Atmospheric analysis of the cold late February and early March 2018 over the UK

Greening, Katie; Hodgson, Amy

doi:10.1002/wea.3467

Cited by 33 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…This situation was associated with a stratospheric warming event over the previous few days, blocking the Jet Stream and milder air associated with Atlantic weather systems. A discussion of the contributing factors which may have led up to this event, including the sudden stratospheric warming, is given in Greening and Hodgson, .…”

Section: Significant Weather Events Of 2018mentioning

confidence: 99%

State of the UK climate 2018

Kendon

McCarthy

Jevrejeva

et al. 2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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INTRODUCTION This report provides a summary of the UK weather and climate through the calendar year 2018, alongside the historical context for a number of essential climate variables. This is the fifth in a series of annual “State of the UK climate” publications and an update to the 2017 report (Kendon et al., 2018). It provides an accessible, authoritative and up‐to‐date assessment of UK climate trends, variations and extremes based on the most up to date observational datasets of climate quality. The majority of this report is based on observations of temperature, precipitation, sunshine and wind speed from the UK land weather station network as managed by the Met Office and a number of key partners and co‐operating volunteers. The observations are carefully managed such that they conform to current best practice observational standards as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The observations also pass through a range of quality assurance procedures at the Met Office before application for climate monitoring. In addition, time series of near‐coast sea‐surface temperature (SST) and sea‐level rise are also presented. The process for generating national and regional statistics from these observations has been updated since Kendon et al., 2018. This report makes use of a new dataset, HadUK‐Grid, which provides improved quality and traceability for these national statistics along with temperature and rainfall series that extend back into the 19th Century. Differences with previous data are described in the relevant sections and appendices. The report presents summary statistics for year 2018 and the most recent decade (2009–2018) against 1961–1990 and 1981–2010 averages. Year 2009–2018 is a non‐standard reference period, but it provides a 10‐year “snapshot” of the most recent experience of the UK's climate and how that compares to historical records. This means differences between 2009 and 2018 and the baseline reference averages may reflect shorter‐term decadal variations as well as long‐term trends. These data are presented to show what has happened in recent years, not necessarily what is expected to happen in a changing climate. The majority of maps in this report show year 2018 against the 1981–2010 baseline reference averaging period—that is, they are anomaly maps which show the spatial variation in this difference from average. Maps of actual values are in most cases not displayed because these are dominated by the underlying climatology, which for this report is of a lesser interest than the year‐to‐year variability. Throughout the report's text the terms “above normal” and “above average,” etc. refer to the 1981–2010 baseline reference averaging period unless otherwise stated. Values quoted in tables throughout this report are rounded, but where the difference between two such values is quoted in the text (for example, comparing the most recent decade with 1981–2010), this difference is calculated from the original unrounded values. FEEDBACK We would welcome suggestions or recommendations...

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Section: Significant Weather Events Of 2018mentioning

confidence: 99%

State of the UK climate 2018

Kendon

McCarthy

Jevrejeva

et al. 2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…Another difference in the SSWs was that while the 2018 event was followed by the canonical weather pattern associated with the negative phase of the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) for up to 2 months (Greening and Hodgson, 2019), the 2019 event was followed by weaker and shorter‐lived stratosphere–troposphere coupling, despite the split vortex persisting for an extended period of time (Lee and Butler, 2019). The stronger amplitude of stratospheric wind reversal in 2018 was statistically linked to increased probability of downward coupling to the surface (Rao et al ., 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences between the 2018 and 2019 stratospheric polar vortex split events

Butler

Lawrence

Lee

et al. 2020

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

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Two recent occurrences in February 2018 and January 2019 of a dynamic split in the Northern Hemisphere stratospheric polar vortex are compared in terms of their evolution and predictability. The 2018 split vortex was associated with primarily wavenumber‐2 wave forcing that was not well predicted more than 7–10 days ahead of time, and was followed by persistent coupling to the surface with strong weather impacts. In 2019 the vortex was first displaced by slow wavenumber‐1 amplification into the stratosphere, which was predictable at longer lead times and then split; the surface impacts following the event were weaker. Here we examine the role of large‐scale climate influences, such as the phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the Quasi‐biennial Oscillation and the Madden–Julian Oscillation, on the wave forcing, surface impacts and predictability of these two events. Linkages between the forecast error in the stratospheric polar vortex winds with the forecast error in the Quasi‐biennial Oscillation and Madden–Julian Oscillation are examined.

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“…In February 2018, the first major SSW since January 2013 occurred, and the following period through March was unusually cold across Eurasia with a strongly negative NAO/AO pattern (Karpechko et al ., ). The moniker ‘The Beast from the East’ was widely used to describe the easterly flow that brought record‐breaking cold temperatures to northwest Europe, including the United Kingdom (Greening and Hodgson, ). In contrast, the SSW in January 2019 was not followed by similarly cold conditions in Europe.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The 2018–2019 Arctic stratospheric polar vortex

Lee

Butler

2019

Weather

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The stratospheric polar vortex forms each winter 10–50 km above the surface over the pole, and variations in its strength and position are known to influence the weather we experience. During winter 2018–2019, the Arctic polar vortex was highly variable – with both a sudden stratospheric warming and a strong vortex event. We discuss this unusual evolution of the vortex in terms of climatology and its impacts on surface weather patterns.

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Atmospheric analysis of the cold late February and early March 2018 over the UK

Cited by 33 publications

References 20 publications

State of the UK climate 2018

State of the UK climate 2018

Differences between the 2018 and 2019 stratospheric polar vortex split events

The 2018–2019 Arctic stratospheric polar vortex

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