Winter 2006 Snow Predictions And Indications Part 7

Mothman might if its sunny

Gonzo wrote:

so far were on track for another record breaking mild January if this keeps up till the end of the month, so far this month most days have seen temperatures breaking double figures in Dublin reaching 12/13c a few times already. At 11pm tonight in Dublin its currently 11C, thats 2C warmer than Malaga in Spain, 2c warmer than Rome in Italy and 9c warmer than Athens in Greece!

Whoopy doo

What do you expect?
Our climate is maratime with some variability like unusual heatwaves (rare) and unusual cold snaps (also rare)

And I'll bet Malaga will be warmer than Ireland tomorrow though it is continental so despite its southerly location is more likely to get unmodified cold air unlike us who are an island and whose air is always modified by the sea whether from a cold or warm feed.
The idea of these threads is to actually discuss weather possibilities and probabilities.
Lest people forget or simply weren't old enough to notice or werent born, that though the 1980's delivered lots of cold snaps-it also had plenty of periods where we were mild and Europe froze and said freeze never got here.
Thats our climate folks.
Incidently there werent many cold snaps in the 70's either untill the late 70's...

Now can we continue to discuss the various possibilities in the weather without the constant moaning thanks...

4 things are needed WC for to avoid wet sleety snow slop:

(1) sub -10 850's(no warmer) to reach at least the East coast (ie cover all of the Irish sea)
(2) strong winds which would immedietly temper any sst modification of the surface air
(3) Sub zero surface air in Britain (Sub zero in northern France etc would be a given and a must)

Those together would bring the air temps in the East down to plus one or two maxes or lower depending on the strength of the wind flow and how cold Britain got.Snow would be a given as dewpoints would almost certainly be well below zero.
However precipitation would depend on the next point...

(4) Pressure below 1020mb-if its any higher than that, you can forget about heavy showers, you will get light coastal ones at best or maybe moderate if lucky.
1015mb or lower would be ideal.

If you lose any of those four conditions, you can still obviously get a good snow event but you run the risk of it being marginal or uninteresting.

Thats the shopping list anyway for the cold spells home delivery and looking at its "budget" way out East, it can easily deliver those 4 conditions.

A watered down version of them like last february (2005) would be disappointing (no -10 850 or below in the East or covering the Irish sea and no UK wide surface sub zero maxes with the exception of the south East of England)

I'm not going to be selfish and ask for the -10 or below 850 air to cover the whole of Ireland In actual fact with widespread sub zero UK maxes, it would be enough for that upper air to cover the East and most essentially the Irish sea.
-5 to -10 upper air in those circumstances and negative dew points would be adequate to provide snow else where in Ireland if the above was delivered to the East.
It would certainly cause a very snowy spell too in any Cold v mild atlantic break down of the spell.

max here was 12.3c at 1112 am which is not much warmer than the current 11.9c

Getting back on topic Moscow has been down to -36c in the last 24 hours :eek:
Thats its coldest temp since 1947...

Now I have to say provided pressure stayed below 1020,I'd be very excited with a south south east to East flow originating from there at the end of the month.
The whole of Eastern and central Europe is getting as cold if not colder than at any time that we had and Easterly in the 80's

Parts of Finland are down to -27c also which would be a nice NE source with a good fetch.
Even when modified that would be potent on arrival here.

So lets see what happens.
There are already subtle hints being dropped by forecasters across the water that something is cooking

Weathercheck wrote:

if we were not to have a severe 7 day cold spell within the next 3 weeks.

Lets sit back relax and see where the roller-coaster takes us

That particular run tended to a week of the above chart for Ireland which would certainly be enough (low pressure permitting) to pile snow showers onto the East coast-yes snow, not sleet, and not rain.

The only problem I see and the hurdle to get over is that there is no delay, ie a temporary continuance of the Atlantic influence ,pushing back an Easterly for 3 or 4 more weeks like last year and at this distance that is still a big risk.

Also if that happens, you will probably have lost a lot of the cold to Greece or somewhere and have a less potent Easterly...

It's already minus 17c in Oslo Felix and falling...
So even colder still

There'll certainly be snow there and if this run was to come off, your return flight would be re routed to Shannon ( or possibly Malaga )

Though there will most definitely be snow and ice and mega sub zero temps in Oslo-we would be hoping by that w/end that it is also under at least a 1060 mb anticyclone ( so as we get our Easterly ) so hopefully it will be sunny by then there.

@Longfield

The january 87 spell went on for a week(I know you suggested it was only 4 days or so before, I am certain it was a week)
Snow showers from the Irish sea first that settled well in Dublin to about an inch or two.
I lived in Ballinteer at the time and remember going up there on the 48A and the snow as you headed that direction just got deeper and deeper
4 or 5 inches there compared to the 2 at Ranelagh.
By Thursday a front moved down from the North East dumping another 4 inches in the Ranelagh/Donnybrook area and in town with up to 8 inches or more around Ballinteer, the Grange and more still up around Lamb Doyles.
There was a rapid thaw at the weekend as the spell ended.
Curiously as I remember it, the thaw moved from North to south as I went back to Arklow on the friday and back to Dublin on the sunday and we still had lots of snow whilst the Dublin stuff had mostly melted.
But then there were drifts a couple of feet down in wicklow so they did actually have a lot more snow.
Gone everywhere with rain I think on monday though.

(I remember snow like an elephant )