Polar blasts

amandstu

I see that the USA is getting one of these right now.

Does this mean we are more likely to suffer the same fate in Europe this winter?

Is there a connection between the 2 continents regarding cold air breaking in the the Arctic regions ?

maquiladora

There are winters featuring cold outbreaks in NA and Europe, and then there are winters where it's cold for one and mild for the other, so there is no direct, simple connection.

amandstu

Cheers. The severity of the weather in the USA at present seems quite surprising. I wonder if the orange crop in Florida has been badly damaged.

howlinwolf

if I remember correctly last winter the usa got some serious snowfall even in some more southerly states ( not quite the buffalo lake affect snow though),and all they seemed to be talking about was the polar vortex on the news over there and we got a mild wet and sometimes stormy winter....does the vortex breakup which releases cold air into Canada/usa cause strong low pressure systems to build up on the jet stream and crash into our little dot in the ocean?

Harps

Yeah usually if the PV is centred over North America then it's ejecting cold air into the Atlantic which causes stronger low pressure and westerlies for us.

That's different to the vortex breaking up though, last winter there was a strong PV throughout. If it breaks up then cold air floods south in a lot of different areas, basically what happened in 2010 here

Nabber

Geography has a lot to play in it. USA would be more similar to Eastern Russia/Mongolia.

Western Europe has a warm ocean, As cold air passes over the sea, it is warmed significantly. If Greenland, Iceland, Ireland were connected by land, the sea behind would become cold, My guess is we would see extreme weather then.

Don't quote me on this, but I remember a few years ago, eastern Canada & Green Land had uppers of -65 upper being dragged out to sea towards Ireland. By the time they got to us they we -4. Can't remember month or year, but twas a while back.
People don't realise how warm the Irish sea is relative to other seas at this latitude. The Labrador Corridor for instance has ice bergs floating on down the Canadian and USA East coast.

maquiladora

UK Met Office actually have a blog post on this very question.

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/us-snowfall-and-will-it-impact-the-uk/

MJohnston

Nabber wrote: »

People don't realise how warm the Irish sea is relative to other seas at this latitude. The Labrador Corridor for instance has ice bergs floating on down the Canadian and USA East coast.

Yeah, I lived in California for a while, and I was always surprised by how even though it got extremely warm inland, the water was never that much different in temperature compared to the Irish Sea. Of course, that meant it was way too cold for Californians.

screamer

Disclaimer: What I know about scientific weather is dangerous! (as in I've not got much of a clue), but, I kinda look at the polar air like a boiling pot, cold gathers up there, and then it boils over, where that happens to be is anyone's guess, but so long as it has an escape route, that part of the pot will get all the spill over, the rest of the pot will be quite fine.
So, to put that into simple terms, so long as the US is escape point, the rest of us won't get any/ much polar spill over.

Its Only Ray Parlour

MJohnston wrote: »

Yeah, I lived in California for a while, and I was always surprised by how even though it got extremely warm inland, the water was never that much different in temperature compared to the Irish Sea. Of course, that meant it was way too cold for Californians.

This is a bad example. The water along the Californian coast is unique because there's an undercurrent that pushes cold water from the bottom of the ocean to the surface. Despite San Diego and L.A. being further south than New York, New York is the only city of the three that experiences tropical storms - the cold water kills the storms.

The waters around Europe are very unique because of the Gulf Stream pumping warm water towards us.