC.😮 Heavy snow at Waddington 🤔
16-19 Nov 2024 12 UTC Temp anomalies The cold air has slowly extended further and further S each day since Saturday.
19 Nov 2024 1445 UTC The sky has grown very dark in Strathpeffer as it fills in with CBCBCumulonimbus cloud. Well-developed cumulonimbus clouds are characterized by a flat, anvil-like top’s coming down from the N. It’s an active trough and deep convection, with thunderstorms in the Moray Firth. It’s just started to snow – big flakes – vis down t0 800 M.
20 Nov 2024 0855 UTC Strathpeffer A good ~4 cm level snow cover from overnight snow showers which continue this morning. The old wives tale that temperatures increase when it starts to snow are true this morning 🤔
20 Nov 2024 12 UTC Strathpeffer-Knockfarrel Plenty of CB coming down from the N but moving fairly rapidly. An icy wind & a little drifting on the top. Still sub-zero this lunchtime 5 cm of snow lying.
20-29 Nov 2024 12 UTC 2M Temp anomalies ECMWFECMWFThe European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by most of the nations of Europe. It is based at three sites: Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom; Bologna, Italy; and Bonn, Germany. It operates one of the largest supercomputer complexes in Europe and the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data. Its lasted a full week in N Scotland not bad for an early cold spell. It’s a winter wonderland in Strathpeffer today, with a max of just 0.2°C so far. I imagine the kids will be sledging down the golf course shortly.
20 Nov 2024 1630 UTC Snow showers all day long in Strathpeffer, despite the fact that we’re 100 km away from the N coast of Scotland. I’ve just measured 10 cm of lying snow by the traditional Met OfficeUKMOThe Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy method of the mean of 3 measurements. 😉
20 Nov 2024 2345 UTC Quite sharp pressure falls & an ominous blob of cloud on the IR satellite imagery, combined with a lot of mod/heavy ppn across the N of Sutherland at the moment.
21 Nov 2024 08 UTC Snow Depths Certainly much deeper than 14 cm just after midnight, but temps rose from -3°C to 1°C and the snow turned sleety from 02 UTC. Still only 0.7°C with some light snow in Strathpeffer.
21 Nov 2024 09 UTC Surface analysis This cold warm front solution seems to kind of fit the weather we’ve seen in Strathpeffer overnight.
21 Nov 2024 07 UTC (31 hr total) Total precipitation Estimates from weather radar Most of this, inland at least, fell as snow. Estimates look a bit too high.
21 Nov 2024 1040 UTC It’s snowing again in Strathpeffer, although you can’t see it so well in this webcam image. Temperature dropped back to 0.3°C. It’s a rather nasty day out there all in all. But it’s not over to the fat lady starts to sing. Apologies to any fat ladies out there 😉
The global temperature estimates made by the ECMWFECMWFThe European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by most of the nations of Europe. It is based at three sites: Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom; Bologna, Italy; and Bonn, Germany. It operates one of the largest supercomputer complexes in Europe and the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data. in the ERA5ERAERA stands for 'ECMWF Re-Analysis' and refers to a series of research projects at ECMWF which produced various datasets (ERA-Interim, ERA-40, etcetera). series show that October 2024 was the second warmest in the short series back to 1948. I’m quite glad about that, because my DIYDIYDo It Yourself reanalysis series which I maintain showed the same thing. What is more astounding about October’s temperatures though, is that a 30 year linear trend on the ERA5 data shows a whopping 0.313°C decadal rise in global temperatures. If this were typical for all months of the year you can forget about limiting the increase in warming to only 1.5°C, it would be more like 3°C.😮
A quick look at the objective LWTLWTLamb Weather Types are often used in UK-based analyses, with individual weather patterns based on the eight primary cardinal directions (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) plus cyclonic (C), anticyclonic (A) and unclassified (U) types. data from 1871 to find the most anticyclonic November reveals that 1942 and 1988 (60%) are at the top of the pile. Not a lot of people know that. 🙂
November 1988November 1942
As you might expect, November 1942 and 1978 were both quite dry and cold months.
I have no idea if this is an analog for the coming winter, but I’ll do a bit more digging and see what I can find out what the following winters were like.
A month of mixed weather types, a negatively zonal start gradually became more zonal, with alternating cyclonic and anticyclonic spells through the month, which gradually became more anticyclonic in nature as pressure gradually rose.
