Guest post by Steven Goddard
The UK Met Office forecast last Autumn “the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average. ” We have now passed the 2/3 mark of the meteorological winter, and it is time for another report card to send home. Yesterday’s press release was titled “Wintry start to February” which stated “So far, the UK winter has been the coldest for over a decade” and “Met Office forecasters expect the cold theme to the weather to continue well into next week with the chance of further snow.”
The UK is expecting the heaviest snow in about 20 years tomorrow. “Snow and freezing weather threaten to shut down Britain Arctic blizzards are set to cause a national shutdown on Monday as forecasters warn of the most widespread snowfall for almost 20 years.” “Now is the time you’d expect to see the daffodils coming out but we’re not expecting them for two or three weeks at best if it warms up.“
So why is this important? Climate is not weather, after all. The Met Office is one of the most vocal advocates of human induced global warming, and they have gotten into a consistent pattern of warm seasonal forecasts which seemingly fall in line with that belief system. Is it possible that their forecasts are unduly influenced by preconceived notions about the climate? It is worth remembering that London had it’s first October snow in 70 years this past autumn.
Or perhaps they know exactly what they are doing, and are just having a several year run of extremely bad luck with their long term forecasting.
First thing for American readers: ‘the heaviest snow in 20 years’ doesn’t mean it’s that much! Anything more than 6-8 inches in the South of England is a rarity. In my lifetime (born 1964) I can only remember about 3 big snowstorms in London – 1979 was one – about 1ft+ in December; and one in the mid-1980s.
Second, we get our big snow storms in those relatively rare years when the continental high comes further west in winter so the atlantic fronts meet cold air or a front comes on those horrible easterlies from the frozen Russian steppes. That’s what’s about to happen this year. It’s unusual because our normal weather is the atlantic westerlies/southwesterlies which is why we have a damp and wet feel to winter usually……..no mile-high stadium annual blizzards interrupting football matches for us!
My gut feel, to compare like with like, you need to compare the years where easterlies predominate to get a first pass on whether the climate in UK is going up or down. So far, this winter is nothing like 1947 or 1962/3 so we’re probably starting to come down from a high, rather than going into a slump……
But it’s good for the Met to be challenged – they are not Gods, they are recipients of taxpayers money……….
Using MMGW climate models to forecast seasonal weather is plainly stupid.
As has been shown the existing modelling process is only useful for medium term forecasting after a trend has been set, not short term; and is utterly useless for long term predictions, i.e. climate change. You would be better flicking a coin to predict the weather and the climate.
Sixteen cms of snow outside my front door this morning! No buses running in London, train services reduced, London City, Luton and Heathrow airports closed. The heaviest snow in these parts, they’re saying, for eighteen years. Now if only it was Christmas Day instead of Monday morning in Feb…
Mary Hinge: No, we are not in La Nina
Better tell NOAA:
Wasn’t this, too, part of the forecast of the UK Met Office? “In contrast to last year’s exceptionally mild winter, this year is likely to feel somewhat colder and although the forecast of a milder winter is good news, we should still be prepared for the risk of colder spells at times.” And since mild or cold are measured relative to the norm period of 1961 to 1990, I would rather think, that the UK Met Office possibly has done a good job, contrary to the believe of most people here in this blog. To judge this, you need to have objective data of the whole winter rather than anecdotes.
Will the current run of high temps in Australia counter the cooler weather in the Northern hemisphere so that the ‘global temp’ still works out to be increasing?
I think that when the UAH figures are released we’ll find the NH has not been “cooler”. December in the NH was warmer than the 1979-97 average and January is also likely to be warmer.
Bob D (22:01:41) :
“We’re still in a La Nina, aren’t we?”
Barely.
This has not been a particularly harsh winter in the UK. We get a bit of snow in England and think it cold. They get lots of snow in Scotland and it does not get a mention in the London news organisations. I remember colder winters in the 50s and 60s. My parents remember warmer winters in the 30s. Grandparents had colder winters at the turn of the 1900s.
Mary Hinge:
it used to be normal, this sort of winter used to come around once every five years or so, now its once every twenty years. The difference between weather and climate.
I tend to think of climate as something associated with a particular region. Periodic changes in weather I tend to think of as normal changes in weather.
Climate change would be where normal variation is exceeded beyond norms and stays changed. I am sure this is not a technical definition. However, I suspect it is a common lay perception.
January 2008 monthly averages:
Melbourne about 18 days below historical average temperatures.
London about 19 days below historical average temperatures.
Let’s look at the data. Someone linked to the CET. Over the whole period, the average temperatures in November and December are 6.04 and 4.08°C respectively. In 2008, the temperatures were 7.0 and 3.5 °C. Thus, the two thirds of winter so far has been, at 5.25°C, warmer than the average of 5.06°C.
The Met Office winter forecast relates to Dec-Jan-Feb, i.e. Nov not included. Also, “normal” is defined as the mean temperatures for the period 1971-2000. UK temperatures for the first 2 months of the 2008/09 winter have been below normal. This, though, means very little in terms of the NH as a whole. The large land masses of Russia and Asia have been above average which has more than cancelled out the cold weather in W. Europe and the US.
Brian Johnson,
“And we pay fortunes for massive computers to increase the Met Office ‘predictions’.
4 days ago there was no indication of heavy snow on their 5 day forecast page!”
Well, now you know why they need a new super-computer! They can’t even forecast the next sunrise, let alone the weather for 4 days or the climate for a century.
Flanagan,
I can’t speak for the UK, but in Germany it is official: January was 1.5°C colder than the 1961-1990 average.
With some of the comments about how hot is has been in much of SE-Aust over the lest week or so and how our illustrious Minister of Climate Change Penny Wong referred to it as “climate change in Action”, I was reminded of how from Oct 31, 1924 to April 7, 1925, the small town of Marble Bar in Western Australia celebrated 160 continuous days where the daily max temp exceeded 38C (100F).
It wasn’t called Global Warming back in 1924. It was just a hot summer.
Anyone for predicting what the groundhog will say?
http://weather.msn.com/local.aspx?wealocations=wc:USPA1335&q=Punxsutawney%2c+PA
For the Aussie comments and any comparisons between London and Adelaide, the January summary for Australia is out and it makes for interesting reading:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/month/aus/summary.shtml
The BOM actually states that conditions in the Pacific are trending more away from La Nina to neutral although La Nina normally brings a wetter and cooler north.
Hard to make a comment on global warming or cooling in OZ in Jan 2009, but I am sure the rest of the year will be fascinating reading for both sides.
D. Hopkins
in the 50s and 60s the earth was in a cooling phase (even thoug CO2 was rising)
in the 80s and 90s the earth was in a warm phase. There’s ample evidence that show the sun is the main driver here.
Keep in mind London got snow in October, and is again socked with another snow storm. And people will know that it has been colder when they get their heating bills.
And if people believe that it’s still warmer than normal, then they ought to ask themselves if they want it to get even colder. (Installing energy light bulbs isn’t going to normalise the climate). I think only total morons would buy into that.
And since mild or cold are measured relative to the norm period of 1961 to 1990,
I think they tend to use 1971-2000 now unless otherwise stated. Either way the winter is colder than normal thus far.
I would rather think, that the UK Met Office possibly has done a good job, contrary to the believe of most people here in this blog.
Met Office seasonal and annual forecasts have been utterly abysmal. A 5-day forecast is the limit of their capabilities which would be fine if they didn’t employ a huge army of staff (including PR dept) and cost the taxpayer millions.
Monday 10:30am GMT 25 miles south east of London. 7 inches of snow where we are and more coming. I was talking to a neighbour who has lived here for over 30 years. He said he has never seen this much so snow in all that time. So a 30 year local record at least.
Really chilling this global warming isn’t it?
My point is that most people do not expect an AVERAGE winter and an AVERAGE summer each year. We expect variation. Those of us old enough also expect cyclical changes. Such changes are not necessarily caused by anything we do.
Great Brittan is held hostage by a Pro AGW Government that believes it should lead the world at any price?
Their aim?
A sustainable world society through a reduction of the world population.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/02/fight_global_warming_get_an_ab.html
Flanagan (00:52:58) :
Anyway, I’m still wondering why this snow receives a complete topic (not seen in 20 years?) while South Australia, its 46 degrees, power outages and 30 or so dead is completely overlooked by our good friend Anthony?”
Please feel free to start your own blog on this subject and any others that take your fancy and see if you get any takers. That’s how Anthony started I’m sure.
As I live in South Australia I’m experiencing it first hand. The record temperature for Adelaide was set in 1939 and this time round the temp came up a bit short, even though the weather bureau has moved to a more urban site from the site in the parklands and there is probably 3 times the population now compared to 1939. We expect heatwaves in summer here, so while this one is a bit more intense than the usual ones, it is really only weather, as the rest of the country, apart from Victoria, has not been very warm.
Steven Goddard,
1. Snow in London in October, Guardian:
“The cold snap arrives, bringing the first October snowfall in London since 1934 Link to this video ”
2. Snow again in the UK in November, Telegraf, Nov. 24:
“The heaviest snowfall was in Aberdeen, where 14 centimetres (5.5ins)…”
“The lowest weekend temperature was reported in rural Oxfordshire, where it sank to -21F (-6 C) overnight on Saturday.”
3. Seattle declared a state of emergency – December 2008
4. Ice breakers on the Elbe, Main, Mosel, Danube in Germany, Dresden -26°C, Slovenia set a new record low at -47°C – January 2009
5. Ice skating in the canals in Holland, January 2009
6. Snow in Dubai, January 2009
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/24/snow-in-united-arab-emirates/#comments
7. Coldest winter in 35 years in Spain!
http://klimakatastrophe.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/kaltester-winter-in-spanien-seit-35-jahren/
8. Now snow in Britain – again!
Just some of this winters cold headlines.
I’ve given up on the Met Office. I get my forecasts from netweather.tv nowadays. Their long range forecast based upon Climate Forecast System data from the NCEP (USA) is for below average UK temperatures out to May:
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=longrange;sess=
January might not be a cold month globally but the fact that western Europe and north America have been cold is very politically significant. The two regions might not represent a large percentage of the globes surface however they do represent a large percentage of the worlds money. With money comes the luxury to worry about things like a slight change in the worlds temperature. Also western Europe has had a period of mild winters, this winter has been a reminder that nature is still in charge.
My understanding (I may be wrong), gathered form the IRI site, is that we are currently in a La Nina:
“As of mid-January 2009 SSTs are below-average across the central and eastern Pacific. These SSTs, which now constitute La Niña conditions, developed in early December 2008.”
It seems that we exceeded the -0.5C anomaly threshold over this period (-1.1C).
Have I got it right? If so, it seems possible that some of the high temperatures being experienced in S Australia may be due to a combination of La Nina conditions (hot in the south, cool and wet in the north) and the rather large high pressure cell off the coast. I was watching the tennis on TV, and feeling very sorry for the players in the heat.
It may also explain why further north the weather is pretty normal, as La Ninas typically only raise the temperatures on average in South-Eastern Australia.
There seems to be “travel chaos” in the UK today.
And there is a large amount of global warming to shovel off my drive too.
More forecast, I won’t bother yet.