phil882 Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 The recent -AO has already caused some pretty crazy weather over the last few days. For example, pressures have been measured as high as 1060 hPa over portions of extreme northern Europe, including Norway, while the high center has been progged as high as 1064+ over in Western Russa. This extremely high pressure has also resulted in some pretty extreme warm air advection far into the Arctic, with over an inch of rainfall reported in Spitsbergen, which is located at 77 degrees north. This strong high pressure is a consequence of a rather extreme block (+4 sigma!) currently over the the same region. This is literally what has been driving in the AO to a rather strong negative value. Since the strongest blocking has taken place over Europe, its no surprise to see that most of the cold will also be focused over Europe for the next week. The entire continent is expected to plunge into the ice box (yes even the Mediterranean vacation spots and all of Spain) over the next 3-5 days, with the 850 mb temperatures below 0 punctuating as far south as central Africa. This is 3-4 sigma below normal for this time of the year, and will likely mean widespread frost to many areas that don't typically receive frost even in the heart of winter. In addition, a potent Mediterranean cyclone is expected to organize per the ECMWF and will likely cause snowfall to occur across the northern coast of Africa and deep into Italy and France. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nzucker Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Weather Channel has lows of 18F, 16F, and 17F possible in Paris for the next three nights; that's pretty nippy for there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HurricaneJosh Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Yes, it's very cold here! Prague is down to single digits tonight. We won't get much above 15F until sometime next week, with nighttime lows in the city flirting with 0F. But I shouldn't complain, because it's mild here compared to the cities a little further E: Kiev and Moscow couldn't crack 0F for daytime highs today (-4F and -6F, respectively), and Minsk only got up to 1F. In fact, as I type, Moscow is -9F, or almost 20 degrees colder than Prague! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNE Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 What does this mean for the East Coast? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patrick05 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 some really amazing threads you've started recently!! hope you could also do a post on Asia with regards to the cold there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowGoose69 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 I just posted in the NYC thread how I've never seen this particular pattern before cause cold in Europe. Usually its the high over Iceland or Greenland, never before seen the double block with a high over the E Atlantic and a monster high over Russia. I've seen those highs over western Russia but usually when the NAO is positive and Europe is under westerlies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwt Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Snowgoose, actually this set-up is exactly how Europe getsits strongest cold blasts, because the cold air stays overland the whole way down towards Europe, thus there is no moderation of the colld. I'm in the UK and we are at the tail end of this upper high so temps and conditions, whilst cold, are no where near as severe. That being said a low pressure looks like forming and pushing a front into the UK. Normally in when it comes in from the W/NW its a smnple snow-rain set-up for most however we are in this case keeping a flow from Europe until behind the frontal system. In this case the UK weather can be more like you get in the US when it comes to snow, where higher thickness ad uppers can be had and still get snow. Its a rare old system here but sch set-ups have been known to give a foot or more here. Anyway whilst a -ve NAO signature maybe best to sustain cold, this set-up tends to be FAR more severe then any northerly outbreak. The UK for example nearly always gets its most severe cold from the east. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJwinter23 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 What does this mean for the East Coast? It means, we're getting screwed out of the cold here. That block on the other side of the pole which has sent the AO pretty strongly negative is producing some intense winter weather in Europe, Japan and various other mid-latitude locations except here in North America. Just another caveat in long range forecasting: You could have accurately predicted the flip in the AO by latter January, but how would you know it would essentially mean nothing for flipping our sensible weather in the U.S. (up until this point anyway). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJwinter23 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 I just posted in the NYC thread how I've never seen this particular pattern before cause cold in Europe. Usually its the high over Iceland or Greenland, never before seen the double block with a high over the E Atlantic and a monster high over Russia. I've seen those highs over western Russia but usually when the NAO is positive and Europe is under westerlies. I would think this is the perfect set up for the strogest cold outbreaks in Europe. It's essentially their verson of a -4 NAO block, connected to their version of a +PNA (the east Atlantic ridge) which is drawing the northeast Siberian flow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HurricaneJosh Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 We're up to 15°F in Prague at half past noon. I believe it went down to the low single digits last night, but we didn't get below 0. I think this is the worst of it-- shouldn't get any colder over the next few days, and should start to warm by early next week. One interesting thing: it's brilliantly sunny here today-- with a deep-blue sky-- something you almost never see this time of year. Winters here are almost solid grey; we'll go weeks without seeing even a scrap of blue sky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am19psu Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 How much for Prague? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Smith Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Every guy in Prague has eight inches, that's what Czech men say anyway. Czech women just look sorta dazed. Here's a great website for weather info in France and most of Germany as well as various other nearby countries. http://www.meteociel.fr Check it out, snowing on the French Riviera today with freezing temperatures in almost all of southern France's wine country. Very heavy snowfalls in parts of Switzerland as well as Serbia and Bosnia this past two weeks, in the case of Serbia, reports of over ten feet of snow in some areas, helicopters rescuing stranded and starving peasants from rooftops, etc. Mad stuff. Must be the lack of SUVs in Ukraine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stellarfun Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Helicopter video tour of snow along the French Riviera, including Monte Carlo. Though no snow on the ground at the airport at Nice. http://www.varmatin.com/article/var/meteo-quelques-averses-de-neige-possibles-dans-louest.764260.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turtlehurricane Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Perhaps some ocean effect snow along the North African coast? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinwood Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 That's a fun 5-day snowfall forecast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donsutherland1 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Fantastic thread. The sharp contrast between cold in Europe and warmth in large parts of North America kind of resembles February in some past La Niña winters i.e., 1956, 1976, 1999, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rainshadow Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 It means, we're getting screwed out of the cold here. That block on the other side of the pole which has sent the AO pretty strongly negative is producing some intense winter weather in Europe, Japan and various other mid-latitude locations except here in North America. Just another caveat in long range forecasting: You could have accurately predicted the flip in the AO by latter January, but how would you know it would essentially mean nothing for flipping our sensible weather in the U.S. (up until this point anyway). Chris, Yup, it doesn't have to always flip favorably imby, the other half of the hemisphere has just as much of a chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quakertown needs snow Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 now i keep looking at all the alps live cams ...sure is white out there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil882 Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 Spain and France are about to really feel the brunt of this cold snap. Below are the 1000 hPa temperature standard anomalies from the 48 hour GFS forecast. The purple represents 4 standard deviations below normal, while the pink represents 5 standard deviations below normal! This is unprecedented cold for this region of the world to say the least! I don't have standard anomaly maps for the ECMWF, but The 2 meter surface temperatures are rather impressive. I've labeled some general temperature values, with higher elevations generally on the colder side while coastal locations on the warmer side of these broad temperature values. However, it seems that below freezing conditions will be pushing far into Africa in the next few days. This cold is also of long duration... the coldest conditions should be experienced on Saturday or Sunday, but things will not significantly warm up for at least the next week if the models are right! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fozz Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 That's a fun 5-day snowfall forecast Damn.......I went to Italy 7 months too early Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MN Transplant Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Damn.......I went to Italy 7 months too early Agree, I was there last April. Would have been beautiful in the snow. The Piazza del Campo looks different! http://news.national...lls-over-italy/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turtlehurricane Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 We're up to 15°F in Prague at half past noon. I believe it went down to the low single digits last night, but we didn't get below 0. I think this is the worst of it-- shouldn't get any colder over the next few days, and should start to warm by early next week. One interesting thing: it's brilliantly sunny here today-- with a deep-blue sky-- something you almost never see this time of year. Winters here are almost solid grey; we'll go weeks without seeing even a scrap of blue sky. Same thing happens in the upper Midwest. When it gets Arctic cold we get brilliant blue skies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HurricaneJosh Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Same thing happens in the upper Midwest. When it gets Arctic cold we get brilliant blue skies. I guess it makes sense. And now that I think about it, we had some brilliant skies during another extreme cold snap back in 2004. It's currently 9°F in the city and dropping-- and it's only a little after 8 pm. Curious what our overnight low will be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HurricaneJosh Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Minsk is -22°F and Kiev is -13°F, whereas Moscow is -4°F, suggesting the really cold pocket has shifted W. Tonight will be colder in Prague than last night was-- and I think we'll see our lowest temps from this whole cold snap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
icebreaker5221 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Nice photo gallery on CNN right now: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/01/europe/gallery/europe-winter-weather/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HurricaneJosh Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 It's 11:45 pm, and it's already down to 3F at PRG and 4F in the City Center. I think we might crack zero tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxmx Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 It's 11:45 pm, and it's already down to 3F at PRG and 4F in the City Center. I think we might crack zero tonight. Icepussy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am19psu Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Icepussy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoastalWx Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Sounds like Josh is going to start tracking winter storms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am19psu Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Sounds like Josh is going to start tracking winter storms. We all know he is over there waiting by the computer for the latest run of the 18z Serbian model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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