On Tuesday, 18 December 2012 09:09:06 UTC, wrote:
Winter never fails to deliver interest - a fantastic time of year for

meteorologists.



Wow just look at that tropical air coming our way later in the week! Has its

origin in the Caribbean with 564 DAM thickness and 10C 850s by the time it

reaches our shores. We are talking 14C plus in the south if it stays dry.

But that's the thing it will carry a lot of moisture and when this very warm

air comes up against much colder air over Scotland in the easterly off a

still bitter Scandinavia there is going to be copious amounts of rainfall,

bringing yet more flooding and misery. The question is how far north will

the warm air get. If shallow waves run fast eastwards then most of it will

stay in the Channel but it is likely that in the baroclinic zone one of the

ripples will be amplified and a deeper low will move across the UK

introducing clearer drier and colder air by Christmas day post cold front in

a westerly.



During this time the stratwarm mentioned by Mike Trigger begins to influence

the displacement of the Russian high eastwards and build pressure in the

high arctic/Greenland/Canada introducing a very cold northerly type, perhaps

in time for Boxing Day.



So the big weather story later this week will be the wet weather with

potential for floods (and gales), possibly mountain blizzards in Scotland if

cold air hangs on there. Also becoming very mild in the south, possibly

exceptionally so in a few places. As always we await the details from the

high res. models but there are some *ahem* interesting solutions emerging

already.



Exciting stuff.



Boring today, just mild with sunny spells and light winds. T+4.2C at 0900

:-)



Eskimo Will (Haytor, 1017 feet asl, in Devon)

--

Watch it Will, you mentioned the "COLD" word and "STRATWARM" Dawlish might be lurking!