Winter Weather 2015/16 : See Mod Note Post #1

sryanbruen

It'd be awesome if we got a significantly cold Winter next. Thumbs up that we should be owed one! Suffered through the worst possible miserable month ever, December 2015 continuing into the start of January before a very unremarkable cold spell and back to the Atlantic regime then February was changeable throughout with various persistently wet days and some sunny days.

Particularly wet days come to mind:

- Dec 3rd
- Dec 5th
- Dec 7th
- Dec 9th
- Dec 12th
- Dec 14th / 15th
- Dec 25th / 26th
- Dec 29th / 30th
- Jan 1st
- Jan 5th
- Jan 9th
- Jan 26th
- Feb 6th
- Feb 16th
- Feb 13th
- Feb 25th / 26th / 27th in places
- Feb 29th

^ Jesus Christ... we are definitely owed a dry, sunny and very cold Winter next. Well it is very likely we will get at least a cold (not significantly) Winter next, because:

The recent wettest Winters on record have been followed by a colder than normal Winter.

1989 / 90 - Very wet and mild.
1990 / 91 - Sunny, cold and wet.

1994 / 95 - Very wet and mild.
1995 / 96 - Relatively cool (without January, it would have been very cold) and wet in places.

2013 / 14 - Exceptionally wet and mild.
2014 / 15 - Cool with variable rainfall.

Whilst Strong El Nino winters:

1982 / 83 - Relatively mild and dry (correct me if I'm wrong)
1983 / 84 - Mild and dry (again correct me if I'm wrong)

1997 / 98 - Very mild and variable rainfall
1998 / 99 - Mild and wet in most places

2015 / 16 - Very mild and exceptionally wet
2016 / 17 - ?

sryanbruen

It has been England's warmest Winter on record with 7.0c beating the previous record of 6.8c in 1868-69.

HighLine

Sally Gap
https://twitter.com/IrelandSkycam/status/704283808179343361

blackbird99

galtee mountains yesterday courtesy arra images on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/arra.images/media_set?set=a.785190551585366.1073741846.100002832862314&type=3&pnref=story

Rock Lesnar

Snow all gone now and replaced by rain and floods

nacho libre

Ah it is a pity about Graces 7. She has a way with words. Sorry for going off topic. I am looking forward to some mountain climbing in Donegal and Mayo in the days ahead, with hopefully the sweet sound of crunching snow under foot.

mickger844posts

A fitting wet day to end the wettest Winter on record here in Waterford City. As of now over 652mm of rain fell in the 3 Winter months. The weather has a funny way of balancing things out so hopefully a decent summer will be the pay off.

www.waterfordcityweather.com

JCX BXC

Savage Tyrant wrote: »

Luggala outside Roundwood just now...

Ya can just see the wettness of the snow.

sryanbruen

mickger844posts wrote: »

A fitting wet day to end the wettest Winter on record here in Waterford City. As of now over 652mm of rain fell in the 3 Winter months. The weather has a funny way of balancing things out so hopefully a decent summer will be the pay off.

www.waterfordcityweather.com

Well I am expecting a good Summer. (just like the El Nino of 1982-83) (Summer 1983 was great).

HighLine

sryanbruen wrote: »

Well I am expecting a good Summer. (just like the El Nino of 1982-83) (Summer 1983 was great).

Just as I expect next week's lotto numbers to be...

4, 12, 27, 30, 33, 44 and bonus number 20

JCX BXC

HighLine wrote: »

Just as I expect next week's lotto numbers to be...

4, 12, 27, 30, 33, 44 and bonus number 20

Original :rolleyes:

sryanbruen

HighLine wrote: »

Just as I expect next week's lotto numbers to be...

4, 12, 27, 30, 33, 44 and bonus number 20

What made you choose those numbers? :rolleyes:

WheatenBriar

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Whatevs about November, I just had the lowest forecast error of a hundred people in some contest over on NW, so that's not too shabby (forecast CET = actual CET = 9.5, average forecast 7.7) ... and without looking back I'm pretty sure my LRF called for mild and at times stormy weather in December, so I do think that the pattern is on track so far. Also I continue to think it will turn colder at some point in mid to late January, there can always be one or two colder days in this pattern but a more substantial change due to blocking and as mentioned by the poster before me, a shift in the jet stream, will probably require 4-6 weeks at a minimum. This may actually get worse before it gets better (in terms of severe storm potential). And it is tied into that mid-ocean SST pattern.

Found this interesting, both oceans are releasing moisture to land in equal rates it would seem:

(from U.S. National Weather Service)

...RECORD DECEMBER 24-HOUR TOTAL RAINFALL SET AT PORTLAND OR...

A RECORD DECEMBER 24-HOUR TOTAL RAINFALL OF 3.22 INCHES WAS SET AT
PORTLAND OR DEC 6-7..ENDING AT 2 PM. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF
2.59 INCHES SET ON DEC 12-13, 1977.

(and their period of record goes back quite a way before 1977, if they have blended downtown and airport records it would go back to about 1880).

3.22 inches of rain is about 81 mm.

The only real question now about this winter, I feel, is this: will it just go on like this to the spring, or will it shift like some El Nino winters in the past to blocking and colder weather. My estimate is that the blocking has about a 2:1 chance of beating the other option. In our forum winter forecast contest, the 16 entrants seem to agree. About one third go for continued mild weather and means of 6-7 C in all three months. The other two thirds foresee some colder weather and more favour February for that than January although perhaps it's more of case of parts of each month. They foresee an average of 12-15 cm of snow in total in Leinster, so that tells me that they are looking for one or two snowfall events, and an average minimum for the winter of -8 to -9 C. Nobody is calling for anything too extreme, the lowest February mean in the contest is 2.4 C.

I said I would report on that contest consensus and so there it is, a few days late because I had a few other things going on.

These are just my opinions and presented as such, I leave earth-shaking announcements of certain doom to those who can print them up and circulate them door to door.

How is this winter forecast doing?
Tomorrow is march and blocking finally may be coming (a week away again in the models as always) abouta month late and as a nuisance

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

8.8mm of rain today but enough to raise the water table to flooding of fields again. We badly need at least two dry weeks now.

nacho libre

WheatenBriar wrote: »

How is this winter forecast doing?
Tomorrow is march and blocking finally may be coming (a week away again in the models as always) abouta month late and as a nuisance

If you disregard the timing, his forecast has been fairly accurate. The UKMO seasonal assessment was spot on this year, but then Peter O' Donnell is just one man, with two aliases, against a corporation with vast resources.

JCX BXC

Who's the woman on the weather? She's informative but I feel like she's giving out to me :P

DOCARCH

As Spring has now sprung...all general weather chit chat this way: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057560956

I will leave this thread open for a little in case anybody wants to post musings on the Winter just passed.

Loughc

Another Winter season comes to a close and another great thread, as a more of a lurker to this thread than poster I just want to thank everyone who posts up charts, graphs and forecasts.

This thread is one of my favourite ones to visit each year, shame this winter was such a wash out with little to no wintery events. I barely seen frost this year, hopefully Winter 2016/17 will be more successful.

Speak Now

Carnacalla wrote: »

Who's the woman on the weather? She's informative but I feel like she's giving out to me :P

Joanna Donnelly great to put a face to the voice at last

Gonzo

This was possibly the first winter I can remember where there wasnt even a nationwide 24 hour toppler. There were 2 cool spells at best where temps were closer to what we normally get for winter with some very isolated sleetyness/few flakes and a few night frosts. This winter will be remembered for the constant rain, high winds and very mild often warm conditions. We even manged to get some bizarre night time temps which are difficult enough to achieve in the height of summer never mind winter!.

nacho libre

It was the wettest December on record over here, and the second warmest winter on record. Still, even with that, we did manage one night of snow, which led to a modest covering.

Xenji

Just over 750mm of rain this winter in Castlebar, slightly down on the 770mm we had last winter.

sryanbruen

Grange's summary for Winter 2015 / 16

Very wet, warm and sunny.

Rainfall: Wettest Winter on record. Largely due to a particularly wet December.
I recorded a rainfall total of 383.4mm which comes to 231% of the LTA and was overall my wettest Winter on record beating 2013 / 14 by 18.9mm. There were very little breaks from rainfall throughout the season with the longest period without rainfall from February 22nd - 28th (7 days). The season started off with December, a record-breaking month for rainfall. It was not only the wettest December on record, it was also the wettest month on record beating October 2011, the previous wettest month by 16.3mm. December also smashed many rainfall records including my wettest December day on record with 36.5mm on the 12th. I originally bet this record too on December 3rd which recorded 31.3mm. The rain just did not stop as then I had my wettest Christmas Day on record with 21.2mm. Luckily, I escaped the worst of Storm Desmond on the 5th with 14.3mm and Storm Frank on the 29th / 30th with 8.7mm and 9.8mm respectively. A new month then arrived called January but guess what? For the first few days, the weather did it not change with further heavy pulses of rain including my wettest January days since 2013 with 19.8mm on the 5th and 17.9mm on the 9th. I also had my wettest New Year's Day on record with 10.1mm. Luckily from the 10th - 24th, I then recorded very little rainfall with the highest daily fall being only 1.9mm on the 12th. However, this long period of light rain or showers was soon replaced by a very wet closing to the month. I recorded 15.2mm during Storm Jonas (or Nor'easter Jonas) on the 26th and 12.4mm on the 29th during Storm Gertrude. January overall recorded 112.0mm and it was my second wettest January on record behind 2014. Despite being wetter than normal overall, February was a much quieter month in terms of rainfall amounts. February recorded 61.2mm but this rainfall was kind of evenly distributed through the month with no significantly wet days in contrast to the other Winter months here and my highest daily fall this month was only 8.3mm on the 16th, my lowest maximum daily rainfall for February since 2008. Unlike the other Winter months, February was much more benign in terms of rainfall. Winter recorded a total of 76 wet days, my highest for any Winter on record.

Temperature: Fourth warmest on record with December particularly warm
Winter recorded a mean temperature of 5.9c which is +1.9c above the LTA. This was the fourth highest for Winter on record behind only 1988 / 89 (6.4c), 1997 / 98 (6.2c) and 2011 / 12 (6.1c). December largely contributed to this high positive deviation of average temperature by being the warmest December on record with 8.5c, +4.4c above the LTA, smashing the previous record of 6.6c back in 1988. On the 19th, I recorded 15.8c, my highest for December since 2007. I recorded my highest minimum temperature for December on record on the 1st with 12.5c, +4.8c above the normal daytime temperature expected in December. My minimum temperature for December was -1.5c on the 27th and was my highest minimum temperature for December on record. January was also quite warm overall in spite of the cold snap from the 7th - 20th with 5.2c, +1.2c above the LTA. On the 23rd and 24th, I broke records for my highest minimum temperatures in January. On the morning of the 24th, I recorded a minimum temperature of 12.6c which is even +5.2c above the normal daytime maximum temperature and was my highest for January on record. I also recorded a maximum of 15.1c on the same day, my highest for January since 1998. I had my January minimum temperature on the 16th with -6.2c which was my lowest for January since 2010. February ended up relatively mild with 4.2c (+0.2c above the LTA) but it was not an exceptional month overall in terms of temperature with a maximum of 12.4c on the 4th and was higher than 2015's 12.1c. I bet my January minimum temperature on February 15th which recorded -6.3c and was my lowest for February since 2015 and for Winter since 2010 / 11. Just like the rainfall, Winter 2015 / 16 was crazy for record-breaking temperatures.

Sunshine: Fourth sunniest Winter on record
Sunshine comes as a big surprise as statistics show that it became Grange's fourth sunniest Winter on record with 214 hours, 135% of the LTA but not nearly as sunny as 2014 / 15. It certainly did not feel this sunny! December recorded 53 hours, 113% of the LTA and it was still my dullest December since 2002 comparing with recent sunny Decembers especially 2010 and 2014. I had my sunniest December day for 5 years with 5.5 hours on the 11th. January recorded 75 hours, 183% of the LTA and it was my sunniest January since 2015 (fifth sunniest on record) with many days recording at least 2 hours of sunshine - so I am not really surprised about this value. I had my sunniest January day since 2011 with 6.2 hours on both the 15th and 22nd. February recorded 86 hours, 123% of the LTA and it was my sunniest February since 2004 but not exceptionally so. I recorded my sunniest Winter day on February 22nd with 9.1 hours, highest also since 2004. Despite the large total, Winter did not break any records for sunshine.

This Winter will remain in our memories for years to come with December being particularly memorable (not in a good way by any means!!).

sryanbruen

Met Éireann have revealed that it was the wettest Winter on record at half of the Irish meteorological stations, including: Dublin Airport and Malin Head. Valentia Observatory was just 24.4mm short of its wettest Winter record set in 2013 / 14. It is officially Valentia's second wettest Winter on record because of this.

Elmer Blooker

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

The negativity is understandable in my opinion, the harsh reality is that this set up can continue for weeks on end.
How many winters have I seen get eaten up by a big Azores? - far too many!

posted January 24th ^
Nothing has changed other than a few chilly PM intrusions, the Arctic isn't even cold in winter anymore.
The indications are that because of Arctic warming next winter will be as bad as this one. It really is extraordinary that other than a dusting in March '13 I haven't seen snow in FIVE years!

NMB

"Nothing has changed other than a few chilly PM intrusions, the Arctic isn't even cold in winter anymore.
The indications are that because of Arctic warming next winter will be as bad as this one. It really is extraordinary that other than a dusting in March '13 I haven't seen snow in FIVE years! "


Ditto

Gonzo

NMB wrote: »

"Nothing has changed other than a few chilly PM intrusions, the Arctic isn't even cold in winter anymore.
The indications are that because of Arctic warming next winter will be as bad as this one. It really is extraordinary that other than a dusting in March '13 I haven't seen snow in FIVE years! "


Ditto

similar situation here, havent seen enough snowfall to even make a snowball since 2010. The past 5 years have been brutal with only pitiful dustings during March or brief wetsnow/sleety crap from the west. Any time its been cold enough for proper snow there is no precipitation to be found.

nacho libre

Well, i seem to recall generally snowless winters throughout the nineties, although i'm not sure if the Arctic was as warm as it is now. Perhaps it is just part of a cycle, or is the warning a few years ago about warmer, wetter winters, with snow becoming harder to come by, being borne out?

Gonzo

nacho libre wrote: »

Well, i seem to recall generally snowless winters throughout the nineties, although i'm not sure if the Arctic was as warm as it is now. Perhaps it is just part of a cycle, or is the warning a few years ago about warmer, wetter winters, with snow becoming harder to come by, being borne out?

The long gaps in snowy winters started in 1992. We've had 3 big gaps so far, most of the 90s then again from 2002 to about 2008 and the current snow drought from 27th December 2010 to the current day.

sryanbruen

Gonzo wrote: »

The long gaps in snowy winters started in 1992. We've had 3 big gaps so far, most of the 90s then again from 2002 to about 2008 and the current snow drought from 27th December 2010 to the current day.

Mmm 2002 - 2007 was brutal for snowfall. Only White Christmas 2004 and March 2006 snowfall I can remember. I can't recall February and March 2007's snowfalls or November 2005's.