El Nino / Climate change creating all this wet weather ?

[Pilatus]

I see on the TV a few nights ago that the EL NINO effect might be creating this above average rainfall,as well as climate change. Would any meteorologists like to comment.
I guess this weather is great for the water companies ,keeping reservoirs topped up,also for wellington sales.

 

[Gong Farmer]

If El Nino can't produce the cold winter it was supposed to do, I don't think it can be relied upon to cause any sort of predicted weather pattern

 

[Goweresque]

The UK's weather pattern is too random for anything other than a very vague steer from El Nino conditions to be possible. We are one of only two places on the planet (the other being Japan) where the weather is dominated by 3 or 4 different air masses - in our case the Atlantic maritime air mass, the Polar maritime air mass, the Eastern Europe/Russian continental air mass, and the south European/African continental air mass. These 4 meet over the UK, and continually compete with each other, the dominant one at any given point giving us very different weather patterns from the others. Thus any weather pattern that we might expect in an El Nino year can very easily be thrown into reverse by a change in what air mass is dominating our weather at a given time.

All things being equal, one would expect colder winter conditions in the UK in a strong El Nino year, but we have experienced warm air moving up from the South instead. However if that stops, and one of the colder air masses begins to dominate in 2016 we could very easily have a long cold winter/ spring to come.

 

[MrNoo]

The EuroHigh that we have had recently has led mostly to the higher rainfalls we've had I believe. Warm moist air, a strong jet banging up against this high pressure and bingo, lots of rain. I had hoped with it being predicted to be a very strong El Nino that we'd be suffering from North Westerlies, this happened during other El Nino events but unfortunately this hasn't happened (yet!)

 

[Simon Keeling]

Hi,

It's always been accepted that El Nino has very little impact on weather in the UK. There may be some slight impact in more southern parts of Europe, but not here in the UK.

This years El Nino was a strong event and for some reason this led a few to believe that this would, despite evidence to the contrary, have an impact on UK weather.

Now, I'll contradict myself here. The warmth generated by the above normal temperatures caused by El Nino in the Pacific Ocean probably has contributed to a warmer global atmosphere, and so MAY have led to more moisture being available in the air, which when it cools at it reaches more northern climes is wrung out like a sponge.

There are many other factors at play though; warm water in the northern Pacific, the cold pool in the Atlantic west of the UK and the warm Indian Ocean. All of these will affect our weather in some way; untangling what individual impacts have been is a different story altogether.

I suspect this years wet weather is down to the warmer, global sea temperatures (not an individual cycle, perhaps more the combination of all of them), possibly with some climate change impact in there too (make your own mind up about whether its anthropogenically assisted), and part of the cyclical nature of this wonderful world in which we live.

Was it predicted? Well, actually, yes it was. The CFS long range consistently called a wet and mild start to the winter (although it may go off the rails a bit if the colder February arrives). Take a look back at my Look Aheads, and the winter forecast, and you will see that we called it pretty well as it is (but that's not to say we stay correct through the rest of the winter, or that we won't have a bust at anytime in the future, just a statement of facts).

Treat with great scepticism any individual or organisation that tries to make a direct link back to any of the factors above, or cite individual events as proof of any one of them.

Okay, I'll leave it there.

Best wishes,
Simon

 

[Princess Pooper]

Hi,

It's always been accepted that El Nino has very little impact on weather in the UK. There may be some slight impact in more southern parts of Europe, but not here in the UK.

This years El Nino was a strong event and for some reason this led a few to believe that this would, despite evidence to the contrary, have an impact on UK weather.

Now, I'll contradict myself here. The warmth generated by the above normal temperatures caused by El Nino in the Pacific Ocean probably has contributed to a warmer global atmosphere, and so MAY have led to more moisture being available in the air, which when it cools at it reaches more northern climes is wrung out like a sponge.

There are many other factors at play though; warm water in the northern Pacific, the cold pool in the Atlantic west of the UK and the warm Indian Ocean. All of these will affect our weather in some way; untangling what individual impacts have been is a different story altogether.

I suspect this years wet weather is down to the warmer, global sea temperatures (not an individual cycle, perhaps more the combination of all of them), possibly with some climate change impact in there too (make your own mind up about whether its anthropogenically assisted), and part of the cyclical nature of this wonderful world in which we live.

Was it predicted? Well, actually, yes it was. The CFS long range consistently called a wet and mild start to the winter (although it may go off the rails a bit if the colder February arrives). Take a look back at my Look Aheads, and the winter forecast, and you will see that we called it pretty well as it is (but that's not to say we stay correct through the rest of the winter, or that we won't have a bust at anytime in the future, just a statement of facts).

Treat with great scepticism any individual or organisation that tries to make a direct link back to any of the factors above, or cite individual events as proof of any one of them.

Okay, I'll leave it there.

Best wishes,
Simon

Thanks Simon, very useful.

 

[yellow belly]

some of the coldest winters in the past have started getting old in late january so plenty of time for a few weeks deep freeze as simon says any thing is possible from here to the summer

 

[glasshouse]

last big elnino was 98/99. both wet,warm winters.

 

[Simon Keeling]

Just a quick correction glasshouse. The previous 'strong' El Nino was 1997/98 (it spans those years as it crosses the Christmas period, hence it's name). The winter anomaly map for 1997/98 shows a wetter than average season in western Scotland, but closer to below normal elsewhere.

Map below from Met Office

 

[Bob]

That's the rainfall map for winter 98/99. If you find the correct one it will show that it was a wet one, at least here it was anyway

 

[Simon Keeling]

Hi chaps,

Just to confirm, the El Niño event was 1997/1998.

The map shown is rainfall anomaly for The months of December 1997, January and February 1998.

Simon

 

[glasshouse]

Hi chaps,

Just to confirm, the El Niño event was 1997/1998.

The map shown is rainfall anomaly for The months of December 1997, January and February 1998.

Simon

it was a pish wet summer

 

[METJEFFUK]

El Niño and Global Warming
Looking back at this year’s El Niño event as predicted the warming of the Pacific Ocean probably has contributed to a warmer global atmosphere, as we all know warm air can hold much more water than cold air meaning that it has more moisture being available in the air, this cools as it moves north and all that gets displace in the form of rain.

There are many other factors which can and did Couse our winter to be mild I will deal with that at another time, but basically warm water in the northern Pacific, warming the air plus very cold air moving down the USA all helped the jet stream to strengthen across the Atlantic taking low pressure systems with them to the UK .

Some climate scientist believe that climate change has been created by people or caused by human activity, others believe differently and go with the idea that it is a naturel Earths cycle and we are at the start of a mini ice age last seen about 2-300 hundred years ago (hence the Christmas card frozen scenes) when the river Thames froze over. The fact is before the start of the last “mini ice age” we did see a global temperature rise.

The winter so far and was it predicted?

Actually, yes it was. Some weather models were saying wet and windy and the CFS long range consistently called for a wet and mild start to the winter(we still have February to go though yet) also if you Take a look back at the metjeffuk.com long range autumn and winter forecast dated the 6th September 2015 you will see that we called it pretty well (apart from one or two blips) now we wait for February to see how our long range holds up, if it all go to plan February will overall be a very cold and snowy month, but remember the weather is not an exact science.

Just a word of warning global warmest will have you believe this is all down to man treat with great scepticism any individual or organisation that tries to make a direct link back to man just remember the factors above.

Right that’s it thanks for your time.

Bye for now

Jeff

Metjeffuk

 

[Pilatus]

Any update on this thread started 7yrs ago.
I would be really interested to know if , there is any scientific evidence to confirm the wettish summer of 2023 and the wet autumn/ winter we are now having is being caused by El Niño.
Many thanks.

 

[livestock 1]

Any update on this thread started 7yrs ago.
I would be really interested to know if , there is any scientific evidence to confirm the wettish summer of 2023 and the wet autumn/ winter we are now having is being caused by El Niño.
Many thanks.

It hasn’t got any drier

 

[Archie]

Any update on this thread started 7yrs ago.
I would be really interested to know if , there is any scientific evidence to confirm the wettish summer of 2023 and the wet autumn/ winter we are now having is being caused by El Niño.
Many thanks.

Even if there is I doubt it will ever be reported to us as such

 

[glasshouse]

Could be that undersea volcano in fiji

 

[serf]

Could be that undersea volcano in fiji

Who knows , it's certainly powerful stuff when you see these volcanoes kicking off

 

[bobk]

I disagree , El Nino affects world weather , we get trickle down , remember , our weather is shite predominately anyway
El Nino tips us in to oblivion

 

[TelesnaAg]

I think time would be best served studying the data of your "average" in order to get a better grip of true outliers.

Range -10 +10 avg 0
Range -20 +20 avg 0
And so on.

If its one thing that is very poor in the world these days it is data interrogation,.especially with weather.

Weather may well be amorphous amd actually not have distinct patterns due to large numbers of highly dynamic inputs.

Ant...