Spring 2018: General Discussion

sryanbruen

Never once did I mention the word boring or other similar words to it.....

Cold, wet and dull are statistical words which when you look at the stats are so. I do not like any month that has all these combined.

sryanbruen

I just looked at the GFS ensembles for the NAO and AO, both are going down into negative territory with the AO jumping off a cliff again!

Donegal Storm

nacho libre wrote: »

February, if you enjoy snow, is usually one of the best months of the year. You obviously have fallen out of love with it. Maybe after a few years of snowless winter you will learn to love it again:(
As for this March, if you like snow it has been anything but boring!, and it has put to bed one falsehood around snow:that we can't get any decent snow fall and cold after mid February!

I've already had several snowless winters before this one showed up!

I've enjoyed the snow a lot this month but on the whole I have a low tolerance for cold weather and far prefer my snow to happen in December and January. Any later and it tends to lose its novelty factor as I'm getting fed up with the cold and even when it does fall it's unlikely to stick around for too long.

nacho libre

sryanbruen wrote: »

Never once did I mention the word boring or other similar words to it.....

Cold, wet and dull are statistical words which when you look at the stats are so. I do not like any month that has all these combined.

In fairness you did not.
Well you are the stats man, so i take your word for it. It's unusual because often with snow we get a lot of dry and sunny weather, but this March we've had meandering/ rudderless lows after cold outbreaks, so that probably accounts for the dullness. I still wouldn't categorize it as a bad month, though. It was the greatest month in years, if you like snow. That will be the popular perception and recollection of it.

nacho libre

Donegal Storm wrote: »

I've already had several snowless winters before this one showed up!

I've enjoyed the snow a lot this month but on the whole I have a low tolerance for cold weather and far prefer my snow to happen in December and January. Any later and it tends to lose its novelty factor as I'm getting fed up with the cold and even when it does fall it's unlikely to stick around for too long.

Well i would prefer an easterly outbreak in December or January myself, to see how low the temperatures could go and because there would be less of a thaw, but February, at least when i was growing up, was always the optimum month for snow. I'll take snow when i can get it too. Also, if you like extreme events, while not necessarily being a fan of snow, this March was exceptional for that. With this in mind there will surely be stories told about it for years to come.

Just like there is for the great thunderstorms of 1985.

sryanbruen

nacho libre wrote: »

In fairness you did not.
Well you are the stats man, so i take your word for it. It's unusual because often with snow we get a lot of dry and sunny weather, but this March we've had meandering/ rudderless lows after cold outbreaks, so that probably accounts for the dullness. I still wouldn't categorize it as a bad month, though. It was the greatest month in years, if you like snow. That will be the popular perception and recollection of it.

The below 500mb height anomaly reanalysis from NOAA up to 20th March shows why it's been a cold, wet and dull month.

Western based negative NAO with a southerly tracking jet stream but a trough of low heights right over Ireland.

March 2013 was a very similar setup in terms of the 500mb height anomaly though the lowest heights were further eastwards over Ireland and southwards of Europe. Spain had its wettest month on record then.

If this kind of setup were in Winter, it would be very sunny - 2009/10 had this exact setup in terms of trough and jet stream though blocking was over all of the Arctic Circle bringing cold to every continent in the Northern Hemisphere thus why the AO was record breakingly negative for that season.

I think there's a huge mix of cold Marches for sunshine. Sometimes, you have very sunny ones like March 2010 (see how this year always pops up in my discussions for being great!) but sometimes you have very dull ones like March 2013 or 2018. March 1962 was close to average sunshine.

nacho libre

sryanbruen wrote: »

The below 500mb height anomaly reanalysis from NOAA up to 20th March shows why it's been a cold, wet and dull month.

Western based negative NAO with a southerly tracking jet stream but a trough of low heights right over Ireland.

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Yes with an east based NAO we probably would have had a brighter month, and Elmer Blooker
could have had his prolonged freeze in Late February, instead of the high quickly migrating from Scandanavia all the way to Canada, but then we might not have had the once in a life time snowfall courtesy of Emma.

sryanbruen

Oooh, a special delivery arrived for me today.

Now, I await for my weather books that I ordered as recommended by you guys.

km79

Syranbreun
I mean this in the nicest possible way
You are daft as a brush

Artane2002

I'm already missing the beast now

On another note, yet another cloudy, dry day. There was a hole in the clouds where the sun was earlier giving some brief hazy sunshine. Not really mild but not cold. Mild would be a better word than cold though to describe today.

I'm actually ok with the dull weather this month. This is because it would be harder for the snow to melt under cloudy skies so I didn't want sun. Now we better get repaid for this during summer!!

Clonmel1000

Thoroughly miserable evening here wet and dull.

Oneiric 3

Comparison with the current March with that of March 2013 up to the 22nd of both months using the 11 station IMT mean:

Mean maxima/minima/mean (Deg. C)

2013: 7.7 / 1.5 / 4.60
2018: 7.6 / 1.4 / 4.51

Although we are currently running marginally cooler than March 2013 at the moment, I think it will be unlikely that this March will finish as cool overall.

Data from Met Éireann.

giveitholly

Artane2002 wrote: »

I'm already missing the beast now

On another note, yet another cloudy, dry day. There was a hole in the clouds where the sun was earlier giving some brief hazy sunshine. Not really mild but not cold. Mild would be a better word than cold though to describe today.

I'm actually ok with the dull weather this month. This is because it would be harder for the snow to melt under cloudy skies so I didn't want sun. Now we better get repaid for this during summer!!

Not dry here in tipp,miserable wet and cold since the middle of the day

Oneiric 3

nacho libre wrote: »

Yes with an east based NAO we probably would have had a brighter month, and Elmer Blooker
could have had his prolonged freeze in Late February, instead of the high quickly migrating from Scandanavia all the way to Canada, but then we might not have had the once in a life time snowfall courtesy of Emma.

Yes, but roll on some decent late spring/summer storms!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GRNwwsV4nQ

sryanbruen

Photo sent to me by Vxlks this evening in Dublin.

Donegal Storm

The last of the snow is gone here today, still the odd pile here and there in car parks but just counting actual lying snow patches. The rain overnight made short work of the last patch near the house which was the remains of a drift that was about 8ft deep at the start of the month. First day since February 26th without any snow!

Artane2002

Jaw dropping day in Dublin. Unbroken sunshine. I could live with this until the start of November.

Oops69

Artane2002 wrote: »

Jaw dropping day in Dublin. Unbroken sunshine. I could live with this until the start of November.

no way , absolutely boring after a few days .

Artane2002

Oops69 wrote: »

no way , absolutely boring after a few days .

Cloudy is boring, rain causes traffic so im fine with this.

Gonzo

blue sunny skies every day from now till 1 November I'd have no issue with. Plenty of bbq's, garden beers, able to go for walks without checking the rain radar and enjoy the countryside. No getting wet, no grey skies, washing drys fast, nothing dismal. So many benefits to a dry sunny climate.

Artane2002

Speaking of drying, fantastic drying conditions today. I moved into this house last March and the shed always has a puddle on its roof. Today is one of the three occasions where I haven't seen a puddle on top of it, the other two were the dry spell before the Beast and the few days after the mini Beast.

Personally, I'll never get bored of blue skies or snow. I usually spend the majority of my summer on holidays around the Mediterranean and I never get tired of the blue skies and I'm treated to a few thunderstorms too. I didn't go abroad last year and to be fair, the summer was pretty decent. This year, I'm spending all of July in the Mediterranean, which is shorter than the usual two months.

On this day in 2012, I posted a screenshot from my phone on fb showing the temp as 18 degrees and sunny.
Beautiful day here, sunny and warm enough for a t-shirt while power hosing the patio.

sryanbruen

https://twitter.com/Forecas55175638/status/977534202282463237

Donegal Storm

Deleted User wrote: »

On this day in 2012, I posted a screenshot from my phone on fb showing the temp as 18 degrees and sunny.
Beautiful day here, sunny and warm enough for a t-shirt while power hosing the patio.

That was an amazing week, proper clear cloudless skies for about 5 days in a row with temperatures near 20C. It felt so much hotter as well with it being the first blast of warmth so early in the year.


Nice day today though I ran into a really heavy shower around Carrick-on-Shannon with nice big thundery drops splattering on the windscreen. First signs of convection perhaps?

Oscar Bravo

Beautiful sunny morning here in Castlebar. Looking forward to the nice long evening this evening.

Clonmel1000

Nice morning here to was put for a run earlier and once the fog cleared it was very pleasant.

Oneiric 3

Pretty notable cool down in Atlantic temps over the last week. Actually anomalies at the moment:



A small taster of the AMO flip, which is predicted to take place sometime during the 2020s perhaps?

Xenji

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

Beautiful sunny morning here in Castlebar. Looking forward to the nice long evening this evening.

Shame it did not last long, dull and wet now, yesterday was a fantastic day though.

Say my name

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Pretty notable cool down in Atlantic temps over the last week. Actually anomalies at the moment:



A small taster of the AMO flip, which is predicted to take place sometime during the 2020s perhaps?

All we want now is for Enso to just go on the positive side of neutral coupled with this AMO and then we have a drought in Ireland.

sryanbruen

I want El Nino Modoki please.