On Friday, 3 January 2014 21:55:31 UTC, John Hall wrote:


Of course late January is often a favoured time for such a change. One

thinks of 1947, 1956 and 1986. In 1947, if one looks at the chart for as

late as 17th January, it's a classic zonal picture with little hint of

what was to come:



http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/ar...0119470117.gif



But by the 22nd high pressure had drifted north over the UK and

established itself over Scandinavia:



http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/ar...0119470122.gif



One wonders, if the current computer models were run with the old data

for January 1947, would they have predicted the change. (Of course back

then there wasn't any satellite data, which would handicap the models,

though I suspect that if anything there was better surface data. They

had the ocean weather ships, for one thing.)

--

John Hall "He crams with cans of poisoned meat



Why do we punish ourselves every winter :-)

Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net
"Weather Home & Abroad"
twitter: @LawnscienceEssx