Site forecast team

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Location:Coventry,Warwickshire


Posted 6 minutes ago

It looks to me like a fairly standard displacement of the stratospheric vortex that happens quite often at this time of year. At upper levels in the stratosphere the vortex is displaced towards the UK and at lower levels towards Russia. If anything it is a little late this year.

In terms of what we can expect then I think we will see high pressure spreading from the south to cover the UK. So I would be thinking a few days of cooler temperatures with perhaps some fog.

Followed closely by a brief northerly spell. This could give snow but the ice sheet to our north has been disrupted and held back by the recent icelandic lows.Considering other spells similar to this then you might be thinking about snow for Scotland or through the cheshire gap. If it continues for more than a few days then you might start to think about polar lows coming south from off the coast of Norway. At the moment it just looks like a brief northerly , but it is way too early to tell.

What it does mean is that the siberian high gets disrupted with more mobile weather crossing the likes of Norway and Novaya Zemlya. It is my contention that mountain torque from these areas (think wave breaking or low pressure systems crossing the mountains) are key areas for planetary waves which can disrupt the stratospheric vortex. In other words this displacement could set us up for another warming in around a months time.

What we can be sure about is that the events in the stratosphere now are setting us up for a change in pattern and for once I will be rather glad to say goodbye to the icelandic low for a bit.


Following chart from this link [link to www.ecmwf.int...]
[link to forum.netweather.tv]