Winter 2022-23 - General Discussion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119642376#Comment_119642376

They had 2 notable snowfalls over the last 2 years was my point. It’s not a common occurrence for them to have big snowfalls every winter. Average snowfall is only 1.3 centimeters (0.5 inches) annually.

Niall145

Afaik there hasnt been any proper lying snow in Dublin city centre since March 2018 (I might be wrong on this); my area of North Dublin was lucky enough to get that wonderful day of snow in January 2021 (which was still lying the next day!)

esposito

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119642611#Comment_119642611

Yep pretty sure you are right there. March 2018. Very sad really for us coldies.

@Elmer Blooker very good point - the euro high seems to be more common nowadays resulting in mild and dry for us and cold and snowy for parts of Greece. Let’s face it, it will probably happen again this winter.

Oneiric 3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119642376#Comment_119642376

Greece is on about the same latitude as the snowy eastern and central US. It also has the entire Eurasian continent to its NW, N and NE. It is naturally going to get more snow than us and I don't understand why people think this is peculiar.

M.T. Cranium

I think eventually somebody will stumble upon a method that works reasonably well, of course some claim to be there or near there now, I think some workers in this field are somewhat better than random guesswork but I haven't seen any real evidence of any near-perfect skill at this task, if such a person existed they would probably be scoring a lot higher than even the best contest entrants (and that time scale is presumably easier to crack being basically half a month that requires a forecast and half that already has something of a reliable forecast).

Then I wonder if that were to happen, what would become of the weather enthusiast field in general? There's almost nobody regularly posting on the astronomy forum in part because predictions there almost always come to pass.

When I say "works reasonably well" or "near perfect skill" I am probably talking about fairly small tolerances, the complexity of weather outcomes is always going to create a challenge to hit perfect accuracy and reasonable skill would probably look something like the 24-48 hour time range looks now.

My own search for answers has certainly convinced me of one thing, any reliable method will be fairly complicated and will need a component of response to short-term human-caused factors that might interfere with the reliability of anything purely statistical. Maybe that would look like this -- if you had a reliable model that showed you a +0.3 anomaly, you might adjust that to +0.7 if you thought part of the input came from cases with significantly less ambient greenhouse gas. But I am fairly sure it would work in a more complex way than that. All of which is rather frustrating because you cannot necessarily tell whether a statistical approach is as meaningless as it might appear, if the results need to be reconfigured to match the new atmospheric chemistry.

Progress towards an outcome could be relatively quick or it might be a case of working through certain stages. Since we don't know what philosophy will actually produce this outcome, we can't really say in advance whether progress might be all at once or in stages. My hunch is that it would be in stages. Something might begin to separate itself from other techniques and study of its diminishing errors could make the last stages easier to attain. I suspect this could happen in this century. When I first started doing this sort of research, we did not all have personal computers, access to all the data that is now possible, and the speed of calculation that, if nothing else, can rule out non-working paradigms in a matter of hours rather than months or years. The same level of intellect applied in today's situation is almost orders of magnitude better supported, so if a result could be had, the chances of it happening will continue to improve (the growing numbers of people interested also tends to up the chances). Once upon a time, only a handful of people were looking for the planet Neptune, and two of them succeeded independently in finding it. Imagine if ten thousand people are looking for this kind of solution. As I said to a relative who didn't venture to contradict me, they can't all be as stupid as me.

Elmer Blooker

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119643419#Comment_119643419

Yes, and Toronto is the same latitude as Nice and Montreal a little further north the same as Venice. As I said yesterday high latitude blocking appears to be a thing of the past and mid latitude blocking now more common, I think this is what happened during the Holocene Climactic Optimum. Just my amateur opinion which means nothing of course but the “cooling in Southern Europe” is interesting as northern latitudes warmed considerably.

The Holocene Climate Optimum warm event consisted of increases of up to 4 °C near the North Pole (in one study, winter warming of 3 to 9 °C and summer of 2 to 6 °C in northern central Siberia).[4]Northwestern Europe experienced warming, but there was cooling in Southern Europe.

Loughc

Firstly great write up @sryanbruen excellent work.

I love when this thread starts every year.

Sadly my prediction for winter is the same as every winter since 2018. Mild, wet and windy in that order of frequency.

Gonzo

Many of the long range models are going for a very typical zonal set up for this winter with wetter conditions to the north and dryer conditions towards the south. Of course the long range models naturally always go for a mild zonal and wet winter which is the form horse for this part of Europe in particular. We are well overdue a colder than average winter so we're bound to get one at some stage but they are becoming more rare.

Loughc

Maybe I’m remembering things wearing rose tinted glasses but I could have sworn hard frosty mornings were a regular occurrence during winter. Nowadays I can prob count on one hand the frosty mornings during winter.

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666987#Comment_119666987

The majority of the winters over the past 5 years have had barely any noticeable frost with 2018 being the exception.

Oneiric 3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119666987#Comment_119666987

Even when conditions are favourable and a frost is promised, you can be almost 100% sure that an inexplicable bank of cloud will pop up out of nowhere in the evening and remain there until early to mid morning, ensuring a solid prevention of any hope of a frost.

M.T. Cranium

The synoptics we are getting this week would be ideal for snow in late November or December, hope that it repeats then. All components too mild at this point of course.

Niall145

More likely we'll probably just have the exact same weather as now (temps in the low teens and cloudy) except with winds from a different direction!

pad199207

Temperatures into the teens sounds good if we are definitely not going to get decent cold and snow!

esposito

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119669555#Comment_119669555

Yeah but not on Christmas Day. Want it feeing seasonable. I’d even take a Polar maritime NW’y for the big day.

almostthere12

A dry winter and fairly mild but with 3 weeks of snow in March!!!

Well that's what the english version of the Donegal postman is predicting.

Dickie10

does anyone here remember or have data for Christmas Day 2008? i vaguely remember it being very dry ,sunny and mild around 12 degrees at 1 pm was this the correct year i am thinking of? surely the most un christmassy day ever for dec 25th?

esposito

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119683945#Comment_119683945

Cant remember the day itself. I think you could have the wrong year though as the days after it up until new year were quite cold and foggy. Probably 2007 you were thinking.

Gonzo

The vast majority of Christmas Days I can remember since 2005 have mostly been mild or very mild, generally 8 to 13C, some were mild and sunny, others were mild and cloudy or mild and wet. Christmas Day 2004 is one of two Christmas days that stands out to me as we did have some wet snow that day which gave a temporary covering of about 6cm. The other is of course during the December to remember in 2010 where 20 to 30cm of snow covered the ground on Christmas Day 2010 before the thaw set in the next day. I can't remember Christmas Day 2008 but it was most likley mild in the double figures.

sryanbruen

Rather than starting the (seemingly) annual stratospheric watch thread now, I thought I'd post it here instead as it is relevant to winter.

In case you've been living under a rock or you are new here, please find the information below which I have copied and pasted from previous posts because there is no better way I can explain it.

The earth's atmosphere is divided into different layers. The troposphere is where weather occurs and the stratosphere is just above the troposphere. Much like the weather around the earth, the stratospheric temperature varies by season with it reaching its lowest point in December on average. Each autumn, a phenomena known as the stratospheric polar vortex forms within the Arctic Circle. This is an upper-level area of low pressure formed by the temperature difference between the equator and the pole. The vortex weakens and strengthens from year to year via dynamic events like stratospheric warming or the annual summer hibernation where the SPV "goes to sleep" due to a lower temperature gradient between the equator and the pole. The SPV is well defined when it's strong with a single vortex lying within the Arctic Circle.

Normally, the troposphere and stratosphere are in sync with each other which results in downwelling. This is when planetary waves are propagated to either level of the atmosphere via the weather patterns that occur. For example, an Aleutian Low (low pressure over or around Alaska) / Scandinavian High (high pressure over Scandinavia) combination can be a sign of disrupting the Polar Vortex and a precursor to a SSW event as a result. Another example is that with a cold stratosphere and healthy SPV, the North Atlantic jet stream is powered up bringing mild and moist conditions to western Europe with low pressure centred over Iceland. Tropospheric patterns that can have an impact on the SPV are defined by zonal wavenumbers which basically refer to the amount of ridges and troughs within a full circle around the globe at a given latitude like zonal wavenumber-1 refers to 1 ridge and 1 trough for example.

There are different types of warming that occur and can have different degrees of impacts on the weather around the Northern Hemisphere if a tropospheric response occurs.

There is a minor stratospheric warming which involves the stratospheric temperature rising but less dramatically compared to a major warming and the zonal mean zonal winds do not reverse.

A major sudden stratospheric warming involves the zonal mean zonal winds at 60°N 10 hPa in the stratosphere to reverse from westerly to easterly. The SPV is completely disrupted and it will either be split into two or more vortices OR displaced from its normal location over the North Pole. Major SSW events are forced by tropospheric patterns disturbing the SPV but sometimes, these events can propagate back down into the troposphere and result in anomalously blocked patterns which gives a higher chance of colder weather for Europe. However, even if a SSW downwells successfully into the troposphere, the positioning of the blocking is a factor to consider also.

Cohen and Jones (2011) did a good paper on tropospheric precursors and categorising past SSW events into splits and displacements here, it's free access to everybody.

Met Éireann highlighted previous Irish cold spells and if a SSW could have caused them in their Storm Emma paper here.

Other warming events that occur include final warming events which indicate the transition into stratospheric summer hibernation mode and typically happen during the months of April and May but have occurred in March before, and Canadian warming events which occur earlier in the winter.

Currently as of writing this post on the 1st of October 2022, there is the prospect for a weakening of the SPV through the next week as indicated by the reduction in zonal mean zonal winds at 60N 10hPa below. However, the variation at this time of year is small and it is unlikely to cause much impacts on the weather patterns. We've seen significant disruptions to the SPV in autumn 2016 and recently October 2021.

Early significant stratospheric warming or disruption events "can" lead to blocking early on in winter BUT much of the time the significance is insignificant (pardon the pun) and in fact can allow the SPV to intensify by winter time. This is due to the fact that radiative cooling is strongest in winter and warming limits or cuts off further wave activity to occur from the trop to the strat. We saw this happen in both of the years I mentioned above - much of winter 2016-17 had a strong SPV with the one exception being late January when a significant warming did occur but wasn't quite a major warming as the zonal winds did not reverse at 10hPa 60N whilst 2021-22 had a consistently strong SPV throughout with very little disruption; similar to 2019-20 but not quite the same intensification as that infamous winter.

Just wanted to get that out there as I've seen some suggest this stratospheric warming that's likely to occur in the second week of October could affect our winter down the line in terms of blocking which as far as I'm concerned is pure hyperbolic nonsense.

Orion402

" The vortex weakens and strengthens from year to year via dynamic events like stratospheric warming or the annual summer hibernation where the SPV "goes to sleep" due to a lower temperature gradient between the equator and the pole. The SPV is well defined when it's strong with a single vortex lying within the Arctic Circle."

This is like saying the Sun "goes to sleep" every night and entirely at variance with the cause found in the dynamics surrounding the North/South poles within a global perspective.

The North pole has presently turned roughly 10 degrees into the dark hemisphere of the Earth since the September Equinox so on the December Solstice, the radius between North pole to the planet's divisor is 2,550 km thereby creating a surface area where the Sun is out of view of about 20,000,000 km2 or 4% of the Earth's surface where solar radiation is absent. All these values have to be worked out in detail based on the motion of the poles parallel to the orbital plane as the entire surface turns to the central Sun as a function of the orbital motion of the Earth.

It is not possible to show the North polar region for obvious reasons, however, the South pole station provides the necessary time lapse where the effects of the surface rotation as a function of orbital motion is clearly visible as the Sun starts to turn out of view around the March Equinox-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4av1CD8smII

This is an opportunity to approach zonal flows with a more precise technical view and cyclical weather (The Seasons) are a property of a moving Earth in a Sun-centred system.

Graces7

We will as always take what comes... having been well prepared and informed of all possibilities.. Fuel and food stocks in etc..

With thanks to all contributors to awareness and possibilities.

Loughc

https://www.her.ie/news/ireland-snow-christmas-564948?fbclid=IwAR39riuDNfGcKWb0CiF7oxEVEBQxEYtaqmsYmDAK_HOfHP2iUI1ZBhyDStU

And so it begins the media hyperbole begins.

I fully expect sunshine and above average temperatures this Christmas so

esposito

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119711612#Comment_119711612

*Rolls eyes*

Nabber

Azores high will rule this winter

odyboody

Highly scientific reasoning here.

We are getting screwed with the energy prices, therefor its bound to be a bitter winter

Loughc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119712698#Comment_119712698

I'm surprised they didn't go to the postman for his expert opinion like most years.

esposito

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119712702#Comment_119712702

Does the Donegal postman still give his predictions? Haven’t seen them in 3 or 4 years.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119712738#Comment_119712738

He quit last year because of online abuse.

https://www.donegaldaily.com/2021/11/29/amateur-weatherman-michael-dumps-forecast-because-of-online-abuse/amp/

Loughc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119712758#Comment_119712758

He was 0-10 with correct predictions as well.

Safe to say the postman never delivered.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119711612#Comment_119711612

Just reading that and it occurred to me that anyone under 18 probably doesn't remember that unreal freeze of 2010. Where are the years going???

Gonzo

Anyone under the age of 18 only has 2018 as a reference for proper measureable snow. Anyone under the age of 7 probably has no memories of making a snowball or snowman as they would have been too young for the 2018 event. Hopefully that will change this winter with 1 day of measureable snow across the country.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119716768#Comment_119716768

Jez I didn’t snow was that scarce in Meath.

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719405#Comment_119719405

We usually get a light temporary dusting once per winter but you can't make snowballs or snowmen with those. We need an easterly based freeze up for proper snow in this part of Ireland. The Atlantic rarely delivers for snow in Meath but it did one night around January 2018.

Loughc

https://www.fm104.ie/news/buzz/weather-forecasters-predict-ireland-will-get-first-white-christmas-in-12-years/?fbclid=IwAR033ghfjUNC4uppkX9C8djx2ku1WUxTWaji0EAdktv454gKVk6mSqEOIps

That’s a white Christmas nailed on so. The click bait experts have posted.

snowstreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119716768#Comment_119716768

I framed a few 2018 snow photos with my then 2 year old in an igloo. Ive put them up on the wall near the dinner table so he will never forget the snow that year.

We got a good fall of snow in 2021 here in Athenry, it was still nothing compared to Emma in 2018. He was asking why I didnt make an igloo in 21 & is looking forward to a 2018 repeat for his chance to make another one. He could be waiting a while!

Lucreto

An unusually mild winter according to France.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221013-europe-heading-for-unusually-warm-winter-forecaster

Probably just the usual for us.

Loughc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119745213#Comment_119745213

But but FM104 and her.ie said…… 😂😂

Coillte_Bhoy

Loe the way they say 'forecasters' have predicted, but dont name them and then causally drop a completely unrelated official met forecast in, and they only ones quoted are bookies 😃

Graces7

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720496#Comment_119720496

My first winter out here.. we had snow. I built a snowman on my drive .... Not sure what year.

Supercell

DAA planning for snowmageddon this winter ✈️❄️⛄️

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/snow-patrol-40-new-massey-fergusons-bound-for-dublin-airport/

Loughc

Only read yesterday one of the tabloids were recommending a hotter than average winter upcoming.

Makes sense if we have invested in snow plows haha

mr.stonewall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119790297#Comment_119790297

This is standard practice for the DAA. They rent approx 40 new tractors annually for the winter. These are then sold onto farmers thru dealers in the spring. Big change for the DAA to go to red tractors as it was always blue and green.

A bit of advertising for the dealer to help to have homes found for them in the spring. Big wait times on new machines. Average wait time off 10-12 months for a tractor. that's from ordering to delivery

almostthere12

CFS long range is giving plenty of cold incursions from the east and north in December and January.

Danno

Preparing for Winter

One year, a young Ojibwe boy was given the task of ensuring the entire village had enough wood for winter. This was the first time he had been given such an honor and he wanted to do it right. Before he went to work he decided to call the weatherman to ask what kind of a winter was to be expected. The weather man told him it was going to be a warm and uneventful winter. The boy thought to himself, 'this is great. I won't have to work too hard and I'll be able to look good in front of the whole tribe.'

Just to be safe, he gathered a few of his friends and they went to work for a week. At the end of the week, after chopping and piling the wood, the boy decided to give the weatherman a second call. The weatherman told him it was going to be a very cold winter. Shocked at this sudden change and not wanting to disappoint the elders of his village, he gathered more of his friends and they went to work. For two weeks they cut and piled wood, hoping that it would be enough to last the whole winter.

Once again the boy called the weatherman and this time the weatherman told him, "Son, its going to be a very bitter, cold and long winter. Maybe the worst winter on record."

Exasperated, the boy had to ask, "What makes you say that sir?"

The weatherman replies, "The Indians are gathering wood like crazy!"

Courtesy: https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/native-humor-preparing-for-winter

Summarises some of this thread! 🤣

Niall145

Looking forward to our 1 day of winter

JanuarySnowstor

The lack of proper cold to our North is a worry as we head further into November. We are as well off with warm Southerly's for now as there is nothing of note to our North/East.

On a positive note this Autumn is quite like 2009 and we all know what happened a week before Christmas!

antimatterx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119793617#Comment_119793617

My favourite winter. I remember being in 2nd year in school and the schools postponed reopening in January until the day after my birthday. It was great.

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119793229#Comment_119793229

1 Day of winter is a bonus in this country. That would mean more winter than we had last winter and in 2019/2020. We've had a terrible run of winters since winter 2018/2019. Barely a flake to be seen since Storm Emma/Beast From the East. Maybe with a bit of luck we may see some white gold this winter.

Billcarson

The warmth we've had since the middle of last yr has to end at some point. I thought last month coming in around average might have been the start of a change but this month looks like being yet another above average month.