My thanks to Michele Casati for suggesting this image from meteociel.fr . A split in the polar vortex is imminent, with cold arctic air spilling down into northern Europe and as far south as Andalucia and the Italian Lakes. Times to antifreeze the vehicles and get your split timber ready for burning.
Brrrrr!
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
November in the UK is already looking to be about 0.5C colder than 1981-2010 baseline. The start of December will get worse.
This year will almost certainly be the 2nd coldest since 1996, second only to 2010.
Excellent fuel for siberian anticyclone
Click to access 20720001.pdf
🙂
This image highlights the question about what factors decide the creation of large polar cold air masses. When they start moving they speed up until reaching asround 45 degree north and slow down southwards. If they are really big they can reach the equatorial region. Storms evolve on the eastern side of them. All this is very well described by the late French professor Marcel Leroux in a number of works and he called them Mobile Polar Highs (MPH´s) . Detailed quantitative information from the Atlantic region exists in a thesis written by Alexis Pommier under supervision by Leroux.
I suggested the physical cause for the southward acceleration of MPH´s in my thesis “Wind Controlled Climate” and why the peak acceleration is around latitude 45 degrees.
It will be very interesting to see if this cold air will move southward over USA and create a blizzard. The worst one every recorded in USA happened in 1899 when ice floated into the Gulf of Mississippi.(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1899). This one will hardly be very strong since it is too early in the winter season. The eastern cold air mass might start moving southward over eastern Siberia and often such MPHs will hit Japan.
A crucial factor is how long cold air will accumulate before it starts moving. The longer that period is the more violent the accompaning Blizzard might be. Here it is very interesting to see if none, one or two MPH´s will form.
Careful! This site is not france meteo. Meteociel is a brilliant site for up to date weather info. They draw their infi from other sites and coordinate into some great graphiques. The map above appears to be a GFS/CFS/NCEP forecast and these are very unreliable at that range (5 days).
Temperatures here over the past 2/3 weeks have been superb. Blue sky and 60°f. These temps have been falling steadily over the past week losing about 1°C / day. We have seen December days at 4°C in the past (SW France) so nothing surprising about a cold end of Nov if it comes.
Meteo france are showing fairly warm temps for the 30/11/2012 with a possible frost on friday night and daytime temps around 7-8°C beyond the 30/11.
http://france.meteofrance.com/france/meteo?PREVISIONS_PORTLET.path=previsionsville/241590
If you look down this page you can see the extreme temps for nov here in sw france.
I’m sitting in my living room, tapping away on my laptop this 25th of November in Calgary, Alberta, at the map’s transition of blue to purple. Outside, the day is a perfect, early winter’s +4*C. The sky is the colour of Robin’s eggs, without a cloud to suggest anything forthcoming other than mildness worthy of a walk through the snowy park.
Sort of like the opening sequence of a Stephen King movie.
The only good thing that it looks like I can say about the arrival of 30 November is that I get paid that day.
In a day or so Arctic Jet stream is about to hit the U.K. http://virga.sfsu.edu/pub/jetstream/jetstream_norhem/1211/12112512_jetstream_norhem.gif
You can just add about 8.5°C to those 850hPa temperatures to raise the value up to what would be at sea level… by the potential temperature or lapse that is. Not saying that the warm soil and low level air might subdue the temperatures even more but that’s a good stab at it. Thanks for the heads up Michele.
I shall watch meteorological developments in the frozen north with interest from my current location, which is at latitude 19N under the shade of a waving palm tree next to the Pacific Ocean. 🙂
Meteofrance forecasts are less reliable than looking out of the window and have slightly less predictive quality.
Roger Andrews says:
under the shade of a waving palm tree next to the Pacific Ocean.
with a large bottle of tequila snoozing to the sounds of mariachi.
Richard Betts just tweeted to say the MET agrees and says December will be cold.
Vuk: Actually I’m trying to write something on urban warming, but not getting very far. Maybe some tequila would help.
Right now (3.30pm) air temperature is stable at around 30C but with a cooling sea breeze. Further updates to follow.
Look at this beautiful example of a medium Mobile Polar High moving southward to reach northern Spain. The cold air pushes warm air in front of it and you can see the half circle of clouds forming in front of it. The dots wihtin the MPH are cumulus clouds forming when water wapor is moving up from the ocean surface. This phenomenon is ignored by meteorologist for what it is. Heavy surface bound cold air moves southwards because of the centrifugal force caused by earths rotation. It is not found in the formulas used by meteorologists. In this case warm air is pushed up north over Sweden and just now it is +3 C in Stockholm (59 North). Hurry up to look since the image will be changing. An MPH also changes the path of the jet stream.
http://france.meteofrance.com/france/OBSERVATIONS?OBSERVATIONS_PORTLET.path=animationsatellite/ZONE_EUROPE
It seems that my message got swallowed by the system. This is a new trial. Look at the beautiful medium size MPH at http://france.meteofrance.com/france/OBSERVATIONS?OBSERVATIONS_PORTLET.path=animationsatellite/ZONE_EUROPE
The heavy surface air is pushing warm air in front of it and it forms a half circle which reaches northern Spain. The small dots that move southwards are cumulus cluds that forms when water vapour from the ocean surface is moving upwards.
The centrfugal force of earth´s rotation is accelerating the Mobile Polar High (MPH). This physical process is not included in meteorological formulas which is one reason why Marcel Leroux´ important concept of MPH hasn´t been accepted by mainstream meteorologists.
[Reply] Hans: Apologies, wordpress is a law unto itself. – TB
They who believe that the jet stream is running the weather on the surface should study
http://carnkieweather.co.uk/?page=chart-jetstream
The Mobile Polar High (MPH) is forming the path of the jet stream (or at least its major deviations), not the opposite which is clearly shown on these images.
To predict (northern and southern) weather and climate it is of utmost importance to understand the paths and impact of MPHs. There won´t be any good climate prediction without predicting the occurrences and strength of MPHs.
Greg Goodman says:
November 25, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Meteofrance forecasts are less reliable than looking out of the window and have slightly less predictive quality.
Dead right !!
tallbloke says:
November 25, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Richard Betts just tweeted to say the MET agrees and says December will be cold
Roger, you should learn to ignore Betts. He has nothng to contribute that is not contaminated by his greenpeace indoctrinated leader.
His future relies entirely on AGW being fact which every independently thinking scientist knows it isn’t.
Time to buy popcorn….interesting times ahead, just cool it down.
OT
An important moment for the SC24, the solar magnetic field has finally changed polarity
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC6.htm
a bit later than expected.
Ah, at last.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it pauses and flips back for a while.
My solar based forecast gave a cold shot from 23rd Nov, slightly milder the last day or two of the month, and another cold shot from 2nd Dec till the 8/9th Dec.
It could have easily been colder right now if it were not for a few very recent coronal mass ejections that happened to be towards Earth. The uplift in plasma speed is holding the AO and NAO around neutral briefly.
@Vukcevic the solar magnetic field has finally changed polarity. Does it mean that there is not any maximum ahead?
Adolfo, there was a peak exactly a year ago, which is on the early side, I would expect another peak within a year. Is it going to surpass the earlier one?
It is interesting to see the evolution of cold polar areas. In this image (also a prediction for November 28) the cold air has moved down over US but is not moving down southward from Siberia. There are no “break throughs” by a mobile Polar Highs in these areas. See
At the same time the MPH moving down southward over North Atlantic is passing west of Britain. It has now reached north Africa. See http://www.sat24.com/de/eu
The massive effect of cold surface air (Mobile Polar High) over the Atlantic on the jet stream is seen at http://www.passion-meteo.net/articles.php?lng=fr&pg=108
At Stockholm (59 N) it is still warm (+2 C). Hopefully the MPHs will continue to pass over the Atlantic for a while. During this time of the year the temperature can go down to -10 to -15 C occationally if an MPH choses to pass directly over Sweden.
The adress that disappeared in my last mail was:
http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php?ech=72&mode=0&map=1&type=0&archive=1&mois=11&heure=0&jour=25&annee=2012
Already a lot colder in Yorkshire today. The MET has just tweeted
Met Office @metoffice
News Release: Colder weather on the way this week http://bit.ly/115O8Mm
Retweeted by Richard Betts
Slow on the uptake aren’t they? 🙂
so far in NE Oregon we’ve been dry, wet, warm… Seems that our snow pack is below normal.
Nothing in sight -yet…
Rog, pick up the thread hereabouts…
http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/74587-stratosphere-temperature-watch-20122013/page__st__800#entry2414523
Latest paper from Prof Tim Palmer on weather and climate prediction.
Click to access 12-1302-prediction-hydro-meteorological-climatological-hazards.pdf
@Vukcevic: From your graph: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC6.htm
it could be found: 1) A regular, and perhaps an expected repetitive cycle. I know you had a graph about it, can you give us the link to it?
2) As you are an electrical engineer, and taking as a working hypothesis the “electric sun”, what could it be said of an electrical circuit behaving in such a way and what could it be said or extrapolated?
3) Your graph shows a marked decrease of the magnetic fields. If taken as an electrocardiogram it looks like one of a dying person 🙂
http://earthsky.org/earth/large-tornado-caught-on-video-in-italy
first effects
Many tornado in Italy
The same thing is probably the origin of the Pineapple Express WUWT have highlighted without mentioning MPH.
I had noticed MPH have been spilling out of the Arctic basin via the Bering straight. A large one has air circulating widdershins taking warm moist air whacking towards Oregon where it will dump water on uplift, then the air will drop and Fohn. The low(s) form in the stream.
Hans bringing this up is good because I have been contemplating doing a post on Leroux, been working on this. Less than an hour ago I set up a capture scedule for sat images. I don’t leave a computer on so will have to see if this is good enough. EUMETSAT AMV is the current choice, shows east atlantic, enough of cloud but importantly has wind markers. From that the underlying structure can be seen.
Here is one the computer magic appeared, bit big for inline so here is a link
I’ve yet to think about the best way to shrink the size or use them.
To the left is the MPH. You can’t see the low in cloud pattern but look closely at the wind directions, curling around widdershins off the coast of Ireland.
You can see the cold wind flowing down from the Arctic over the UK, thermometer here in the south read 2C an hour ago.
Here is the US military chart
The low isn’t showing. Yet. Guessing it will.
Gray says:
November 18, 2012 at 11:39 am
Looks like things will get significantly colder from the 27th onward…Gray’s 9 day ahead forecast . 🙂
(Beginners luck I suppose!!)
tchannon says: November 29, 2012 at 2:59 am
Tim, look at http://www.sat24.com/de/eu which shows a “new” MPH moving in the same track as the one some days ago. The cold air masses use to leave the polar area in pulses. It will be interesting if a new track will open up over Siberia soon.
It never went below freezing here in Lincoln last night
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observations/?tab=last24hours
I wonder if it does tonight.
Heaviest snowfall for 50 years in Moscow!
[…] Submitted on 2012/11/26 at 6:26 pm […]
tallbloke says: November 30, 2012 at 8:57 am
Well, that snowfall doesn´t seem so terrible. It might happen about every year in Stockholm. Anyway it has been caused by the low pressure storms developing on the east side of prominent MPHs. Moist air from the south is driven up norward
Look at http://www.sat24.com/de/eu and press on “infrarot”. You can see the cyclonic motion covering most part of central europe and how warm moist is pushed up tp the Moscow area.
Look at how the Mobile Polar High is reaching the Canary islands. When visiting Tenerif 3-10 december a couple of years ago there was no problem to have bath in the ocean. I would´t do it just now. http://www.sat24.com/de/eu and press on “infrarot” to get the best view. The mountain is protecting the south part of the island from the coldest wind. Still, oceans water is the most effective way to warm an MPH. When it moves over land (southward) in Europe/Asia it will keep its low temperature much longer. The temperature just now (4:00 PM) in Stockholm is -6 C.
Live temperature Canary islands12-12-01 2:30 PM
Temperatures Tenerife Sur (Airport South part of the island)
Mostly cloudy 21 C
Tenerife Temperature North (Airport North part of the island)
Scattered cloud 14 C
Sorry about my non-response. What I was going to do stalled.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/french-meteo-forecast-for-nov-30-it-aint-pretty/#comment-36470
Asia snow cover
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/loop/asia-1mo-loop.html
+
Hp 1050hPa
Big Joe Bastardi posted this on twitter
People in Europe now are not only Europeans, but Eurofreezings. Will they wake up to the AGW scam 4th yr jn a row
Look at http://www.sat24.com/de/eu and press on “infrarot”. The animation now shows a cold air mass moving straight towards Ireland from northwest. A storm center is being built east of the cold air mass over central Europe. Cold air has also reached Stockholm from North east and the temperatur was -12 C this morning. I would be suprised if it got colder this time. Old saying tells that the Christmas time will be warm (around zero C) if it is cold during the week that just passed. We will see what happens.
Hans J;
You can have your own facts, but not geography. There is no such place as the Gulf of Mississippi.