FI Charts ( T120+ onwards) Winter 2022/2023 **READ MOD NOTE IN FIRST POST**

WolfeEire

Up the Japanese! JMA is chilly

Hooter23

Everything looks right up to friday now on the gfs charts...its Saturday onwards its looks dodgey and still not quite right..the correct pattern for Saturday onwards should start showing up soon on the next few runs...

WolfeEire

Cold on Christmas Day and St Stephens Day on ECM op run.

nacho libre

Well that monthly update was pants. We have blocking highs, but fail to get proper cold in. Week 2 seems like we get an attempt at a Scandi high but it does not make it all the way, or that it eventually sinks over us. Interestingly the GFS well out in FI looks like there is an attempt at a Scandi' high. I hope that update is Met Éireann just being conservative at this stage.

Gonzo

The main problems we have now with cold over the next 2 weeks is a Euro high which doesn't look like it's going to move away any time soon and the Atlantic is back with an onslaught for the time being so any attempts at cold will be very short. Northern and perhaps central Scotland will be the place to be over the next 2 weeks for cold and snow.

Hopefully we will have better luck around early to mid January for something interesting to happen for cold and snow.

nacho libre

Yes, a deep freeze is not happening anytime soon. We could well get brief windows for snow as the latest ECM shows. I think the real problem is not so much the Euro Heights but the positioning of any weak heights too much to the west of Greenland . If we could develop a strong high over central Greenland the lows in the Atlantic would probably slide and the cold air would likely flood south.

Gonzo

Ye the blocking has kind of shifted away to the Canadian side and will remain there for the next 2 weeks at least which is absolutely no good for us. We live in hope that the ECM extended is onto something as it wants to bring back a fairly major Scandi high during the 2nd or 3th week of January but that is a whole month away and in terms of winter weather so much can happen between now and then.

Meteorite58

THE GFS now showing a very unsettled period after Christmas, it along with GEM showing stormy around Thurs next week, just a note to see if it shows up again in following runs. Not so from the ECM , more under the influence of a cold HP initially with a brief rise in temp associated with frontal activity midweek and resuming cooler weather for a couple of more days perhaps.

ECM showing a lot of areas getting mainly dry cold weather for a few days from Christmas day until a breakdown perhaps midweek.

.Donegal.

GFS tonight going for a short lived snow event across most of the country

Oneiric 3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120019185#Comment_120019185

Warm reminder. Those EC monthly updates are rubbish. Seriously. I rarely look at them but when I do, they always prove to be way off the mark. I'm not really sure why they waste time and money producing these.

Neddyusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120020541#Comment_120020541

Agree. It's really an experimental model. Do they also form the basis of the ME monthly forecasts?

Hooter23

Yes exactly these are just forecast charts and if they were forecasting snow all winter sure we wouldn't even believe it..so why believe it either if its just forecasting our usual weather..it always turns out much different than what is forecasted anyway

Gonzo

The ECM extended are usually only good up to about the 2nd week. Weeks 5 and 6 usually show no signal and weeks 3 to 4 highly unreliable in general. These are updated twice a week and usually by the next update everything is completely different, a bit like every CFS run.

Danno

Wetterzentrale.de must have had it's Christmas party last night, it's definitely not at the races this morning at all at all!

nacho libre

Sometimes they get it wrong and are subject to change, however they were bang on about the heights to the north west and the persistent euro heights with them. It is interesting there is a strong signal for Scandi Height in its latter stages, usually there is no strong signal after week 3. I notice the UK Met Office are also mentioning colder weather after Mid January . Of course it could be all amount to nothing, especially if the Vortex gets going.

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120021169#Comment_120021169

I can't get anything to work on Wetterzentrale, not that I notice much difference anyway as that site is like dial up like it's 1999 all over again.

Looking at Meteociel the 6z is rolling out, no shortage of wind and rain over the next 10 days.

Doesn't look like there will be much in the way of being outdoors between now and January.

Gonzo

UKMO offers maybe a 1 to 2 day respite from the rain keeping those low pressures further to our north and heights rising to our south.

ECM is similar, raises the heights and maybe we could have a dry day.

and we finish up as flat as a pancake with rain or showers rolling in off the Atlantic.

WolfeEire

Decent GFS ensembles for festive cold weather from Christmas Day afternoon through the 27th. Wintry showers for counties in the northwest and west on Sunday evening into Monday. Largely dry with sunny spells elsewhere.

Gonzo

GFS 12z dilutes the cool snap even further now, looks to be an 18 to 24 hour cool spell at most. Mild until the 26th and mild again from the 27th.

Temperatures Christmas Day between 7 and 10C.

Temperatures Stephens Day between 3 and 9C with milder air coming back during the evening.

Temperatures on the 27th between 8 and 12C.

After this it just stays mild and generally very unsettled. 1st week of January also looking increasingly mild to very mild with daytime temperatures between 7 and 14C.

This is probably a good time to give the model watching a break for Christmas and come back after New Years and see are we any closer to getting some cold and snow during January.

WolfeEire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120021331#Comment_120021331

The 12z GFS is relatively unchanged from the earlier run for the Christmas period. There are colder upper air temps showing for the northern half of the country. Below is the ensembles for inland Connacht showing some wintry potential on Christmas Day night into St Stephen's Day. Is a flake of snow being recorded at Markree Castle in Sligo on Sunday night and therefore, a technical White Christmas a possibility? It is very much 50-50 as the below graph shows. Any sleet or snow in those showers being carried on the northwest breeze would be largely confined to higher ground in Connacht and West Munster, and perhaps to lower levels in the western half of Ulster.

The bottom graph is the 06z run showing slightly warmer upper air temps for the same location.

esposito

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022564#Comment_120022564

What a total disappointment yet again for the Christmas period. We all think and hope January will deliver but it never does. Sorry for the negativity today but I’m just sick of mild Irish Christmas every single year lately!

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022775#Comment_120022775

The first week or possibly more of January is looking likely to be mild but maybe second half of January we may get something more favorable. As for the mild Christmas, those seem to be as likely as a warm back to school week in September. We haven't had a cold Christmas since 2010 and before that 2004. I don't really mind this Christmas being mild as long as we do get a proper cold and snowy spell sometime in January or February even if just for 2 or 3 days.

giveitholly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022796#Comment_120022796

The models can't be relied on to forecast past 5 days and you are writing off the next 3 weeks?

Gonzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022818#Comment_120022818

Things could change before then but right now things do not look good for cold weather for a while.

• Cold plunging into USA will set the jetstream on steroids for a while, could be a week could be more.
• The blocking has moved onto the Canadian side
• NAO and AO are set to go positive if only slightly for the time being.
• The PV may strengthen into early January with the PV moving more towards Europe.
• The decoupling of the stratosphere and troposphere which brought us the December cold spell is coming to an end for now but could come back again later.
• The high pressure sitting over central and southern Europe is preventing cold air from properly sinking over us for any decent length of time. This high pressure could be there for quiet a while.

I could be wrong but I can see this mild spell with short lived cool interludes lasting for over a week at the very least. I am hoping that by the first week of January we may see signs in FI of another proper cold spell so fingers crossed that we are not locked into a mild pattern for weeks and weeks on end. A cold spell during the 2nd or 3rd or final week of January would be ideal, in the heart of winter.

Another note: The BCC model very accurately forecasted the cold spell for December with northern blocking dragging in cold for us and the warm spell over eastern USA. The same model is currently forecasting blocking to come back during January so a cold and wintry January is possible if the BCC is correct, here is hoping.

nacho libre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120022818#Comment_120022818

Well he is right to an extent, into the early days of January there is no sign of a deep cold spell, but that could change quickly if the MJO signal is correct. If it is we may start to see models by next week playing around with the idea of a blocking high to our North West. Although we could be looking to the North East as per the UK Met Office and the EC46 outlook. Even though we have an Atlantic influence it does not seem to have much oomph to it. The deep cold in America looks fleeting too. It may all amount to a hill of beans in the end but we are still in the game for something more favourable in January.

WolfeEire

Ecm brings us cooler temps on the 25th and 26th and again from 29th on. It's seasonal at least. US weather analysts say that the impending cold spell across much of the country will be relatively shortlived so we will see what impact that has downstream, as Nacho and Gonzo have detailed.

@nacho libre would you mind sending in that BCC link please. Thank you

Hooter23

The weather for a week ahead can turn out to be very different than forecast be the time you get there....just imagine carrying on with your forecast for weeks and months ahead when the first weeks forecast is already wrong...it can only get worse lol

nacho libre

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/long-range-forecast.

sryanbruen

The blocking that brought the cold spell is still there to an extent, it is just non-influential courtesy of Euro heights. There is definitely the sign of the strong stratospheric polar vortex coupling down towards at least the lower stratosphere into 2023. As Gonzo says, this would increase the chances of an intensified westerly flow across the Northern Hemisphere as is traditional at this time of year. We're still not at that stage, we just find ourselves on the mild side of the blocking due to the Euro heights forcing low pressure systems to attack at a higher latitude compared to early December. This was completely expected with the transition to MJO phase 5. The question though is, how long will this "relaxation" last? The possible coupling of the strat and trop is a complicating factor.

To get that blocking back in a favourable position for cold air advection towards Ireland, there is a heavy reliance on the MJO to either amplify Greenland blocking again or set up a Scandi/Ural high that would send planetary waves and the SPV would get disruption. Remember Greenland blocking is no good to disturbing the SPV - in fact it only allows it to intensify aloft. An active MJO phase does look to happen again but there is disagreement on how long the phase lasts or passes over the Western Pacific before transitioning. Then have to consider time lag too after that before any influence in our part of the world.

It's all to play for. Incredibly complicated though. I wouldn't put all my eggs in either basket. However, a rather Atlantic driven rest of 2022, in what is climatologically the most zonal part of the year, is a safe bet with any changes likely afterwards. That does not preclude any brief wintry or cold snaps such as Christmas into St. Stephen's Day that has been discussed.

Condor24

Nothwithstanding Sryan's excellent and knowledgeable post previous, I'll keep it simple and stick to the ECM output this evening. It's crap, if you want cold. Low pressure bolted over Iceland direction. High pressure to our south. Mild interchanging with cool westerlies, rain or showers. Meh. Patience needed to start seeing changes in the foreseeable, then I'll be back on board.