BadKitten's Christmas forecast thread.

[OhYouMerryLittleKitten]

A just for fun thread! Remember I’m not a professional and it’s important not to base decisions on what I say in forecasting threads as I may very well get it wrong. At this point in time I am looking at GFS, as other charts come into range I will start discussing those too. I’m also looking at the GFS ensembles (which at present as you would expect have a wide range of solutions, most of which are mild). The forecast will change as we go along considering how far out we are at present.

In general over the next couple of weeks we seem to be kept in mild southerlies or south-westerly’s, with more potential for storms and there isn’t much promise of a cold Christmas. The 24th December has finally made into the range of the GFS. What a chart!! It shows a deep low which would bring severe gales and a mix of heavy snow (for some) and heavy rain (for most) across the UK with the snow risk being greater the further north you are.

It’s a stonker of a chart, but probably not a welcome one!

Well, we're in London waiting for our ice skating session. Fairly quiet, few gusts but dry at the moment. Expecting the rain to start just as we get on the ice.

More worried about the journey home up the met line. Lots of trees on route home. Think we'll go straight back rather than looking around shops.

OK its in - about 80% dry so thats good. Tumble dryer can do the rest. Wind is picking up a bit, spitting about but still quite bright.

I'm looking forward to some wintery weather. January you say? That suits me. Got DS1 some Fireman Sam snow boots for christmas so he will be happy.

Thanks kitten we are braving it and have packed overnight bag in case of emergencies !

Kitten thanks for the update for Fri/Sat too.
The M6 is horrendous at the best of times and it's not looking good. I wish I could go up to Cumbria on Thursday night but I can't.

Meanwhile is anyone currently in Buckinghamshire/Northants ? What's it doing there right now please?

Absolutely miserable here! Very glad we delayed our journey for 24 hours.

Just had a 61mph gust and the rain is coming into the kitchen conservatory and down the chimney again. Waaaaah :(

Oops, wrong thread.

Thought you might all like to have a play with this (not sure if it works in IE - you may have to open in firefox). It's yesterday's NCEP forecast for today's winds, beautifully displayed. Defaults to surface winds - you can see the depression off to the west, incredibly strong southwesterlies and what looks to me like a sting-jet just SSE of the depression centre.

earth.nullschool.net/

If you click on "earth" in the bottom left, you can select upper level winds - 250hPa will give you the jet stream and you can see what the BBC's Peter Gibbs is talking about when he says the steering jet is incredibly strong.

S. Herts
Just noticed the gusts have increased in velocity and ferocity.

hester - its as good a thread as any :-) We've been admiring it here. Hope there isnt a sting jet, its possible though I guess, with the rapid deepening.

oops, forgot to separate the two comments. Bit distracted here, have lots of weather going on, people phoning, head over a bowl of menthol crystals and cats who think its all terribly exciting. Half of that was to Lurcio!

Should reiterate - it's yesterday's forecast data, not observations or analysis - so won't be 100% what's going on at the moment. But still a beautiful tool for visualizing what's going on. (It's blowing a hooley down here in the SW at the moment).

amber warnings for the SE

I think the northern ambers will go up later today.

0600 analysis chart suggests low is further south than shown on the nullschool site.

Lifted from the met office site for anyone on mobile devices:
"Southwesterly gales and locally severe gales will continue across southern and eastern parts of England during Monday night, but are expected to strengthen further across parts of southeast England, in the Amber warning area, during the early hours of Tuesday, with gusts of 65-75 mph inland and 75-85 mph along exposed coasts. The winds will ease from the west by morning."

Thanks Lucio that will unfortunately bring more of Scotland into the worst of it tomorrow. Have you noticed any change in strength?

Peter Gibbs' piece on the BBC (link above) is good on strength - expected to come in at about 927hPa (deepest low on record over land in the UK was 925hPa), and the strength of the steering jet - winds of up to 250 mph at 250hPa - is extremely unusual.

It really is isnt it! I don't think we will know the exact depth of the storm will we, with the centre off shore?

Crikey badgers its a bit bloody windy down here in Cornwall.

We are supposed to be driving to near Heathrow tonight. I'm not looking forward to that.

I don't fancy my chances of persuading DH not to go though. And I will go slowly mad if we got stuck up there.

Bloody awful in salisbury, am out in it too but just need to nip to the supermarket before we can just hide away until it is over.

antidote, you really need to keep an eye and an ear out for disruption. When are you setting off?

ffs half our village (sw Surrey) has lost power already. our power is always crap though. must get on with bashing the Ham

baking!

Re. exact storm depth - admittedly there won't be observations, but for pressure fields, (re-)analysis fields are very, very good. (They're not too bad for temperature, and usually a bit dodgy for precipitation, and often very dodgy indeed for land surface fields).

In case anyone is wondering what an analysis is - because surface observations are only taken at a small number of positions on the globe, which means their coverage is very sketchy, they (and satellite observations, atmospheric soundings, etc) are blended (using very sophisticated mathematical techniques) with the previous day's forecast field to form a "picture" of the current state of the atmosphere - this "picture" is the analysis. It's then used as the starting state for the next set of forecasts.

oh dear. Our power blipped twice :-( thats a real poo face if it goes as I lose my mobile internet too for some inexplicable reason. Why is our power so feeble??

Think of me if Im suddenly not here (though I might be just doing the washing!)

Its good to have you on board the thread Lucio :)