The Snow Lovers Appreciation Society Winter 2014/15 #MOD NOTE #1

Mycroft H wrote: »

Met Eireann forcast was a bit broke after the 9pm news.

Still, a bit of cold weather will be nice.

Yes the graphics were broken but she handled it well. The forcecast of bright, sunny but cold weather is just what the doctor ordered.

vicwatson wrote: »

Handled it well? She didnt even mention the fact it was bust

Yes she did. She said it right at the start. Something along the lines of "my graphics have crashed".

I am sure you will apologise to her

Snowing in Donegal this past 20mins

Snowing in Blessington, Co. Wicklow but not sticking

A few dark and heavy clouds passing over me here in Galway but it's just rain. Seems very mild for any chance of snow.

Better let the experts explain it so got this from the Met office website

What is an SSW?

The term SSW refers to what we observe – rapid warming (up to about 50 ­°C in just a couple of days) in the stratosphere, between 10 km and 50 km up.

You may have heard of the jet stream which helps to steer Atlantic weather systems towards the UK. Well there are other jet streams high up in our atmosphere in both the northern and southern hemisphere which circumnavigate the Earth from west to east. One of these, the Polar Night Jet, circles the Arctic.

Sometimes the usual westerly flow can be disrupted by natural weather patterns or disturbances in the lower part of the atmosphere, such as a large area of high pressure in the northern hemisphere. This causes the Polar Jet to wobble and these wobbles, or waves, break just like waves on the beach. When they break they can be strong enough to weaken or even reverse the westerly winds and swing them to easterlies. As this happens, air in the stratosphere starts to collapse in to the polar cap and compress. As it compresses it warms, hence the stratospheric warming.

What impact does this have on the UK/Ireland?

We normally expect our weather to come in from the west – with a flow of relatively mild air coming in off the Atlantic.

When an SSW brings easterly winds this tends to alter our weather patterns slightly, weakening areas of low pressure and moving our jet stream further south. This leads to high pressure over the North Atlantic, ‘blocking’ that flow of mild Atlantic air and dragging in cold air from the continent to the east. Exactly how cold it might be depends on the details of where the air comes from.

SSWs don’t always result in this outcome – but a cold snap follows more often than not, so the SSW greatly increases the risk of wintry weather.

Chris's next tweet sort of says that cold lovers need strat winds to go in the opposite direction as now,let's see -I take that to mean the UKMO are actively watching this its hopeful

Remember the UKMO did in part blame 2010 on a strat warming
So from mid January could get more interesting