Winter 2014 - Weather Predictions

would love it if it was somewhere in the minus 5-10 range and sunny (aka alpine weather)

although my expectation is that it will be just above freezing for most of it, lots of rain and wind, and sod all natural light. if this is the case I'm hoping it's at least a little snowy so everyone at work will use it as an excuse to bunk off, and therefore, I'll have much less work to do
 
colzboppo said:
However; August was rather cool, in fact this was the coolest August for the UK since 1993.

Obviously actually predicting what the weather will do at this range is impossible (especially for the UK), but it's still interesting to note the potential for some colder than average weather according to certain models / analogues from previous winters with similar setups ( Plus; I love me some snow :D )
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august was only 0.8* below normal. The fact that is was the coolest since 1993 just shows how mild August has been recently. The first 4 months of the year were 1.9 to 2.4* above normal for comparison.

I would ignore the daily mail type headlines and look at the facts. at the moment the odds are on slightly above average winter, but the forecast skill is low.
 
jon86 said:
I'm hoping for more of the same as last year. :cool: I should have emigrated (to southern California) by December. :)
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If there is an el nino then so cal will be cooler and wetter than normal (so 18 instead of 20:D). Actually, dont be surprised by the amount of rain you get in winter in California. So Cal isn't too bad but nor cal is much wetter than london for example.
 
NexusK said:
You're probably thinking of 2009/2010 when it was down to -20C in loads of places across the UK. That whole winter right up to spring was freezing.
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Wetherlam Jan 2010
hD2nsOI.jpg


Would love the same again.
 
leaskovski said:
Apart from having what looks like a star trek emblem on the charts, what does that mean?
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C&P

The monitoring page of the “October pattern index” (OPI) is presented. The OPI index
represents a analytic synthesis of the October hemispheric pattern at 500 hPa, and shows from
previous studies quite a high correlation (r ≈ 0.9) with the winter mean Arctic Oscillation Index
(DJF AO); this implies that the lower the OPI index is in October (negative values) and the higher
will be the probability to have a weak polar vortex during the following winter. Therefore the OPI
index could be a valid support tool in the seasonal forecasting of the winter season.
The OPI index is calculated through a dedicated software modeling elaborating the 31 daily
hemispheric October at 500 hPa. This monitoring page is updated automatically with every run of
the global forecast model GFS (Global Forecast System), except the 18:00z run. The software
analyzes the previous consolidated daily charts plus 10 forecast charts as given by the GFS model.
For example on the 15th of October, the software calculates the OPI index based on the 15
consolidated daily charts (1-15 October) adding 10 forecast charts as given by the GFS model (16-
25 October). The definitive OPI index will be available only at the end of October, when the
software will be able to elaborate all the 31 daily consolidated charts of the month. During the
month the index will gradually tend to the final value starting to be reliable past the half of the
month, when the consolidated charts number will overtake the forecast charts number.
Finally, at the beginning of November, the official seasonal forecast for the winter 2014-2015
will be released based on the final OPI value and on the recent developments of this research whose
results have been discussed and analyzed so far with Prof. Judah Cohen (Director of Seasonal
Forecasting at AER) and the Italian Air Force Lt. Col. Guido Guidi.
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LOW OPI - Cold winter possible
HIGH OPI - Milder winter possible

Although like everything it's another bit of research ;)
 
mattyprice4004 said:
Well guys, the usual 'scaremongering' headlines are out there on the major news sites and papers - 'We're going to have the worst winter in 100 years' etc.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/520672/Winter-weather-2014-UK-forecast-cold-snow-November
http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Winter-2014-set-cold-wet-windy/story-23116558-detail/story.html

So, place your bets now! Do you reckon it'll be a cold one? A dull, wet one with no real cold? Something like 2011 where you couldn't drive anywhere for 6 weeks?

An insight from the OcUK weather experts would be good too... :p
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I suspect it will be nippy, with some frost. Possibly a light smattering of snow. Temperatures will likely reach a low of -8, but everyone will think it is the coldest weather evaaaaaar!!! Said people should go to somewhere where it gets to -30 or -40. Then they would know what cold was :)

I also suspect that the majority of the British public will use the afore mentioned smattering of snow as an excuse to be lazy and stop going to work etc. Oh, and 90% of people will also forget how to drive and abandon their vehicles in random places, or drive far to fast for the conditions because they think all of the electronic assistance in their Audi means they dont have to worry about things like ice. I predict that if there were a selfie competition there would be many, many selfies of perplexed looking Audi drivers being carried out of ditches or scraped off the road because of this. They would be closely followed by the selfies of BMW 3 and 5 series drivers, Merceded C and E class drivers and last but not least, the bread and butter of the british highway - the Vauxhall Insignia drivers.

:p
 
Neil79 said:
LOW OPI - Cold winter possible
HIGH OPI - Milder winter possible

Although like everything it's another bit of research ;)
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500 hPa is looking good for polar influence driving colder weather here and Siberian snow indices extent/coverage are off the charts but we still need a fairly significant drop in solar activity for that to translate into a proper winter.

Take a look at the sun activity graphs over time in combination with OPI/SCE and theres a strong correlation - 2009/10 for instance both have huge spikes that correlate with the subsequent winter we had.
 
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Interesting article on how the Met Office is constantly having to improve and change its models of prediction to account for global warming and it's effects on weather patterns: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/service...s/improving-our-near-term-climate-predictions

An iconic impact of climate change is the melting of polar sea-ice. However, low Arctic sea ice cover is now becoming increasingly linked with significant changes in the North Atlantic jet stream in winter and hence the severity of European winters. A number of studies are indicating that Arctic sea ice depletion, in isolation, may increase sea level pressure over the Arctic in winter and drive more easterly winds across Europe in both observations and computer models. It is possible that continued low Arctic sea ice during the coming years might therefore drive additional changes in northern European climate due to changes in winds as well as the more direct warming effects of longer term climate change.
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These are preliminary ideas for my winter forecast, will have a final and more detailed outlook around Wed 22nd.

As always, this is entirely based on my own research and while I take note of other approaches, I assume that they will be at least partly incorporated into my methodology which uses the index values of past data considered to have predictive value for this season. In other words, I would expect these other approaches to be buried in that data analysis rather than something different from my methods.

The overview would be highly variable trends that include some very cold weather at times as well as some very mild weather at other times. The most likely times for the very cold weather appear to be mid-November, early December, mid-January and late February into early March. The very mild conditions would occur between those periods, notably Christmas to New Years as well as late January into early February.

With that much variability in the forecast, timing cannot be considered overly reliable. I am just relaying to you what my raw data show, and if the train of high-amplitude ridges and troughs is even a little off in timing, the schedule could shift.

This sort of pattern is more likely to induce northerly than easterly cold spells. This may actually favour some parts of Britain (and Ireland) to see snowfall, notably northern and higher elevations of Scotland and northwest England, Wales, southwest England, and in Ireland, Connacht and west Ulster as well as west Munster, but there is probably enough variability to suggest brief spells of northeast winds favouring eastern and central England as well as eastern Ireland for snow.

The overall trend here is for spells of quite contrasting weather so that if snow does materialize, it would probably not persist on the ground for more than a week before melting away in milder weather.

I don't foresee long spells of stormy weather with a parade of deep lows as we saw last winter, but there could be one or two notably stormy spells involved in this rapidly changing scenario. It appears likely to me that there could be one or two weeks during the winter with a fast westerly type of flow bringing intense windstorms with SW to W gales, and one or two outbreaks of strong northerly flow that might induce strong gusts from NW to N associated with "polar low" type circulations.

At the same time, there could also be one or two weeks of very placid weather under high pressure of Atlantic origins similar to what happened early in Jan 2012.

That's the mixture that I foresee and within that I would think there might be two, three or possibly four interesting wintry periods for Britain and Ireland with about equal chances of them falling in any of the next five months. I don't think there's much chance of a cold-dominated sort of winter like 2009-10 but I would say there's more chance of that than a mild-dominated winter such as 2006-07. The variable signal appears strong in the preferred analogue set which includes 1968-69 and a much older case, 1866-67 which established a high-water mark for variability of temperature trends.

With this much variability expected, I am more concerned that this aspect would verify than precise timing, in other words, a difficult forecast in my estimation and therefore counting on the variability to be the main "performance" criterion.

Will update this in somewhat more expanded form next week.
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Roger J Smith
 
I'd agree with that as being the most likely scenario we will see - currently we have 2 conflicting setups meaning that whichever wins out at any one time could see a significant switch from one extreme to the other.
 
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