Cold event setups in atmospheric circulation patterns are aligning. Two days ago I brought to your attention that there was a strong downspike in the Arctic Oscillation Index and that the North Atlantic Oscillation Index was also negative. See The Arctic Oscillation Index goes strongly negative
Yesterday, Senior AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi let loose with this stunning prediction on the AccuWeather premium web site via Brett Anderson’s Global warming blog:
What is facing the major population centers of the northern hemisphere is unlike anything that we have seen since the global warming debate got to the absurd level it is now, which essentially has been there is no doubt about all this. For cold of a variety not seen in over 25 years in a large scale is about to engulf the major energy consuming areas of the northern Hemisphere. The first 15 days of the opening of the New Year will be the coldest, population weighted, north of 30 north world wide in over 25 years in my opinion.
The Climate Prediction Center discussion for their forecast also concurs with both of the above:
THE AO INDEX WHICH RECENTLY HAS BEEN VERY STRONGLY NEGATIVE IS FORECAST TO INCREASE SLIGHTLY IN VALUE BUT REMAIN STRONGLY NEGATIVE THROUGH DAY 14. TODAYS BLEND CHART INDICATES BELOW NORMAL HEIGHTS ACROSS ROUGHLY THE SOUTHEASTERN TWO-THIRDS OF THE CONUS, AND ABOVE NORMAL HEIGHTS OVER THE NORTHWESTERN THIRD OF THE CONUS, CONSISTENT WITH A STRONGLY NEGATIVE AO.
Here are two of the CPC forecast maps for the days covered by Bastardi’s forecast. It is fairly typical to see an above average temperature in the west when we get a cold deep jet stream in the east:
I was going to include some Met Office forecasts here but after trying to find something useful at their web site and failing to find anything, I gave up looking.
If you live in these areas: bundle up, stock up. Get ready.
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But Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco will be above average, heck, the entire state of California will be above average. That’s a lot of votes. Remember, “global warming” isn’t about the reality, it is about what the voters *believe* the reality to be.
I have been reading your site daily for awhile I have to say I am very impressed. I wanted to be a meteorologist when I was younger but had no desire to join the military or go 100000 in school debt. Your crusade over the temperature reading sites confirmed what I felt growing up near D/FW Texas. We had a farm 30 miles north that was always 3-5 degrees cooler than town. Keep up the good work.
Yep, I hate the Met Office site too. This is their current UK long term forecast. Looks fairly typical for this time of year.
UK Outlook for Sunday 3 Jan 2010 to Tuesday 12 Jan 2010:
There will be a good deal of fine, dry and bright but cold weather across the UK from Sunday and through next week. Sleet and snow showers will affect many northern and eastern parts at times, perhaps becoming more persistent and spreading into some other regions from the middle of next week. Nights will be frosty, with frost locally severe in some areas, and overnight freezing fog will be slow to clear from some inland parts. There is uncertainty from next weekend onwards through the rest of the period with the strongest signal for the weather to remain generally cold with occasional wintry showers, though some western and southwestern parts may become less cold for a time.
Updated: 1154 on Tue 29 Dec 2009
In the Netherlands we’re expecting a major cold snap. Already there is speculation about a possible Elfstedentocht, which is a rare skating event.
Yesterday was bad enough, in southern New Hampshire. Howling wind and temperatures falling from around 19F at dawn to around 10F at 1:30 in the afternoon. Snow squalls put down two inches of snow, the day before, as the cold air pushed in, and it blew around like dancing ghosts all day.
Strangest was how the gale dug down into hollows and clearings which usually are protected from such arctic blasts. Despite bright sunshine there was nowhere outside to hide.
I wouldn’t have gone outside at all if I could have avoided it, but some aspects of running a farm force you out. I had to rescue seven ducks which looked like they wouldn’t last long in their pen, and move them in with my goats.
My goats usually dislike being cooped up, but when I went to drive them outside they took one look at the snow swirling in the howling wind, and I had a full scale mutiny on my hands. Despite all my yelling, they wheeled and bolted straight back to their pens.
And this is just the beginning?
Same thing happening here in UK and Europe. More snow and temps not above 3 in the North though milder in the South West up to 7-8 degrees. They’ve had more rain than snow.
This week there is an Artic wind bringing wind chill factor into the equation with the BBC reporting -7 this morning, for New Year’s Eve tomorrow and that’s during the day. Lowest temps this month so far were -16 in Scotland before Xmas and -18 in Wales this week. Lowest here in Yorkshire has been -10.
We had a power cut just before Xmas and a friend in Glasgow had one on Xmas Day when the daytime temp was -4. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more to come as the UK is very near its peak generating capacity. With the demand increasing for more heating there could well be widespread power cuts as we go into January.
I would have hoped our govt would take this as a warning that when they start closing down our oldest power stations from 2011 if we get more winters like this there are going to be a lot of people unable to heat their homes. According to official figures we already have 7 million people in fuel poverty in the UK a lot of them elderly. Fuel poverty is classed as being more than 10% of annual income. Average fuel bills are £1200 a year, so anyone on less than £12,000 is affected. That would be mainly those on the state pension with no other form of income, like my Mum and my Dad.
Unfortunately we won’t have any choice in the matter as the EU has decreed that we have to shut the power station down. It’ll be interesting to see if a “new” govt next year can do anything about it. I’m not holding my breath for that one.
And just in case we start feeling sorry for ourselves, in Lithuania they are shutting down their nuclear power station now to comply with the main condition set for their entry to the EU. In the middle of winter !!!
It supplies 70% of the country’s power so will have a major impact on their cost of fuel. The prices are forecast to increase by at least 30% in 2010 in the face of an economy that has tanked by 20% and rising unemloyment. They are being forced to get their power from Russia who already uses their power supplies “against” countries such as the Ukraine that were part of the old USSR.
If anyone needs an example of what the EU does, that is a stark warning to the rest of us.
Hold it hold it hold it.. what happened to El Nino with Bermuda shorts and umbrella drinks on the deck in January here at 45ºN 88W? Someone having an AGW protest?
Seriously.. On 1/7 the GFS actually has the 850mb -10C line in southern Alabama, almost at the FL state line. Yowza!
The AGW crowd might lose a few supporters on this one.
In England there appear to be a vague sequence of a 60 year pattern:
60 year summer-winter temperatures moving in the same direction.
60 year summer-winter temperatures moving in the opposite direction.
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/CET.gif
The opposing sequence maybe just starting.
You are right about the Met Office. Piers Corbyn is where to go to get any sensible forecast beyond a few days. The Met office clearly needs some new tea-leaves or seaweed; plus another super computer.
Should that not be ‘Major Northern Hemisphere cold OH Snap! coming’ ?
I live in a rural community so my coal bunker is full, my wood pile is high. My freezer and cupboards are also well stocked. The Met Office can kiss my…
Meanwhile in Australia where we were warned by the Alarmists droughts were going to take over its been widespread rain and floods with more to come!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/keneally-returns-to-rain-soaked-regions/story-e6frg6nf-1225814416050
The warmists will say its just weather, but to me it looks like climate change.
The 1 in 1000 Year event came round rather quickly since last February’s press release from the Met Office ;-| After all we shouldn’t expect these things except every 100-200 years(Before AGW that is) according to the Met Office……..
I didn’t believe either figure at the time TBH. Current models projecting recording breaking Low Minimum records to tumble over the next 14 day in the UK :-O
But hey, after all it is going to be an ‘above average’ Winter…. Apparently……. Oh, that was the Met Office also. Where are my taxes going again? Tut Tut Tut…..
http://www.meto.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090225.html
“Natural variability of climate means that the UK will continue to see spells of colder weather at times. Although, if it had not been for the general warming already observed in global temperatures, this winter may well have been even colder.
Peter Stott, Climate Scientist at the Met Office, said: “Despite the cold winter this year, the trend to milder and wetter winters is expected to continue, with snow and frost becoming less of a feature in the future.
“The famously cold winter of 1962/63 is now expected to occur about once every 1,000 years or more, compared with approximately every 100 to 200 years before 1850”
Does anyone believe this rubbish anymore?
He doesn’t mince his words.
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp
“I have NOTHING against the Hadley Center, but I will be very curious as to what their outlook is for the rest of the winter and how they will explain what is going on. I think in light of what is going on, with a arrogance of authority in the climate and weather wars obvious (There is no human, or human-made, “authority” that holds the future in their hand and dictates events), before we discuss how hot 2010 will be we need to know why this was not the winter portrayed. And the explanation that December is only one month doesn’t hold water since if they are doing their research on winters like this, they will see why January and February, could and should be as cold or colder.”
The winter 1984/85 I was in Geneva. That is 25 years ago.
The cold was impossible, -25C at night, 70 cmeters of snow compacted into a mess because Geneva did not have snow plows, the lake keeping the climate tolerably warm. It took over a week for a semblance of order out of chaos.
I remember crying from the pain in my hands when I was leaving the lab at night, the steering wheel was so cold. I went out and bought fur boots, a fur (rabbit) coat and fur mittens. I still have them.
The heating in the lab was not enough and people would light the electric driers for electronics ( like hair driers) to get some heat there.
The nearby French villages were better off, they had snowplows at least because of the mountains.
25 years they say?
Fascinating. I have to wonder if it’s natural cycles on the earth such as the PDO, NAO, and AO, or is it the lack of solar activity. Or both? Or even more things we don’t yet understand.
Regardless, it’s a great learning opportunity!
I was going to include some Met Office forecasts here but after trying to find something useful at their web site and failing to find anything, I gave up looking.
There is a 6-15 day forecast (i.e. 3 Jan to 12 Jan) which more or less covers most of the the period in Bastardi’s forecast. See
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/uk_forecast_weather.html
which says
UK Outlook for Sunday 3 Jan 2010 to Tuesday 12 Jan 2010:
I could have told you about the cold snap: I managed to find the only bit of ice that hadn’t melted in the village and ended up with a cut face; earlier in the week, my daughter slipped and broke a bone in her thumb. I blame Al Gore…
Has anyone read Phillip Eden’s book ‘Weather Extremes and the British Climate’ ?
I generally have a high opinion of his very level-headed approach to the weather/climate and don’t recall him being particularly pro/anti AGW.
Here’s the link
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Change-Weather-Philip-Eden/dp/0826479731/ref=cm_cr_pr_orig_subj
I heard that he’s just been made Dep at the Royal Met Society
Where is that Boston guy? I told him it would get cold there as soon as that low pressure area passed through. He seems to have disappeared.
Here in NE Ohio we’ll know it was an exceptionally cold winter if we start seeing Snowy Owls in late February or March.
I know we had a citing or two 25 years ago, and there was a bunch of them in our area around 1909/11. (I have a small treatise on this phenomenon somewhere on my Ohio related-history shelves.)
Back then, it seems a drastic winter in Canada depleted the supply of mice and other smallish critters… and the owls headed south to us.
crosspatch (01:38:52) :
I’m not going to bet on this following the standard warm in the west, cold in the east pattern. We’ve already hit a major cold snap out west, and for every year with a single winter snap, there’s been an equal # of years with multiple cold snaps.
Martin Brumby (00:51:07) :
“Well, it took me a little while to find it (now, they couldn’t be trying to hide it, SURELY?) but here is the MET Office’s forecast dated 27 November 2009. (That’s right, just over a month ago!)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/seasonal/2009/winter/?zoneid=79042”
The MET Office must have noticed your post (who says they don’t read WUWT) and they have now, today Dec 30, updated the prediction. It now says “For the rest of winter, over northern Europe including the UK, the chance of colder conditions is now 45%; there is a 30% chance of average and a 25% chance of milder conditions.”
Quite a change, especially right in the middle of the cold weather. Someone at the MET office loked out the window.