Next Week Cold SnapAdded : Friday at 8:56 Everything seems to be snap these days?! By now you should be aware that it will turn a bit colder next week as we see winds swing around to the North for a few days before warming up again.
A week or so ago we mentioned how in early April, when the polar vortex finally dissipates for Summer, we end up with some outbreaks of colder air from the North. This is perfectly normal for this time of year, it's where the colder air in the Arctic finally migrates South and mixes with the warmer air and we then start to head towards early Summer. Think of it like the Arctic using up it's old five pound notes before the new ones become the norm.
We will do a discussion today on this based on the 00z overnight GFS ► run and look at a few other models to see what they are suggesting.
So, the process starts on Sunday evening :-
That's the area of low pressure which kick starts the whole thing. The ECMWF ► has a similar theme :-
As does the DWD ICON :-
As we head into next week, so the low pulls away to Scandinavia and high pressure builds to the West of us which allows colder air to feed South in the wake of the system :-
The problem with scenarios like this is that Northerlies tend to disappoint for snow lovers. The reason is that they are dry and any snow is reserved for North facing coastal areas.
What we look for in situations like this are short wave troughs. You can see how the GFS ► picks one up here :-
The problem though, is that numerical models have itchy feet when it comes to polar outbreaks. They sense the destabilisation of the airmass as it moves South over warmer water and tend to develop short wave troughs a little quicker than nature actually permits.
So, colder next week, some sharp overnight frosts and a rather annoying Northerly wind, but unless nature decides that the GFS ► et al are right with the short wave troughs then cold with wintry showers is about the best we can expect (or worse if you are outside).
METEOROLOGIST : MARSH |