Big Changes On The Way

For anybody doubting this winters performance so far... think again! Strong signals are pointing towards a much colder pattern after the 20th of the month. Stratospheric temperatures are strongly pointing towards a much more favourable pattern for the eastern part of the country with a ridge int he west. With cold anomalies across siberia and eastern europe expect the PV to drop southwards onto our side of the globe. ECMWF stratospheric temp forecasts have high verification scores and it is showing an increase in these temperatures. Right now we are sitting near normal but a ragged spike upwards is likely with this forecast :

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Trough begins to amplify at hour 240 with blocking over the top:

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European Operational lets the cold air loose on our side of the globe with very cold temperatures. This jives well with the stratospheric forecasts but we will see if the models hang on to this as we get closer to the event. We have seen this setup before with the cold anomalies getting pushed further back so we still need to wait and see at this point. Important to note that this is within 10 days so it is out of fantasy range. With ensemble support it's unwise to turn a blind eye at this point to the factors on the table with SSW, retrograding blocks and SOI crashes. I do not want to hype anything here but i am looking at the real life observations on the table which are pointing towards a much more favourable pattern after the 20th.