Post by Dr. Ryan N. Maue
Throughout history, the term Russian Winter has come to explain the multitude of military failures of various invading forces into European Russia. The effects of weather and short-term climate on warfare has been recognized and studied for generations. One such campaign involved Napoleon’s march across western Russia toward Moscow in 1812. Yet, with what records survive, the winter of 1812-1813 was apparently relatively mild. Move ahead to the winter of 2010-2011, which has been relatively mild over most of Eastern Europe and Western Russia, including Moscow where the cold blasts have been short-lived. However, during this week and the next ten-days, a brutal Arctic blast is poised to engulf Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, and become even colder as it pushes eastward — crossing the Urals through Russia — beneath a powerful dome of high pressure. Daily temperature anomalies will range from 15° to 35°C below normal, which is already very cold in February. In familiar Fahrenheit: Moscow will likely see near -30°F with surrounding areas -40° to -50°F. Eastward in Central Russia and Siberia during the next several days, temperatures will likely test the -60°F range. Elsewhere, the ECMWF deterministic model is predicting a total of 5-tropical cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere during the next 10-days with a powerful one impacting parched Western Australia and another monster in the South Pacific passing just west of Fiji.
Maps Follow…
Link to Global Temperature Anomalies, every 6-hours for the next 192 hours…
A plot of the 8-day averaged Temperature Anomalies from the United States NCEP GFS forecast model shows a very large area of purple over Western Russia in the 15°-20°C below climatology range. Overall, the global temperature anomaly of -0.16°C remains below the previous 30-year mean as the planet cooling effects of La Nina have finally settled in. This is quite the difference to last February when the global anomaly was nearly +0.4°C.
What’s the forecast coldest temperature that each locale on Earth can expect during the next 7.5 days? Well, the coldest temps should reach into the -60°s especially over Siberia and Greenland. But, the zero degree °F shading which is the transition from light purple to green, shows that almost all of Northern Hemisphere landmasses north of 45°N will see sub-zero temperatures sometime during the next week. The grayish shading is -30°F and below.
Note, these maps update every 6-hours as the NCEP GFS model generates a new forecast cycle. Save to disk if you wish to keep them…
I am surprised on a daily basis at the disconnect between the MSM and what is actually happening in the physical world. The UK dailies have not said much about weather or climate since the last spell of snow and ice hit, but the temperatures are trending inexorably downward again as we approach Spring.
WUWT?
Ryan, another brilliant post! Have been watching your GFS LH flux page here (many thanks for the updated graphics and animate button BTW). It is projecting a huge West Atlantic flux at about 18Z20Feb2001 which then doesn’t shift East as has been happening. Questions:
1. Why does this not move East as usual?
2. Where is this energy going, is upwelling fuelling the jet stream dragging it South?
3. Is that what later triggers the cold blast over Russia or is all this visa-versa?
Just trying to figure out the chain of events.
Here in Southern Finland it was much warmer in January and early February than last years brutally persistant cold – so much so that i was thinking last year was just a fluke – after all we had a record hot summer. However forcasts for this week are for lower temperatures than we experienced last year.
1812-13 may not have been particularly bad… for RUSSIA… but any Russian winter is pretty rough on Western Europeans. Especailly ones who have to live off the land and don’t have particularly effective winter clothing, or any for that matter. Lack of shoes was also a massive problem. Read a book several years ago about the Russian Campagin taken from the diaries of a French Military Surgeon, really interesting and awful stuff.
Napoleon may have been a political and tactical genius, but his strategic planning left a lot to be desired. The Will to Power delusion. The writing was on the wall after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and writ permanant after he failed to quickly defeat Spain and Portugal, yet he went on to fight for another 7 years with no hope of a decisive victory. Even if he’d have captured Moscow and held til spring it would have made no difference in the ultimate outcome.
Anyhow, yea, it gets cold in Russia.
For those of us in South Western BC, note the big finger of cold coming our way. Will it be the last gasp of winter? Somehow, I don’t think so…
Thanks for this Dr Maue.
Neil Jones says:
February 15, 2011 at 4:25 am
The UK used to be separated from Western Europe by the North Sea. Alas, since the most recent crop of red then purple political clones turned up we have been assimilated as if the Brabant massif had never been drowned.
I wonder if tectonics could take us in the direction of the Land of the Free??
Sam Hall (5:19 am) I’m not sure why you decided on giving me a conversion here, since my question was about language, not about numbers.
I’d like to know if folk in the USA who refer to “below-zero” are generally speaking about “below melting point of ice” as most of the world reads this to mean. or do they normally mean “below 0F”, which as you point as is pretty damn cold.
I took a look at Moscow to see if the global cooling is also happening in Russia. During the last 20 years [1990-2010] . The winters were warmer in Russia. There were only four or 20% of the winters as being very cold with average winter temperatures around – 9C to-10C , but during the 30 years prior to the warmer period or 1960-1990 , 15 or 50% of the winters were very cold . Decembers have been getting colder now for 4 years in a row as have their winters. January 2010 winter was the coldest since 1987. I have not seen the figures for 2011. Winter AO and winter NAO correlate again with Moscow winter temperatures like for most of Europe.
Comment on language: Decimated means to lose 10% of your force (death).
Napoleon went from 400,000 troops to about 20,000 when he returned to France.
Maybe he was UN-decimated? Or nega-decimated?
Is this the beginning of increasing Arctic ice?
My solar based forecast indicated a strong temperature drop from mid February through into March. And with the solar proton burst occurring today:
http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events/
I would expect to see some strong tropical cyclones forming over the next week
Pull my Finger- a certain other little Corporal had a bit of a problem with Russian
winters….
Good post.
-30F? Reminds me of this song: http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/xmas/walkinginmywinterunderwear.shtml
steveta_uk…
The Phrase “..below zero…” in the US is pretty generally interpreted to mean below zero degrees Fahrenheit… which is really cold. Which is probably why it is used a a verbal watershed / benchmark. Anything is that range is not reasonable and requires special attention, unless you are in the MSM.
I’m in the middle of that bright purple anomaly in northwestern Canada right now. Those brilliant minds that tell us a warmer world is less desirable must never have had to go out and start their car on a -40 morning.
I lived in Moscow from 1992 through to 1999. February is usually the coldest month there with January a little less cold (though with huge variations across the other ten time zones, of course). My lowest temperature was minus 36C (approx. -33F) and every February from ’92 to ’96 was similar with about a week to ten days of around minus 25 to minus 32C, with the expected grades either side of about ten days duration. ’97 was slightly milder and ’98 & ’99 milder still but with minuses going down to about (only)15 or around plus 2F.
What is suggested here doesn’t sound “exceptional”, let alone the dreaded word “unprecedented”.
That was a severe winter in 41-42, but none the less, Hitler’s hubris in not supplying winter gear to his troops was a major factor in the attack stalling. That and Italy’s terrible performance in the Balkans delaying the invasion and diverting troops and Hitler’s decision to send a major portion of AG Center south to Kiev, a major tactical victory but very costly strategically. The Russians had also learned a valuable lesson in winter fighting getting their butts kicked around by the tiny Finnish Army in 1939-40. A very timely lesson.
Douglas DC says:
February 15, 2011 at 7:18 am
Pull my Finger- a certain other little Corporal had a bit of a problem with Russian
winters….
steveta_uk says:
February 15, 2011 at 6:51 am
Even in Canada where we have been metric for a long time, many of us old geezers still like to think in Fahrenheit and Feet/inches/miles. As Jim Hodgen says, zero Fahrenheit signifies that it is really cold out. In addition 100 Fahrenheit signifies that it is really hot out. Our climate generally stays within that convenient 100 division range.
Wow. Punxsutawney Phil must have meant the cold was going someplace other than Pennsylvania. We’re supposed to be hitting the 50’s (°F, of course) later this week, maybe we’ll even get this whitish crud melted off the ground and roofs.
Meanwhile, it’s time to consider gardening in the spring, with plants started from seeds indoors. And we still don’t have enough “global warming” to expect good tomatoes this year.
steveta_uk says:
February 15, 2011 at 6:51 am
Sam Hall (5:19 am) I’m not sure why you decided on giving me a conversion here, since my question was about language, not about numbers.
I’d like to know if folk in the USA who refer to “below-zero” are generally speaking about “below melting point of ice” as most of the world reads this to mean. or do they normally mean “below 0F”, which as you point as is pretty damn cold.
—————————————————–
Canada abandoned Fahrenheit in the 80’s and prior to that “sub-zero” was definitely the very cold one. Not surprising, since, for six months of the year or more, there is nothing remarkable about 0Celsius, except for Florida citrus growers.
Yes, I know Florida is not technically part of Canada but they say that possession is nine tenths of the law and there are a lot of Canadians in Florida.
It was interesting how, when we changed over to Celsius, media announcers retained the excitable tone when declaring it was 20 below but they were able to do it much more frequently than before.
Of course, with time, the excitement waned and new ways were sought to rekindle it.
Humidex and such don’t work well here because we’re still desperately waiting for our share of Warming (see above; Canucks in Florida) but we have the magnificent “Wind Chill”, which is, by definition, subjective and can introduce words like “dangerous” and “extreme”.
When Brits say “sub-zero” Americans say “freezing”.
When Americans say “sub-zero” Brits say ” FREEZING!!!”
Steveta_UK: When I say “Below zero” I mean below zero. “Below freezing” is what I say when I’m talking about below 32 F. I don’t know too many others who equate “Below zero” with below 32. Hope that helps.
Great article, great maps.
And here a great picture of winter clouds over the North Atlantic
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49254
Ryan,
The coldest winter in 1,000 years article you first linked to implicated the slowing down of the Gulf Stream, and I was curious if you have links to studies regarding that change. I remember several articles indicating the sub-tropical gyre in the Pacific sped up and shifted during the the 1976 Pacific Decadal Oscillation shift that brought warmer temperatures to Alaska and the Arctic. I suspect that the gyre would slow as the PDO goes increasingly negative and if it is related to the Gulf stream and Atlantic gyre. It raises 2 questions. Does the Atlantic gyre speed up and slow down with changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation? And how much synchrony is there between the 2 gyres?
Robert, you may live in Canada, but you sure don’t live in Winnipeg. During my 11 years there, some decades ago, our record warm was 104F and our record cold was -52F. 95F in the summer and -40F in the winter were regular occurances.
Thick arctic ice anyone?