Long-Range Outlook for Winter 2018-19
As always, my forecast is based on a blend of traditional concepts and exclusive research into "index values" on the assumption that at least some variability in the climate can be linked to variations in the solar system magnetic field (a complex response to relatively small changes in solar wind output and effects on the earth's linked atmosphere and magnetosphere).
It is looking quite cold compared to normal for Britain and Ireland, in particular later December and parts of January. However, this appears to be dependent on a strong jet stream either shifting far enough south or relaxing for periods of 1-2 weeks, and the intervals between the cold spells could be quite stormy at times when the jet stream is roaring at full capacity. The research index values in particular go far colder than I have seen them for the past several winters, indicating many analogue cases that were very cold winters. Looking through the analogues, I find that periods around late December into early January, and mid to late January, were favoured for the coldest weather. This is also favoured by assumptions made about lunar modulation of the pattern, which is how I have come to see the lunar influence, not as a driver so much as a shaper of larger signals from the other players at work.
Another consideration is that we are well into a prolonged solar downturn and so there's nothing in the larger solar-weather paradigm to contradict the notion of this being a colder than average winter. We are in a similar position to the period 1819 to 1823 which had numerous cold winters but it's not a guarantee by itself to be in this sort of regime. I've seen some discussion saying that perhaps this won't be the widely expected "big one" and perhaps we'll need to wait another winter or two, but I have no way of choosing which one is the big one from the coarse assumptions that one is forced to make using only a solar-weather paradigm.
The past summer season in the central Canadian arctic was exceptionally cold. Resolute for example had no month warmer than the 1.9 average in July, and that is the lowest such statistic on record in recent times (the record began in 1948). This has been followed up by a large-scale southward movement of a cold anomaly over central Canada that has people commenting that winter already began in the prairies in early September, with snow often on the ground. This anomaly is almost bound to be followed up by a persistent trough around 90 to 100 W longitude. That in turn would favour west Atlantic blocking and a downstream trough between 10 and 30 W. Although that's a little west of the "sweet spot" for a cold winter in Britain and Ireland, I feel that it may be a high amplitude pattern that will induce Scandinavian blocking highs, and cold outflow from those despite fairly high 500-mb heights in western Europe at times. And the pattern could oscillate east-west enough to place the trough over Britain and Ireland at times.
So I am predicting a notably cold winter but with high variability possible leading to alternating spells of wintry cold and stormy fast flow situations.
Another factor that may prove significant is that energy levels will be highly concentrated near the full and new moons this winter, perhaps more so than has been the case in most recent winters. I expect this to translate into alternating periods of very unsettled, stormy weather around those lunar dates, and relatively long settled intervals between them. The settled intervals are likely to be the times when blocking will deliver the colder air masses from an easterly or northeasterly source. But there may be some tendency for the disturbed intervals to remain cold and turn more northerly. This could add up to considerably more snowfall in the heart of winter than we've seen for quite a few seasons, in contrast to last winter's concentration of snowfall near the very end of the winter season (27 Feb to 2 March was very snowy in some regions).
I am aware that this represents a high risk forecast, especially given the tendency of recent winters to resist opportunities to establish potent blocking. So it won't absolutely surprise me if the result is some kind of weaker compromise where some cold and some snowfall develop but longer intervals remain relatively mild. I don't foresee a really mild winter being likely given these background conditions, and I do have concerns that the volatility may produce some exceptionally stormy intervals. This pattern may persist well into late winter and March may not see a lot of change from it, except that by then the energy level considerations will be more evenly distributed into four peaks rather than two per lunation. That separation during February may lead to a peak in snowfall since the peaks will be somewhat less supported and that could be reflected in a more persistent blocking pattern.
As to the dates of the stormy episodes, those appear most likely to fall around 19-22 December, 3-6 January, and 16-20 January, and there could be heavy rainfalls in the south during some of those intervals as colder regimes are pushed back to the north at least temporarily, but as time goes on the chances for snowstorms likely increases with each of these windows, then towards the end of January it may be more of a sea-effect snowfall opportunity with the storm track pushed much further south into Iberia and the Mediterranean.
During the anticyclonic intervals that are likely to peak between those stormy intervals, we could see some unusually low temperatures especially if snow cover has been established towards the transition from stormy to settled weather.
In the run up to the winter, I would expect quite frequent mild and unsettled patterns with the colder synoptics taking their time to appear, possibly in muted form around mid to late November so that perhaps Scotland will get the first round of this predicted wintry regime.
In North America, I am expecting a winter dominated by intense cold over central regions, often extending out to both coasts, and a generally depressed jet stream but with weak El Nino tendencies likely to lead to frequent and heavy snowfall inland from the west coast over the Rockies about as far south as northern New Mexico. Parts of eastern Canada may be unusually mild with the storm track tending to run north from near Cape Cod into eastern Quebec province.
I feel like this may be a very rough sketch of a winter that may contain some really unusual synoptics and bring conditions that are rarely seen at some times, and those are difficult to anticipate so would just caution that various extremes may be tested at times. I don't think it will be a dull or boring weather pattern for most of the winter, in any case.
For verification, I expect the average temperatures to run as much as 1.5 to 2 degrees below recent normals and for this winter to be one of the colder ones in the past thirty or even fifty, and colder even than the longer-term averages which run almost a degree below modern 30-year averages. I somehow doubt that it could be an all-time cold contender to match the summer because that seems to be very difficult to achieve with the ice margins being as far north as they have set up in the North Atlantic in modern times. But as we saw in December 2010, anything is still possible and there could be some intervals of record breaking cold.
. IJsland heeft er genoeg van, een van de meest gelukkige landen ter wereld.
