FI Charts ( T120+ onwards) Winter 2024/2025 **READ MOD NOTE IN FIRST

Utterly depressing outlook this morning from MT - wet, wet, wet….

+216 , the difference is ludicrous, the ECM isn’t too bad in fact. Look between Ireland and Iceland LOL

Its actually been pretty dry and sunny round these parts the last few days…. Duller today by still dry for now.

😐 ahhhh

chase number …… I’ve lost count .. is on

I’m in anyway right up to the equinox!

I didn’t think the 0z ECM was that bad when I saw it this morning

This looks like it could bring in deep cold, at the moment we are getting an easterly wind but not with the cold pool in Europe to back it up, that changes over the weekend when serious cold builds up there. First thing was to get the low to slide and then a wedge of heights to block the Atlantic again and let the colder air in which should mean any precipitation would be of snow this time.

All that said I do think this is going to be an outlier on the ensembles but it gives some hope, and maybe the mjo going into phase 7 will help and the ecm is picking up on this.

Trying to figure out if that lovely ecm run was an outlier 🤣

It doesn't work this way with weather, but I'm ok with deluges from mid February to late March if we got more prolonged dry warm spells from April to September\October.

In the end, a bitterly cold easterly setup is now highly unlikely to reach our shores after what has seemed like a marathon period of watching and waiting for an anticipated mid-February cold spell.

What had looked like a Polar Vortex Split and possible major Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) at the turn of the month was watered down into a displacement of cold air over the Arctic in the mid-latitudes and eventually a guessing game for which regions would be plunged into a deep cold spell. Long range weather models consistently pointed to there being a moderate chance of much colder weather impacting Ireland and Britain around or beyond mid-February. It is worth pointing out that the Beast from the East of 2018 was an exceptional event and there was never strong support for a repeat event, despite what the online news sites reported on a daily basis.

In the end, an Atlantic low pressure system disrupted any path to a cold spell. It likely would have been a different story if the low were further south, but its northerly position has disrupted the amplification of heights to our north and east.

Key building blocks for a cold spell are falling into place including a Scandinavian high, Greenland high and a displacement resulting in deep pool of cold air over the continent primed to push west. Furthermore, the surface temperature is already low here following a week of below average temperatures. As is the norm for a country placed on the edge of an ocean and whose climate is kept temperate by the Gulf Stream, Ireland needs a clean sweep of the key building blocks in place for a severe cold spell to materialize. There was one missing block that has compromised the foundations for any servere cold to take hold in Ireland. The Atlantic has delivered a December 2021 performance in defying the odds by bringing the Jenga tower of building blocks down. In reality, the models have had such an outcome highlighted as a strong possibility for over a week.

A return to milder and more unsettled weather ultimately became the form horse ever since the Sunday morning weather model runs.

As long as I have been weather watching, it never ceases to amaze me how strong the Atlantic influence is in situations like this where everything points to a colder solution. Even looking at the pressure charts tonight, a gambler who didn't have the luxury of knowing what the charts would produce in 5 days time would be hard pressed not to place money on a cold outcome. If weather was the leading focus of the gambling industry, the advice would be to never rule out the Atlantic irrespective of the odds.

The Atlantic is King when it comes to our weather. It rules our climate from one end of the year to the next by delivering us a year-round spring interpersed with fleeting glimpses of what other parts of the world call summer and winter. Chasing those glimpses is what makes weather watching in this country a rollercoaster.

I don't really understand weather charts but to my very untrained eye the T144 chart on the 0z ECM looks hugely promising - you’d think it was inevitable that the Atlantic low would slide under the Scandi high with the cold air then sucked westward over us from the east. Alas, the projected outcome is far from….

Yip that's what we have all (well nearly all) been hoping for and what the ECM, GEM, JMA have given us on occasion but to me where it is going wrong is that the azores high coming into view is pushing the low northeast instead of allowing it slide. The strength of azores high seems to be a feature of our weather more and more, not so much this winter but not surprised when it scuppers things.

The models still all over the place, a raging easterly is off the cards but the Atlantic zonal train is losing a bit of support. Below are the ukmo and the gfs for next Tuesday morning. Both show a better building of heights but the ukmo goes with the low sliding which means the flow is a colder south easterly v a southerly for the gfs. It will be an interesting to see the ecm later as its verification stats are a lot better than the gfs.

No 12z EC 🤣

Tech issues.