October Analysis and Forecasts

ch750536

OOps.

1. What will be the mean temperature in October? 11.8c
2. What will be the highest recorded temperature at the main synoptic stations? 17.2C
3. What will be the lowest recorded temperature at the main synoptic stations? - 2.1C
4. What will be the highest temperature in Cork AP during Cork Jazz festival (24th -27th) 11.6C
5. What will be the monthly mean temperate deviation be at Cork AP (°C difference from normal for period 1961-1990) +0.4c

nacho libre

Supercell wrote: »

Lol
Nacho seems to be asleep at the wheel, my chances are improved, no predictions accepted after midnight mwahaahah!!

right.

So no exceptions for your eastern brethren;)

Trogdor

Completely understand if these aren't accepted, no excuse other than i've been busy.. but thought I'd throw them down anyway just in case..
1. What will be mean temperature in October? 12.1c
2. What will be the highest recorded temperature at the main synoptic stations? 16.8.c
3. What will be the lowest recorded temperature at the main synoptic stations? -0.9c
4. What will be the highest temperature in Cork AP during Cork Jazz festival (24th -27th) 14.8c
5. What will be the monthly mean temperate deviation be at Cork AP (°C difference from normal for period 1961-1990) +/-0.6c

Supercell

nacho libre wrote: »

right.

So no exceptions for your eastern brethren;)

trogdor wrote: »

Completely understand if these aren't accepted, no excuse other than i've been busy.. but thought I'd throw them down anyway just in case..
1. What will be mean temperature in October? 12.1c
2. What will be the highest recorded temperature at the main synoptic stations? 16.8.c
3. What will be the lowest recorded temperature at the main synoptic stations? -0.9c
4. What will be the highest temperature in Cork AP during Cork Jazz festival (24th -27th) 14.8c
5. What will be the monthly mean temperate deviation be at Cork AP (°C difference from normal for period 1961-1990) +/-0.6c

I am between a rock and a hard place..

I'm gonna let it stand..however there is a cost.....

If you and Nacho are equal points at the end of the year you will be deducted 5 for your lateness and Nacho declared champ.

nacho libre

Supercell wrote: »

I am between a rock and a hard place..

I'm gonna let it stand..however there is a cost.....

If you and Nacho are equal points at the end of the year you will be deducted 5 for your lateness and Nacho declared champ.

nah that's not fair. he was busy. i don't want to get an advantage by default. i could never look snow rabbit in the eye if i did:D

Deep Easterly

Supercell wrote: »

I am between a rock and a hard place..

That's what happens when you make up the rules Supercell, sometimes you have to follow them.. :pac:

Trogdor

Thanks supercell, and if it comes down to it i completely agree that nacho should be declared champ although he seems to have quite the commanding lead already!

Deep Easterly wrote: »

That's what happens when you make up the rules Supercell, sometimes you have to follow them.. :pac:

:pac::p

Danno

Sure it's only day 3 of the month, any of the bonus points are waaay off in the month. Just my 2c.

Snowbie

Supercell wrote: »

I am between a rock and a hard place..

I'm gonna let it stand..however there is a cost.....

If you and Nacho are equal points at the end of the year you will be deducted 5 for your lateness and Nacho declared champ.

[enter evil mode]Lock the thread at midnight at months end and reopen it a few days later to solve this problem.
Not in, you can't win. I would disqualify these late comers so i be declared King and you a well deserved runner up, huh! what you think?[/leave evil mode]

trogdor wrote: »

Completely understand if these aren't accepted, no excuse other than i've been busy..

Busy studying two more days data for the up coming month;):p

Supercell

Glad thats er settled then, Nacho be a good fellow and win this thing outright please

M.T. Cranium

Just wondering, does the "year" end in December or February in this compy?

I would tend to be lenient on regular participants who enter on the first of a month, maybe the second or third is pushing it but really, what more clue does one have on the first about the weather for Cork at the end of the month? Of course, he might have "worked it all out" between midnight and morning of the first, but bravo if that's the case.

Snowbie

I would think the end of December and start afresh come January. Supercell?

Supercell

Calender year, MTC ..stop talking sense..
Last minute voters can get an "average" advantage.
The fact that it is clearly advantageous to do is is very very interesting. It shouldn't be if its all random.

M.T. Cranium

My belief is that most of us make a monthly temperature forecast using the same process, but of course different ideas get into that process.

We tend to look at the models from the first to the sixth or so and assume they are generally accurate as to large trends. Then we look at the seventh to the end of the run, and ask ourselves, what could go wrong with that?

Then we think about trends of the past few months, what sort of "spell" are we in and is there any evidence for that changing during this month?

Then we might factor in some private research, investigations, made by either ourselves or people we've been reading on some weather forum, if we think they might be on to something.

Then we remember every month is just about bang on normal and split the difference.

So this hardly changes by the end of the first day of the month, in fact, I would wager that if each of us had the opportunity to change our forecasts for Cork on the 7th or even the 15th, half of those changes would improve our chances and half would decrease them. It would be maybe the 20th before any real improvement might set in (for those of us that need improvement, that is to say).

I've only had one experience in many years of doing these forecasts where I had a sort of clear "vision" of how the month might go, where that was not just "about like the past three or four months" which is really just the money forecast for anyone to make, persistence usually works. There are patterns that seem to develop and unfold that you can sometimes glimpse in general terms and it's quite exciting for a while as they do unfold, then they might start fading out of focus again and at some point your concept is back to random.

I don't have much of a feel for this month at all, when I see the GFS suddenly throwing up intense storms or warm spells way into the future, I don't react like "hey, I knew it," just "this never ends well." December 12th, that will be a stormy day, so there's one day out of the next 90 nailed down.

Danno

MTC, do you go to all those rounds before you post your forecast?

Trogdor

Snowbie wrote: »

Busy studying two more days data for the up coming month;):p

...shhhh:p I can assure you they are complete guesses apart from having a very brief look at the models:)

Snowbie

trogdor wrote: »

...shhhh:p I can assure you they are complete guesses apart from having a very brief look at the models:)

Like wise:)

M.T. Cranium

Well yes and no, I think a lot of us probably do those things in our head over perhaps five minutes before coming up with the guess. I regularly enter the monthly guessing game over on Netweather so my Irish forecast is an adjustment of that guess or vice-versa. It's hard to imagine a set-up where the monthly anomaly will be vastly different in Ireland from central England, at least in several years I haven't noticed one to be that different, place to place usually isn't that different either but it seemed that Cork was particularly cold relative to normal last month. Anyone have an idea as to why? I don't.

I actually do try to follow this stuff for research I am doing, but I don't claim that the research is in some final form or that these are more than guesses. Most of my research has been done over on this side of the Atlantic where you can get some pretty large anomalies, I've seen months running ten degrees above or below normal in the winter at various places in the central and eastern parts of this continent. Perhaps I have some feel for what's going on here, although I wouldn't say it was anywhere near 100% accurate, but I am still developing any kind of feel for British Isles monthly trends or seasonal outlooks. I've seen a few people on both forums who seem to have a knack for it, I am all over the place so far.

Where I live on the west coast here, the climate is pretty similar to yours, it is probably a bit colder in winter and a bit hotter in July and August and definitely sunnier then, we seem to have a regular dry spell here from mid-July to mid-August, but otherwise you would find most of the year comparable. E.g., on Friday here it was raining on and off all day and about 16 C, and this is typical. We probably get even more rain than most of Ireland would see in November and December, it can rain very heavily here those months, we get a lot of left-over Pacific tropical moisture here in the late autumn, then we can count on one or perhaps two brief snowfall events usually one before and one after Christmas. The longest I have seen snow on the ground here in twelve years is about a week. But I used to live in Ontario where snow would be on the ground pretty much continuously from late November to early April. And that was at 44 deg N while now I am at about 49.5 N the same latitude as Brittany, and it is 10 deg C warmer here than in Ontario in the winter. But it's maybe 5 degrees cooler in July. So I grew up being used to huge weather variations and I find this a bit bland, however, I had enough cold and snow to last a lifetime.

Supercell

I must say the blandness is the one thing i don't like about the Irish climate.
If I could move to the top of a mountain here i would, mainly because the weather changes faster there!
A bit warmer in the summer and a bit cooler in winter would be nice. I think somewhere like Munich in southern Germany has close to my ideal climate in Europe, pity they don't speak English there!
Somewhere like Buffalo NY on the other side of the pond appeals to me too.

arctictree

Nice one MT, you really seem to be putting some effort into this! Are you from around these parts or are you Canadian?!

Today is a typical Irish bland October day. Drizzle and mild. Hope for some real arctic spells this winter. A real white XMas would be nice, we've had some very close calls in the last few years.

A

gurramok

My forecasts are from the dolphins, the animal instinct and my gut instinct have been wrong so far with a few near misses but hey they could be right for another country

Snowbie

One thing is certain here MTC is that Ireland lies in a temperate climate almost all year round with our predominant SWlys. We should not compare Ireland to UK as the difference in avg can be similar sometimes but they do however have a more warmer (high avg)climate during the Summer and a colder climate(low avg) during winter than us due to the close proximity to the near continent. We however here are exposed to the Atlantic both the moisture and the mild influence it exerts over us.

With winds due off the continent S,SE or E winds in summer/winter are more modified when they reach these shores unlike the UK. If for any length of time the winds originate in the continent and persist in the direction of this island, this would have the affect of changing our avg temp here depending on the season, otherwise it can be similar both slightly up or down from normal but not by much due to persisting winds.

Such spells are rare with only short blips in wind direction from the normal SW'lys. These blips in direction will only reflect on the yearly avg if they occur for any great length and is just similar each year with slight deviations.

This year avg would be slightly less than normal due to our summer rain, lack of insolation and general summer coolness. The rest of the year is close to normal unless we get a significant lengthy cold spell (which never occurs anymore) the avg would be far lower again for the year.

Quite boring for extremes but the guesses we make on here will usually be close too the yearly avg '71-2000 for that month from past years.
For instance i guessed (and way out it was) a particullary higher avg for the month of Sept as i thought a warmer spell would happen later in the month with little dirunal range in high temp, we got a mild spell but much chillier nights so it kept the avg by day and night constant and done nothing significantly to the month avg, so kept it near normal.

So below avg months tend to happen from wetter spells more than colder/warmer airmass origins nowadays. I can see why you be less likely to see extremes also where you live.

nacho libre

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

So I grew up being used to huge weather variations and I find this a bit bland, however, I had enough cold and snow to last a lifetime.

That is the one reason i could never live anywhere that gets huge amounts of snow each winter. We are lucky if we get a decent amount of snow and for this reason i appreciate it more when we do get it. Sure half the fun is the will it won't discussion that go on each winter. As for Ireland's weather being bland, i can't say i agree with that either. There is nothing better than watching a change in the weather take place along the western seaboard. Seeing a frontal system slowly make it's way in from the sea is a great sight. Also, experiencing a storm near the atlantic ocean is a great experience. So, we might not get the extremes in weather, but the weather is far from bland from my perspective. Also, when we do happen to get an extreme event we build a big mystique around it because of their rarity. I'd hate to live in a place where people were nonchalant about getting a foot of snow.
Regarding the cooler than average September i had a feeling after the wet Summer we would experience quite a cool September. I think this October, while starting off cool, will end up with the mean temperature being a good bit above average. I hope i'm wrong about this:pac:

arctictree

Snowbie wrote: »

With winds due off the continent S,SE or E winds in summer/winter are more modified when they reach these shores unlike the UK. If for any length of time the winds originate in the continent and persist in the direction of this island, this would have the affect of changing our avg temp here depending on the season, otherwise it can be similar both slightly up or down from normal but not by much due to persisting winds.

I'm amazed that we are all taught in school that Ireland is mild because of the Gulf Stream. Surely, its more because of the dominant wind direction.

I mean, if our winds switched to be mainly easterly, we would see cold winters and hot summers, even if the gulf stream stayed where it is.

Deep Easterly

nacho libre wrote: »

As for Ireland's weather being bland, i can't say i agree with that either. There is nothing better than watching a change in the weather take place along the western seaboard.

Agree to an extent. While I think the Western half of Ireland will experience more dramatic weather changes relative to what is experienced the East, it is still only relative. Give me absolutes; extremes of heat and cold, rain or shine, and so on. I have to agree with Supercell that the climate of Ireland is in general bland and uninteresting, and big events are made bigger simply because they happen so rarely.

Having said that though, I think when we do get it big, we get it big, so anything big is worth waiting for.


Anyways, to do what I came in here to do, a quick summary of September 2008.

Firstly, The Overall Mean:



Remained fairly cool throughout the month, with little variation. Included on the graph is the mean for each day, just to give an idea how this effected the overall mean trend. A lot of ups and downs, which finished the mean at near average.

Overall mean windspeed:



Again, remained fairly average throughout the month, though light winds towards the end of the month allowed the mean to finish just slightly below normal.

Mean wind direction for the month of September ended up Southwesterly, though there was a lot of daily variations:





Pressure wise:



Started off below average, which is in direct relation to the previous month; however, pressure rose steadily throughout the second half of September, which allowed the mean to finish at just above normal.


Rainfall wise, fairly even distribution:



although the SW/South Midlands and extreme North escaped the worst this month had to offer. Reflective of the pressure trend of September, most of the rain fell in the first half of the month.


Customary Climate summary:

Temperature anomaly chart for the Jan-Sept period (please ignore titles as I forgot to change them. I.E Jan-Aug showing)



Chart shows the OIM temp anomalies for Jan-Sept periods of both 2007 and 2008, when set against the 61-90 mean. The slight cooling period which occured in September 08 shows up nicely on the trend.


When averaged out:



the Jan-Sept period is still proving to be slightly cooler than for the same period in 2007. However, at 0.72c, 2008 is still proving to be a well above average year temp wise over Ireland.

Rainfall totals for the year (OIM):



SW and West wettest areas so far in 2008, which would be quite normal, however, included on the graph is the 61-90 mean rainfall totals for the Jan-Sept period, and as can be seen, all stations have clocked up more than their fair share of rain.

The law of averages dictates that quite a major dry spell is due before the end of 2008. So will this law prove valid?

We'll see.

M.T. Cranium

Yep, my bland comment was more to do with here (Vancouver area) than any part of British Isles, you tend to get the full effects of incoming storms from the ocean where we get a glancing blow many times because they are steered further north and there are mountains on the large island by the same name to our west, tends to give us days and days of very similar weather at some times of year. I have various links to Ireland, but I was born in the UK, my birth name was O'Donnell and some of my closer friends after moving to Canada were from Ireland themselves. So I was very happy to have the chance to visit back about thirty years ago, don't want that to be the only time by any means. I've spent perhaps a grand total of four months in the British Isles since leaving as a young boy half a century ago, so my actual experience of British weather is spotty, and my timing has not been so good for holidays (1972, 1988, 2007 among my really bad hits). The three weeks I spent in Ireland were hardly tourist board conditions but what the hey, it was still quite lovely. There are a number of places I didn't get to see that I would hope to see next time, like Donegal and Cork.

Anyway, it's a nice group of weather fanatics you have here, this is my third forum in the British Isles and on one of them I have been making daily forecasts for about three years now, so that's how I keep my head in it from so far away. Unless I am on holiday I take an hour each evening my time and post a forecast before the rest of them are up, then they can amend it while I'm sound asleep. I have a template that reads "partly cloudy, breezy with widely scattered showers" and just change the words around a bit (just kidding, really). :cool:

Yes, Buffalo ... you'd be even happier in a place north of Toronto where I lived for several winters, Longford Mills (hmm) probably sees more snow in the average week than Ireland would see in an inter-glacial era. I was snowed in there once for a week, in April.

AntiRip

Take with pinch of salt?
http://www.weatheraction.com/

M.T. Cranium

Only the parts about the weather.

Deep Easterly

Up to midnight 5th:

Overall Mean: 9.1c (-1.4c)
Overall Mean Max: 12.6c (-0.9c)
Overall Mean Min: 5.6c (-1.8c)

nacho libre

I wonder what has been the highest and lowest temperature so far this month?