Stormy Weather II

[Pulcinella]

Just as well sunshine isn't essential for them to work eh?!

The scaffolders, or the panels?

It seemed hardly to get light at all today, let alone sunny.

[DracoM]

Solid, unrelenting grey, damp, rain, dreich here.

[BBMmk2]

Been raining on and off all day today. Sun please!

[Serial_Apologist]

Light drizzle most of the morning now turning heavier - temperature a mild (for late November) 12 C, not that it makes much difference. With the associated clag now low enough to be gently wafting past the Crystal Palace mast, cutting it off at the base, then at the top, we could almost be in among DracoM's mountains here!

[Joseph K]

Was pleasantly weird seeing the sun out here! Mild, too.

[Serial_Apologist]

What started as a few drops just now quickly turned into a moderate downpour as I visited the nearby post box, causing me to double back quick. Which in one sense is not surprising, given we are now bang in the middle of a low pressure system, which means that neigher it nor its rain are going anywhere in a hurry - except it came unexpectedly out of an innocuous uniform grey sky.

We now seem to be back into the "meridional" circulation pattern that is coming to predominate over "zonality", ie eastward moving weather systems riding on the back of a vigorous jet stream, now much weakened, and, according to some qualified meteorologists, what from now on we will all be permanently stuck with as a consequence of the warming of the Arctic. What in weather terms this means is that in place of the regular sequence of depressions with their frontal systems borne on westerly or southwesterly winds previously typical of British weather, with the occasional dry spell courtesy westward extensions of the "Siberian high" from December to March, or north-eastward extension of the "Azores high" in summer, slowings and haltings in the jetstream will result in north/south elongated blocking highs, extending from sub-arctic to sub-tropics, bringing cold northerlies down their eastern flank and warm southerlies up the western flank. Those warm southerlies, being drawn up the eastern US coast with help from the Gulf Stream, are in turn thought to be exacerbating the warming tendency causing the Arctic and Greenland ice caps to melt, this in turn shifting the centre of deepest winter cold south to be located over eastern Siberia and Canada - this being why Canada and the NE states of America have had two of their coldest winters on record in a row. Whether or not heatwaves, freeze-ups, droughts or increased tendencies to flooding situations results from all this becomes dependent on where precisely the blocking takes place: anticyclonic blocking to the west will bring spells of cold of longer duration that was previously the case, where "cold plunges" behind a sequence of depressions - when the jet stream would temporarily dip south - would normally quickly collapse as the high retreated south to merge with the Azores high, and winds backed round to the north west, then west and then south-west, as the Atlantic jet was restored; or, with anticyclonic blocking to the east delaying eastward progression of Atlantic depressions allowing time for sufficient over land warming of air of African origin to bring drought accompanied by record-breaking high temperatures to Britain and northern Europe. Thus, in place of the Atlantic-driven weather known in the past, the regular pattern will tend to alternate between spells of prolonged dryness and wet, the old westerly type becoming the exception to what was once the rule. Not a good prospect for either our ecosystems or seasonal dependability for the farming community.

[BBMmk2]

Oh dear. Indeed not very good at all.

Well I’ve a chest infection so, I’m lying low for a short while.

[greenilex]

Get better quick.

Meridional has a charming sound....but an upsetting reality, it seems.

That jet stream has turned into a merry go round.

[Serial_Apologist]

Get better quick.

Meridional has a charming sound....but an upsetting reality, it seems.

That jet stream has turned into a merry go round.

Ironically, what you're getting the jet stream confused with there might be a depression!

[doversoul1]

Oh dear. Indeed not very good at all.

Well I’ve a chest infection so, I’m lying low for a short while.

Keep warm and get well soon. You are not missing anything in this weather. I’ve pumped out the sump in the cellar twice today and will do it again soon. The field next to my garden has a several large puddles and it looks as if all the gulls in Dover have arrived.

[greenilex]

Not on a planetary scale, surely?

[cloughie]

Mild but rather wet here today.

[LezLee]

Oh dear. Indeed not very good at all.

Well I’ve a chest infection so, I’m lying low for a short while.

Make sure you keep warm and keep up with your antibiotics if prescribed. Last May I was hospitalised for 5 weeks with a chest infection which ended up as sepsis (temperature 40°), quite scary.

[teamsaint]

Mild and damp here.

A local farmer tells me we have had an exceptional level of south easterly winds round here this autumn.

He told me some other things, but they aren't for this thread......

Oh, and best wishes to MMB anf anybody else with seasonal ailments.

[DracoM]

As I post, my north-facing windows spattered hard by rain - pretty unusual here - but it is also -and rather ominously - swinging ncreasingly to north-east and at this time of year, that's a sign of a significant drop in temperature.

We shall see by morning.