___GENERAL CHAT & SIGNS A BRUTAL WINTER AHEAD ?___ 2013 has been quiet a year so far with the coldest March on the record in many parts of the UK & Ireland and then an exceptionally warm July + exceptionally dry Summer with many areas experiencing drought conditions at times, some places like Southeast Ireland seeing vegetation struggling for moisture for weeks if not months on end. The exceptionally cold March weather was also reported widespread across the Northern Hemisphere. The US has seen a very low tornado count this year, even though the El Reno tornado, which took the lives of 4 storm chasers, turned out to be the largest / widest ever on record. The Atlantic Hurricane season has been off to a slow start with hurricane activity way below average even though the number of named storms is around average but there is still over two months to go, as the season runs until the end of November ! The pacific has had and continues an active season on both, it’s eastern and western sides. The Arctic has seen record low Summer temperatures this year while Antarctica, after seeing record high sea ice coverage last year, sea ice coverage there seems to be heading for the record books again this year, and this all comes just a few short years after Antarctica witnessed record low sea ice coverage. Meanwhile, back in the Arctic, Summer sea ice has been 6th lowest in the last 35 years, the era of satellite sea ice coverage. This means that it is well up on last years record low and although scientists warn that the ice is thin an vulnerable, there is not definite signals either way and 35 years is a very short time in monitoring such climate issues. The sea ice situations has always been up and down as long as the earth is here, due to natural cycles but as we all know, many others will have more to add to the story. Meanwhile, the weather back home is very warm and humid for the foreseeable future with Summer like temps, but while there will be plenty of dry weather with some nice sunshine around at times, there will always be the risk of outbreaks of heavy thundery rain and thundery showers is such warm and humid, semi-tropical conditions. Such warm and very moist, air pushing up from the South brings the high risk of coastal mist, drizzle and also fog, as the moisture content of the air is very high so that the least drop in temperature causes heavy condensing, therefore, leading to the foresaid. Today, Sunday was a typical example of this as many southern areas had a day, which would otherwise have been a fine dry bright day, dampened by such mists and drizzle. South, SW & SE coastal areas are always most at risk from this but of course, it does push further or well inland at times. The air flow in the coming week or more will be of an E/SE direction as low pressures systems are further south in the Atlantic than usual and pressure is building to the NE. While this brings a milder scenario now, in Winter, this would be a very cold frosty set up with anticyclonic gloom setting in at times, frost lingering all day and the risk of snow showers in eastern and southern coastal areas. It was continued patterns like this, all through 2010 that was one of the main factors that lead me to warn of the following Winter months in advance but this year, while the pattern has shown its head now and again at ordinary lengths, the set up ahead seems to be an exceptionally long one in comparison to the usual’s. Now this is an exciting pattern to see setting up if you are looking forward to a cold any snowy Winter but on the other hand, are the models right at the longer range or are they struggling to cope with the fact that Winter is trying to push out Summer and things are bumping around a bit ? I myself think that we will see this ‘would be, cold Winter pattern’ last anything from over a week to two weeks, or more. Come Winter, that would be much longer than your usual 3 to 5 day long cold snap. Very interesting times ahead for sure and this is in addition to the very interesting 2013 we have had so far. Could the Winter from hell be on the way ? One thing is for sure, if there is any certainty in that, you will hear it here on Reality Weather first ! Don’t you just love Irish weather along with the UK’s…. —Ray
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 23:40:02 +0000
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