Things are happening with speed, in terms of the weather patterns, which perhaps is to be expected when we may be about to witness what is termed “a flip”.
Personally I find “flips” disconcerting. I like nice, round weather features you can track, like a hurricane, but a “flip” has a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t quality. It is as if you were tracking a hurricane, and it abruptly became a high pressure system. You tend to be a bit staggered, and mutter, “Where the heck did that come from?”
The “flip”weather models are now starting to suggest may occur, (and which experienced meteorologists like D’Aleo and Bastardi at the Weatherbell Site have been suggesting we’d see since last October), has involved a late winter “flip” to a negative NAO, and the abrupt appearance of a “blocking high” over Canada and Greenland, which forces low pressure south, raising mayhem over more southerly latitudes.
Even five days ago this possibility seemed highly unlikely to a layman like myself, for there was no high pressure over Canada, and rather there was a fat “Bermuda High” pumping mild weather “climate” up into the east of the USA. (Hat tip to Tony Hellar).
Now, to a layman like myself, to send such a huge amount of warm and juicy air north does not seem likely to generate high pressure.Quite the opposite. Rather than a block of high pressure it seems sure to generate a blockbuster of low pressure.
Sure enough, the DMI maps this morning showed a massive gale had exploded east of Cape Farewell by southmost Greenland, with pressures well below 950 mb.
Such a massive storm seemed sure to perpetuate the flow of mild air north to the Pole, fueling a Ralph-like feature (anomalous low pressure) north of Canada,and preventing the establishment of a blocking high.
Alarmist might like the mild surges up the east coast of Greenland that such super-storms shove north, but such super-storms also alarm Alamists, by whipping moist east winds directly into Greenland, resulting in fabulous snowfalls up at 10,000 feet. To have the snows so deep spoils the Alarmist message that Greenland’s icecap is shrinking.
The massive storm ruined, (temporarily at least), Alarmist’s hope that the above graph of the weight of the accumulating snow (“Mass balance”) might show a total that was below normal. But the more phlegmatic Alarmists (few and far between) might have felt they could not have their cake and eat it too. At least they had the “warm” (but below freezing) Pole, and could hope it might derail the establishment of a “blocking high”. Alarmists don’t like big, blocking highs in March, because they can breed major blizzards in population centers like Berlin, London, New York City, and Washington D.C., and that tends to spoil the Global Warming narrative, (at least for a few weeks).
I may not be an Alarmist, but I have no fondness for major blizzards in the east of the USA, at my age. When I was young I may have thought differently, but now that I am old and wise I have concluded life is better without such happy horseshit. What this means is that I am not biased towards an anti-Global-Warming solution. I don’t want the pattern to “flip”.
However one problem with having huge gales crash into Greenland is that, when they loop back and slam into a 10,000 foot tall icecap, they tend get cross-eyed and lose their confidence. In only 12 hours the mega-gale did not look so tough, on the DMI maps.
This did not surprise me, not because I am a great forecaster, but because, as soon as I saw that 940 mb gale on the DMI map, I sought out the GFS model’s “initial” map (on the Weatherbell site), and understood the monster gale was looping and slamming and losing its starch. It’s central pressure had risen from 940 mb to 967 mb.
What perturbed me was when I ran the GFS model only 24 hours into the future. Not that I trust models, but they tend to be semi-reliable only a day into the unknown. The map it produced astounded me. You could say it “flipped me out.”
Low pressure had basically vanished from Greenland, and high pressure was building up there. The nice, warm, juicy air from North America was fueling a new gale, but it was far to the south. In fact the new North Atlantic Gale was where you would expect storms to develop, in a “blocking pattern.”
Oh me. Oh my. How did everything change so fast?
My hope for a blockbuster, which would prevent the blocking pattern from manifesting, is starting to look like I’m clinging to a straw. I dimly can conceive that perhaps all the “warm” (albeit subfreezing) air at the Pole could fuel a “Ralph” that might be a blockbuster, but I feel a little lame suggesting the possibility. In actual fact it looks like my blockbuster is busted. The block is building.
One interesting observation is how the flow of relatively mild (but subfreezing) air up towards the Pole is starting to be pinched off. Cold air is pinching from the east, over Europe, as cold air pinches from the west, from Labrador under Greenland.
I wonder about this “pinch”. The engineering of the atmosphere is chaotic and full of mystery, but if a huge surge north in the Atlantic could be the intimation of an oncoming blocking pattern, perhaps this “pinch” could be the intimation of the block’s demise.
In any case, while I do not approve of the sensationalism of Alarmists, the way this pattern is trending makes me feel a bit glum, to a degree where I could not only match Alarmists, but kick their butts, when it comes to running around alarmed like Chicken Little. I can come up with any number of dire prognoses, which history demonstrates are possible.
To put it bluntly, sleet could really hit the fan. Hopefully it won’t, but it could. I’ll be glad to tear March from the calendar and crumple it safely in the wastepaper basket, with this winter over and done with.
I can recall the joy of cancelled school,
But now I run the school, and what is more
I run the home. When the cruel rule of school
Is overthrown, the castaways need shore
To crawl up on. Someone must keep the stove
Stocked with wood, whether it is the quaint one
At home, (like a sailor’s secreted cove),
Or the dragon in an institution
Dungeon: A rumbling furnace that’s fueled
By oil involving all sorts of slick, sick
Politics. Winter has us all well-schooled.
We cannot quite state, (and be politic),
The simple fact that we’re all bound to freeze
If no one tends stoves, and all chose ease.
Sunrise's Swansong 
Late winter flips are not unprecedented, the European winter of 1947 began on 21 January 1947 in the UK. The thaw came in mid-March which lead to severe flooding. This year, so far we haven’t had the snow in Western Europe, but are now suffering from severe cold with worse forecast for next week. That winter caused a lot of hardship in Europe which had barely started sorting itself out in the aftermath of WW2. The winter of 1939-40 was also cold with the most severe frost not beginning until the end of January.
On a positive note we’ve had Cranes flying North East over us in Limousin for the last 3 days, so physiologically I’m now in a positive mode waiting for Spring warmth any day.
Thanks for the history. But I’m worried about your cranes. Hopefully they know something that the computer don’t.
Think I’d take migratory birds over weather forecasting programs any time.
It depends on the species of bird. Some are really bird brained, and come north on the exact same day every year, whether it is warm or cold, and occasionally pay the price. We had a terrible loss of bluebirds one time when they came north and got caught by a late season ice-storm. Other birds seem more able to adapt. I think the best are northern species that hang around all year. In really bad winters they seem to pack up and head south for a while, while on milder winters we see them all winter. Crows seem especially smart.
Sometimes we see flocks of Canadian birds that usually stay north. My favorite visitor is the snowy owl. Not only are they out in the daytime, (because of midnight sun up north in the summer), but they have no fear of humans, and let you get quite close.