And there is the evidence for that claim. When the Beast arrived on Monday I started noting the temperature (in °F) and as you can see on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday the trend was clear, but last night that trend suddenly reversed. That was the influence of Emma as it cut off those keen easterly winds and today’s maximum was the highest it has been for really quite some time. That does not mean that we are out of the woods as now thanks to Emma, there is severe coastal flooding in many parts of the UK.
This is a snapshot of the UK’s rain / snow radar taken earlier this evening and in a time when Cardiff is under an extreme snow alert, with vast chunks of the South Wales valleys under a snow watch this is the reason why I am getting all fed up.
So why is Ceredigion not getting the same amount of snow as the rest of Wales? Well, it turns out it has a lot to do with the wind direction. At the moment the winds are blowing due east (in other words they are arriving from Siberia and crossing the UK east to west) however when they get to Wales they have a problem, namely the Cambrian Mountains which form the border between Ceredigion and Powys and just like you get a rain shadow when the winds blow from the west in Powys, you get a snow shadow which is what has happened here (and it’s making me just a little annoyed)
Ladies and Gentlemen, pray be upstanding for the arrival of Miss Emma Storm
Miss Storm is wearing a green ensemble this evening and as she enters the room (British maritime waters) that green ensemble will change into the whitest dress you have ever seen. This is in part thanks to Mr. B. East (who has been in residence for a large number of days) rather taking a shine to Miss Storm and getting her rather flustered as a result. This interaction between the two has led to every school in this county being closed on both Thursday and Friday and the bin collections being cancelled as well. But we are still getting these streamers of snow showers from the eastern coast which has been making its presence felt all over the place
Pictures taken over the last 24 hours across the United Kingdom and Europe showing the effect these easterly winds have having, and even here on the west coast of the UK the impact is being felt. The average temperature for late February is a daytime high of 46°F and a night time low of 36°F. On Monday the daytime high was 41°F, today it was 38°F. Last night’s low was 27°F and it is already below that now at 9.30pm GMT. And that’s before the real fun starts on Thursday with the arrival of Storm Emma (named by Portugal)
The following post is sponsored by “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
We Britons are a calm group of people who don’t let major things upset us. We vote to leave the European Union sending the European continent into a frenzy, we have a cup of tea and stick our tongues out. Rain stops play in a Test Match against Australia, we just stick an archive test match on instead, yes, it takes a great deal to get us Britons to panic about anything, so you might imagine what our reaction would be to a major influx of cold Siberian air interacting with a low pressure system coming up from Spain?
However, the Met Office have very good reason to panic. The reason, well, that low pressure from Spain will squeeze the isobars so much that as it comes north, it will create gales in the Channel and as that cold air reaches the United Kingdom it will turn rapidly to snow and cross the entire country from south to north producing not just snow flurries but full out blizzards. And the last time the UK had blizzards on a countrywide scale? 1881!!!
Okay, so I’m not going to win any major comedy awards with that one, but it is the honest truth. On February 11th 2018, an SSW (Sudden Stratospheric Warning) event happened which, generally speaking, is fairly self explanatory. The stratosphere, one of the levels of the atmosphere, at the North Pole suddenly warmed up. Now, I’m not talking by a couple of degrees but by tens of degrees.
In the space of about twenty four hours, the temperature in the stratosphere went from -75°C to -35°C and that had a marked effect on the Jetstream that delivers the UK’s weather, by first slowing it down and then buckling it to such a degree instead of heading west-east as is the norm, the jet stream is now heading east-west and what’s to the east of the United Kingdom?
The fifth named storm of the winter 2017 – 2018 season was, in part, formed by the arctic blast that has been hitting America of late (and today produced snow in Florida). With a temperature range of almost 72° between the coldest place in America (Grand Forks, ND) and the warmest place (Tijauna, CA) the jet stream has been given a very large kick and as such spins depressions into a frenzy and then sends them over here (as seen in the picture above) and what happened when it got here
Aberystwyth got pummeled by the Irish Sea (and we got some fairly large waves as well)
Several coastal towns in Cornwall were flooded, some for the fourth time in as many months
Alderney, in the Channel Islands, recorded some of the strongest gusts for nearly 50 years
And in Blackpool, we had the, now surprisingly common in coastal communities, “ATTACK OF THE SEA FOAM”
And yet, the United Kingdom isn’t out of the woods yet, because thanks to that storm whipping along the eastern seaboard we have the potential for this to happen
The so called “Beast from the East” that can make snow on the east coast and make central England colder than central Scotland
It has been said in the past that we Brits have a very unique way of dealing with things going wrong, take for instance the forecast for Christmas which is suggesting that all the dreams and hopes for a White Christmas will only be able to be enjoyed by those people who live in Cairngorms. The rest of the UK will just grin and bear it and hope that it may snow at any point up to and including January 6th so with a lack of snow to talk about what do we Brits resort to, that tried and tested method of saying “Well, it could be worse” and then breaking out the collection of bloopers, so in tribute here are a collection of weather bloopers from all over the place showing that if something can go wrong with the weather, the best thing to do is just put it up to experience.
The first thing that can go wrong is the actual map, as happened to this poor weather forecaster in Arizona to which I would say “Shakespeare said that “to err is human”, a concept I entirely agree with, but what many people may not know if that he concluded the line “to really louse things up takes a computer!””
And even if the display is correct, it could be the actual forecast that is wrong as demonstrated here in Ireland
Of course getting the forecast wrong only happens one or twice, however getting the forecast right is still no promise that it will come and bite you as happened here during Super Storm Sandy in 2012
So you might think that it’s better to stay indoors, in the warm, whether nothing can happen to you, yes? Well, try explaining that to this presenter from North Carolina who somehow managed to catch a cold
And yet, even if the map fails, the presenter fails and the weather itself fails, you can still rely on the equipment yes? Then again as shown here in Canada, perhaps that’s never a good idea
And then, just to add insult to injury, you have the case of the “external influence” causing it to go wrong as shown here in Florida
So, my advice to anyone stuck in a weather studio over Christmas or being forced to report from parts of the US where you’d be more sensible to be inside a freezer than outside a freezer would be this. If it all goes wrong, if the satellite truck packs up, if the weather graphics crash, if you’re handed the weather with only thirty seconds till commercial or if the whole place is subject to a fire alarm, just grin and bear it and wish everyone, as I am now, a Merry Christmas.
Now, snow days in the American sense don’t actually exist in the United Kingdom although that said several councils have already started to alert families via local and social media that their schools will be closed tomorrow, but I am calling it a snow day because that’s what happened. It snowed here for the first time in four years
And it wasn’t just us that had snow, not by a long stretch, as the Met Office published an amber snow warning that covered vast parts of North and Mid Wales, the Midlands and even some parts of the North West and with very good reason as well, as the extent was even more than that as shown by these bobbies on the beat in Oxford
A snow covered bicycle in Birmingham
and a rather confused looking rabbit in Redditch
But just because it has stopped snowing doesn’t mean we are out of the woods, snow wise, because tonight it is going to get down to at least -3°C here (27°F) and in some parts of the country where snow is all over the place on Monday night it will get down to as low as -12°C (10°F), but you know what? I wouldn’t have missed today for the world and you can bet your bottom dollar there will be more pictures tomorrow.
