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Swedish combat jets grounded by high pressure


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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

STOCKHOLM --

High atmospheric pressure is typically associated with good flying weather.

Not so at the Lulea air base in northern Sweden, where about a dozen Gripen fighter jets were barred from taking part in a Nordic air exercise Tuesday because of an abnormally strong high pressure system.

It's not that it's unsafe to fly, says base commander Mats Hakkarainen, but the pressure is so extreme the planes' instruments are being confused by the values and issue error signals.

The national weather agency says the atmospheric pressure in northern Sweden reached a 40-year high on Sunday.

Peter Liander, a spokesman for Gripen maker Saab, stressed that the plane can fly in all kinds of weather, but "the value is so extreme" that flight instruments treat it as an error.

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1060 mb in Ukhta and Syktyvkar, Russia. Probably higher between the two or somewhere nearby, but it's hard to find metars out there. 00Z ECMWF analysis has a 1064 mb contour.

UUYH 311600Z 00000MPS CAVOK M30/M32 Q1060 NOSIG RMK QFE783 3639//42=

UUYY 310900Z 02003MPS CAVOK M25/M28 Q1060 NOSIG 0182//51 RMK QFE785/1047=

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Pressures as high as 1067 mbs in north central Russia earlier today, check Wunderground obs for two places called Kyzym and Hoseda-Hard (no kidding). These locations are northeast of Moscow.

This may be the highest pressure in Europe (Urals being the boundary) since a similar reading in January, 1907 in Latvia. There was a reading near 1064 mbs in early January 2008 in the same part of Russia so it's not that big a return period for 1060+ .

Temperatures in this sprawling high are generally low end of -30s to high end of -40s (either scale). Lake Ladoga is still largely free of ice after a mildish winter before last week, so ice fog is streaming off it, as with lakes in southern Sweden. The Baltic is about 3-4 C except for partially frozen northern Gulf of Bothnia.

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