Winter 2017-18: Discussion

JCX BXC

Certain animals have actually been proven to be able to tell if there's rain coming in certain circumstances (wind needs to be coming from the same direction as the rain that's coming, it must have fallen on land, land must be somewhat dry etc), so that statement isn't completely accurate. They can smell "Petrichor", signifying rain in the distance.

Also, ME only like to forecast with a fairly acceptable degree of certainty, we all know that the further you go the less certain you become, and analysing what certain factors can cause weather to be like won't do any harm. I think it's more of a ME trying to stop people listening to people like James Madden from the daily mail.

Samaris

Nettle Soup wrote: »

I did notice that the holly bushes are laden with berries this year. I have never seen them so bountiful. I am sure that is a sign of something!

I am curious about this. Is it an old wives tale or is there anything in it? I've more heard it from the English side, mind you, and I don't know if there are other variables (such as the long Atlantic coastline) that might make it more of a correllation for inland Britain than Ireland.

Or it could be total rubbish ofc, but still, I'm curious!

highdef

Samaris wrote: »

I am curious about this. Is it an old wives tale or is there anything in it? I've more heard it from the English side, mind you, and I don't know if there are other variables (such as the long Atlantic coastline) that might make it more of a correllation for inland Britain than Ireland.

Or it could be total rubbish ofc, but still, I'm curious!

It's a sign that the weather in the previous growing season was excellent for Holly bushes and probably many other plants too. Plants react, they don't and cannot predict the future.

PokeHerKing

highdef wrote: »

Samaris wrote: »

I am curious about this. Is it an old wives tale or is there anything in it? I've more heard it from the English side, mind you, and I don't know if there are other variables (such as the long Atlantic coastline) that might make it more of a correllation for inland Britain than Ireland.

Or it could be total rubbish ofc, but still, I'm curious!

It's a sign that the weather in the previous growing season was excellent for Holly bushes and probably many other plants too. Plants react, they don't and cannot predict the future.

Same applies to the models:D

Charles Babbage

natashaob6 wrote: »

I remember 1982 Winter very well. I never thought we would see the likes again in my lifetime and when the big freeze hit in 2010 i considered myself to be very fortunate to have experienced that particular weather event. Although the 1982 weather event gave us two days of non stop snow the thaw set in fairly quickly and with in a day or so the roads and schools were back open.

I'm not sure where you were in the country, but in the East there was no thaw for a week. I was in those days a student and UCD was close for 3 days and was still snow covered when reopened. While it did thaw pretty quickly then the drifts behind the ditches were there for months, despite mild weather.

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

Charles Babbage wrote: »

I'm not sure where you were in the country, but in the East there was no thaw for a week. I was in those days a student and UCD was close for 3 days and was still snow covered when reopened. While it did thaw pretty quickly then the drifts behind the ditches were there for months, despite mild weather.

I live in the South so as far as I can remember the the thaw hit us first I think with a southweasterly setting in. I couln'd believe how quickly the snow disappeared except for the mountains where the snow lasted for at least three week on the highest peaks.

popsmar

Updats ?

Samaris

highdef wrote: »

It's a sign that the weather in the previous growing season was excellent for Holly bushes and probably many other plants too. Plants react, they don't and cannot predict the future.

I wasn't quite thinking along the lines of psychic plants at least! More if certain weather patterns can tend to follow on from each other. As an example - if an La Nina event could lead to a good growing season and then a cold winter in Europe, the pattern could be noted by farmers and the notion became folklore. (Not saying that example means anything, btw, that one was pulled from a hat). But two consequences of a forcing factor that would not neccessarily have been understood, so the visible effects were assumed to be one causing the other.

I don't know that there even is a pattern, mind, but I've seen it come up as folklore in England, the US (possibly imported by settlers though) and Austria, so it is interesting that the same idea springs up in such different places.

Neddyusa

highdef wrote: »

It's a sign that the weather in the previous growing season was excellent for Holly bushes and probably many other plants too. Plants react, they don't and cannot predict the future.

True that it is a reflection of the previous growing season.

But, just as the empirical weather models use data from historical patterns to predict weather, so can flora and fauna to a limited extent (including humans) who depend on their reaction to weather to survive.

Applying the basic principles of Darwins evolutionary theory to the holly example:

Over hundreds of generations: the population of holly trees that yield bountiful crops of berries before a particularly harsh winter are more likely to pass their genes on to the next generation, than those that yield small crops of berries before the harsh winter.

This would originally have occurred by chance, but with natural selection over time, if certain weather patterns tend to occur in the spring/summer proceeding a cold winter, the holly can react to that and produce more berries.

The major caveat is, that while the basis of the holly's "prediction" is empirical, just like the weather models, it is based on medium term weather patterns over a local geographic area and so reliability is relatively low.
Of course, human weather models are working off a much shorter back-catalogue of historic data than the holly! So if we had access to as long a dataset as the holly, our long-term forecasts could be much more accurate.

So moral of the story, IMO, while the reliability score would not be high, it would be greater than random chance and it is not entirely true to say that watching patterns in flora and fauna behaviour cannot give an indication of future weather.

JJJJNR

JCX BXC wrote: »

Certain animals have actually been proven to be able to tell if there's rain coming in certain circumstances (wind needs to be coming from the same direction as the rain that's coming, it must have fallen on land, land must be somewhat dry etc), so that statement isn't completely accurate. They can smell "Petrichor", signifying rain in the distance.

Also, ME only like to forecast with a fairly acceptable degree of certainty, we all know that the further you go the less certain you become, and analysing what certain factors can cause weather to be like won't do any harm. I think it's more of a ME trying to stop people listening to people like James Madden from the daily mail.

Animals have also millions of years of evolution behind them, where we have black Friday.

George Sunsnow

I’m heading out so no time to look at more but next week looks VERY wintry on the ECM from about wenesday
Haven’t time to look at the early 850’s but sure looks like medium term some super cold air fro Scandinavia May come visit

Over to Blizzard and other posters to analyise

sryanbruen

George Sunsnow wrote: »

I’m heading out so no time to look at more but next week looks VERY wintry on the ECM from about wenesday
Haven’t time to look at the early 850’s but sure looks like medium term some super cold air fro Scandinavia May come visit

Over to Blizzard and other posters to analyise

And I just posted it in the FI Charts .

Good minds think alike.

M.T. Cranium

How do recent winters stack up historically?

The CET record includes 358 winters. Since the winter of 2005-06, these have been the ranks of the last twelve winters (ranks from first listed tied value):

2005-06 _149th warmest
2006-07 __ 5th warmest
2007-08 __27th warmest
2008-09 _153rd coldest or 204th warmest
2009-10 __57th coldest or 300th warmest
2010-11 _107th coldest or 247th warmest
2011-12 __60th warmest
2012-13 _172nd warmest
2013-14 __13th warmest
2014-15 _106th warmest
2015-16 __ 2nd warmest
2016-17 __40th warmest

This averages out to 110th warmest, so not all that unusual a period, mainly thanks to three colder winters in a row.

The mildest winter was 1868-69 and it's worth noting that four others in the top ten were before all (or in one case almost all) of us were born. Those were 1833-34 (3rd warmest), 1685-86 (7th warmest), 1795-96 (9th warmest) and 1934-35 (10th warmest). Besides two very recent winters listed above, other top ten warm winters that some or most of you will recall were 1988-89 (4th) and 1974-75 (6th) and 1989-90 (8th).

The only top five cold winter that anyone reading this will recall is 1962-63 (ranks 3rd coldest behind 1683-84 and 1739-40). The winter of 1946-47 ranked 13th coldest but had the coldest February. Since then, only 1978-79 (28th coldest) was colder than 2009-10.

My prediction is that this winter will rank close to the mid-point, about 180th warmest or coldest.

server down

That Midpoint would be cold by recent standards though, right?

Gaoth Laidir

Always the bridesmaid...

Meteorite58

Mod Note: Posts of current conditions for snow and ice moved to https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057812073

This thread is for discussion about the winter season which starts on Fri 1st of Dec.

Thanks

arctictree

Very interesting to see how our weather would be if the prevailing wind switched from SW to NE. Basically from mid November to March we would have constant wintry showers with Temps in low single figures by day. Interspersed with much colder outbreaks. I know the gulf stream influences our climate mainly because the south westerlies blow over it and warm the wind. Surely the prevailing wind is the main influencer if our climate...

sryanbruen

The GFS is still going for some stratospheric warming as we go into December. Again far far from a sudden stratospheric warming - which is good, as January is the preferred month for one historically.

George Sunsnow

The day after tomorrow is on channel four right now
Just sayin'

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

We didn't see as much as one flake over the past couple of days in Tipperary so after watching the Six One Weather i'm hoping we might see some next week after tomorrow's rain passes through and the winds turn to a more northerly direction pulling down polar air once a weak cold front pushes through.

hatrickpatrick

ECM FI is a thing of beauty today. GFS not so much, shows the polar vortex ultimately overcoming any block.

What are peoples' thoughts on which is the more likely scenario?

At 240h on the 6z GFS, the block is already being pushed eastwards, and in the next several frames it basically disappears after lingering directly over us for a bit



At 240h on the 0z ECM, on the other hand......



Will have to see what happens when the 12z runs are published, whether the ECM jumps on board with the GFS or vice versa. And obviously all the usual FI caveats apply.

EDIT: That 995 low on the GFS is unusual for this time of year, looks almost like a tropical cyclone remnant? O_o

George Sunsnow

Well the U.S met service are regularally favoriting ECM solutions more often lately
It beat the Gfs hands down with that Florida hurricane

hatrickpatrick

George Sunsnow wrote: »

Well the U.S met service are regularally favoriting ECM solutions more often lately
It beat the Gfs hands down with that Florida hurricane

Absolutely, and the ECM is generally more reliable in our part of the world as well (with some notable exceptions over the years to be fair) but 10 days out, they're probably as likely to happen as eachother really.

What I'm loving about this year is that there are so many of these charts showing up at all. Last few years there hasn't been a hint of northern blocking (or a very fleeting one when it does show up) while this year we've basically seeing blocks attempting to form for at least the last fortnight. This surely boosts the chances of something interesting at some stage this winter, even though nothing has materialised beyond FI charts, their frequency suggests that there's probably an underlying trend going on.

Snowbiee21

Don’t know what hatrickpatrick means by nothing materializing beyond FI Charts even though the blocking has been there for much of November now

snowstorm445

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Absolutely, and the ECM is generally more reliable in our part of the world as well (with some notable exceptions over the years to be fair) but 10 days out, they're probably as likely to happen as eachother really.

What I'm loving about this year is that there are so many of these charts showing up at all. Last few years there hasn't been a hint of northern blocking (or a very fleeting one when it does show up) while this year we've basically seeing blocks attempting to form for at least the last fortnight. This surely boosts the chances of something interesting at some stage this winter, even though nothing has materialised beyond FI charts, their frequency suggests that there's probably an underlying trend going on.

Tbf I my memory serves me right I think last year saw some very decent charts towards the start of the winter (around now even) that were just as good if not better than what we are seeing now, nothing came of it unfortunately. It's pays to be very cautious when the models suggest exceptionally cold weather like this.

sryanbruen

snowstorm445 wrote: »

Tbf I my memory serves me right I think last year saw some very decent charts towards the start of the winter (around now even) that were just as good if not better than what we are seeing now, nothing came of it unfortunately. It's pays to be very cautious when the models suggest exceptionally cold weather like this.

In the FI range yes. However, not in the reliable timeframe. The ECM last year wasn't really on board with anything cold, it was more the GFS. This year we have high consistency on the ECM to content with. Not to mention, there seems to be a lot of agreement among the ensembles of both models, including the GFS for cold. There's an unusual limited amount of scatter in the model ensembles. Last year, all the cold was 10+ days out, the unreliable timeframe. This year, we have northerlies in the reliable timeframe like Tuesday coming.

Gonzo

the outlook remains cold, but nothing to really get excited about this week with daytime temps generally 4-9C and mostly dry conditions. Hopefully it's all a build up to something great a few weeks from now.

Snowbiee21

Gonzo wrote: »

the outlook remains cold, but nothing to really get excited about this week with daytime temps generally 4-9C and mostly dry conditions. Hopefully it's all a build up to something great a few weeks from now.

THursday looking decent

sryanbruen

Gonzo wrote: »

the outlook remains cold, but nothing to really get excited about this week with daytime temps generally 4-9C and mostly dry conditions. Hopefully it's all a build up to something great a few weeks from now.

4-5c in crisp Winter sunshine is always very exciting for me.

sryanbruen

He said the same last year for the early part of the Winter:

https://twitter.com/liamdutton/status/934821408240218112