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| Cuttings montage (January) |
In between, the weather was more
varied than during the previous winter, with more rain; but it was cold at
times. January was unsettled and fairly fairly mild, but February was much
drier, and colder, especially at the end of the month. It felt much more like
winter, and a long one, though my perceptions were coloured by homelife
hassles, such as the boiler breaking down in January.
Among the more memorable weather
and water incidents:
Named storms (low pressure systems)
– by the end of 2017, four low pressure systems had been named by the UK Met. Office
and / or the Irish weather service. 2018 began, then with E for Eleanor on 3rd
January. Later that month: Storm David (17th
January; breaking the alphabetical sequence because it was named by Meteo
France. Then, Fionn (affecting the island of Ireland, but not Britain. On 24th
January, the latest of the season so far, Storm Georgina. February quiet; but cold
on the coat tails of the Beast from the East, Storm Emma was due to roll in
from the southwest, off Iberia on 1st March. Again, out of the
alphabetical sequence because it was named by the Portuguese weather service,
making landfall in Portugal first. All the storms named more because of the
potential for strong winds than precipitation. There were other rain and snow
bearing weather fronts emanating from anonymous lows.
High tides, supermoons and blue
moons – two full moons in January: on 2nd and 31st. The
first known as the Wolf Moon; the second a Blue Moon, being the second in a
calendar month. Both were full at / near perigee, the closest point in the
Moon’s orbit around the Earth. Shortly after the first one (3rd-4th
January), happening just as Storm Eleanor rolled in, some high tides (see notes
from our local coast). There was also a fair bit of rain, with coastal and
fluvial flood warnings on both sides of the English Channel. River and sea conditions
were quieter at the end of January, the pressure being higher, meaning no
reprise of the earlier tidal trouble come the Blue Moon.
Pluvial / fluvial turn-around in
France for much of 2017, river levels across the Channel in France had been
running low all through the autumn, with high pressure in the Atlantic off the
Bay of Biscay in charge. The weather
began to turn in December when storms and rain bearing fronts passed over the
country and river flows began to improve. Then, in January was very wet. From Storm / Tempête Eleanor onwards, widespread
flood alerts (vigilances) affecting most of the main rivers. According to
Eaufrance / Vigicrues, the flow on the Loire at Saumur was below 200 cumecs
(cubic metres per second) in early December. Around Christmas is was about
800cumecs. Around the new year, it hit made it into four figures (about normal
for winter), then during the week after Tempête Eleanor, it rose more quickly
and peaked at around 3100 cumecs on 9th January. The Seine and its
larger tributaries, meanwhile were rising slowly but surely. Later in the
month, Tempête David brought high winds to NE France, Belgium and southern
England. As I grumbled at the perennial winter mud around our way, it was very
dull in these areas. “A star has been kidnapped!” said one regional newspaper,
La Voix du Nord, meaning the Sun. UK sunshine during January was about average
according to the Met. Office, nonetheless, the month had a distinctly wintery feel
to it. Whereas France was exceptionally mild and wet – the wettest December-January
2 months period nationally in the record from 1959 - the track of the jetstream meant it was cold
in Scotland. A low of -13.5oC at Dalwhinnie in the eastern Highlands
on 21st January. Also snow, with queues along the A82 near Glencoe
on that weekend.
Crue de la Seine – with the slow
and sure rise, the Seine and it’s larger tributaries, particularly the Marne,
were on flood alert for much of January and well into February, even after the
weather patterns had shifted and the rain had stopped. Things got particularly
high during the last week of January. The flow along the lower Loire exceeded
3000 cumecs again on the last weekend – crues habituelles pour la saison, said
Vigicrues. However, there was more significant
flooding affecting the Seine; the Saône and its tributary and sub-tributaries
from the Jura area the le Doubs and La Loue; and the Dordogne. On 23rd,
there was a vigilance rouge
(equivalent to Severe Flood Warning in the UK) on the Loue. A fair bit of
footage of the Doubs on Youtube, including an impressive waterfall. Most of the
media attention, though was on the Seine, vigilance
orange (crue importante) from at the Marne to the Manche (English Channel)
by the end of the month. Numerous Youtube footage on Paris from this time, too.
A photo of a woman in a rowing boat with a dog amid a flood in a Paris suburb appeared
in The Guardian across the Channel on
25th January. The Metro and boat services were also disrupted. Once
again, art in the stores of the Louvre had to be shifted somewhere safer. The
Seine peaked on the 29th January at Paris Austerlitz at around 1672
cumecs – the peak flow on the Eden through Carlisle (Sheepmount) during Storm
Desmond, December 2015, was much the same (1680 cumecs, according to CEH), the
Lune and the Tyne both above 1700 cumecs. In contrast to those rivers in
northern England, though, the rise was very slow, especially near the peak. It
also took considerable time to subside (décrue) afterwards. A combination
presumably of lots of water propagating through a large catchment and the lower
Seine being very winding, with large meanders (boucles). Throughout the last
week of January, the flow into the Channel was around 2200 cumecs (Vernon gauge),
thanks to additional inputs from the Oise and other rivers joining downstream
of Paris. With so much water coming downstream, there was a vigilance orange in the tidal Seine
during the spring tides around the Blue Moon, too. The heights and flows on the
lower Seine was about the same as during the June 2016 flood, according to Météo
France. In Paris, the peak (5.85m) was a bit lower than in June 2016 (6.1m).
There were higher floods in the last century, most notably January 1910, when
the flow through Paris was around 2600 cumecs and the level 8.62m.
During that last week, there were
flood warnings in England and Wales, including along the Ouse in York and the
Severn at Tewkesbury; but there was no major flooding.
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Revival of the Lavant
long-time-no-see. February was notable particularly for the cold, again on both
sides of the Channel. At the beginning of the month, as the sun climbed higher
in the sky and the days got noticeably lighter and brighter, it began to look
springlike, even if it was chilly in the wind. Walking to The Trundle from Chichester
on the 3rd, I was pleased to see the Lavant flowing again –
long-time-no-see. As far as I’m aware, it didn’t flow at all last year; and
even on the 28th December, my other half said the stream was still
dry when he walked that way. Autumn 2017 had been another dry one in southern
England. Though December was wetter, the rain hadn’t yet percolated through the
soil to the the chalk in sufficient quantities to raise the water table. It was
January’s rain which really made the difference and got things flowing again. Hints
of spring, with snowdrops flowering at West Dean the following weekend and a
few daffodils coming out; but I didn’t want spring to be too early or too dry
as last year’s was. Thanks very much to January’s rain, the CEH and Environment
Agency say in their hydrological summaries for January that the hydrological
outlook has improved since the autumn, thanks to the rain in December and January.
Most gauged river flows were in their normal range, including those which had
been running low at the end of last year, such as the Great Stour in Kent. The
nearby well at Little Bucket Farm was no longer dry. The revival of the Lavant
was reflected in a sharp increase in the level of groundwater in well at Chilgrove
House nearby to the west.
Nextdoor to the east, I saw the
Arun was running fairly high when I looked from the train to London Victoria on
15th February. Near Pulborough railway bridge it was overflowing.
This was more due to rain falling on the West Sussex Weald from about 10th
February. When I went to Littlehampton on the 18th – disappointingly
overcast after bright sunshine the day before, the usually sea green water was
the colour of weak tea. The tidal current was very strong, as it is here even
on regular, moderate tides. Though cloudy, it was one of the milder days of the
month; one of the few days of the winter when I could sketch along the coast
and not immediately feel cold in the wind.
Then came the really cold bit,
dubbed The Beast from the East by the
British media, with the coldest weather of this winter and since 2013, and in
some areas 1991. Happenings in the upper and lower atmosphere over the Arctic
conspired to shift the winds to bitter easterlies and north easterlies, bringing
in cold air from northern Scandinavia and Russia. The coldwave was felt
throughout the British Isles and northern Europe, with sub-freezing temperatures,
snow and bitter wind chill. The cold began setting in during the final week of February
as a very intense anticyclone built over
northern Scandinavia and extended southwestwards towards the British Isles. The
jetstream diverged; with one arm moving north of the British Isles towards
Iceland and the other well south, over north Africa. It continued to loop and
wind, with a big tongue of bitterly cold air sticking out from Russia westwards
come the end of the month. Over
Scandinavia and just north of the British Isles the normal westerly flow of the
stream had reversed to easterly as it looped up into the high Arctic and
diverged in mid-Atlantic. The Met. Office issued warnings for snow and ice
throughout the UK, particularly eastern areas. The snow began on the night of
the 26th. It missed south Hampshire, but there was snow in London,
Sussex and Kent; and deeper, drifting snow in NE England and Scotland. North of
the Border, they were so concerned that on the 28th, they issued a
rare red warning for snow in central Scotland, including Edinburgh. The last
time they issued one of those was during the floody havoc wrought by Storm Desmond
in northern Britain in December 2015. Down south, meanwhile, the Storm Emma low
pressure was deepening in the Atlantic off Iberia and heading northeast across
Iberia, western France and towards southern England. With its associated fronts coming in from the south across the
Channel meeting the cold air, the potential, then meant snow, ice and freezing
rain round our way to start off March – the beginning of spring meteorologically
speaking, even if far from the reality.
Everyone who’d rather anthropogenic
global heating wasn’t happening, or denying it altogether may this kind of
winter chill reassuring, bolstering the deniers’ case. . But it’s a false reassurance.
All the time Britain and the continent were under a cold wave, the Arctic was
getting worrying warm, thanks to. Analagous to leaving the fridge door open and
letting the cold air flow out into the kitchen; the fridge here being the
Arctic / North Pole; and Britain / Europe being the kitchen. Bucking the trend
of the rest of the British media, The
Guardian led with Arctic heatwave
triggers climate meltdown fears on 28th. The warming has involved
the upper and lower atmosphere over the Arctic. On the 9th February,
the Met. Office said in a news release that they were forecasting a Sudden stratospheric warming in the high atmosphere over the Arctic the
following week, involving an increase in temperature of as much as 50oC
associated with the polar vortex being breaking down as warmer air penetrates
from further south (via the north Atlantic jetstream presumably). The following
week, they confirmed it had happened. Air was sinking from the stratosphere into
the lower atmosphere (troposphere) over the Arctic towards the surface. This subsequently
affected the north Atlantic jetstream, slowing it down, prompting it to loop
and diverge, even reverse from west to east. That, in turn has affected winds
nearer the surface over Britain and Europe. The intense anticyclone built over
Scandinavia had a central pressure of 1056 millibars on 28th, but
was forecast to decrease rapidly over the next few days. As the polar vortex
broke down, warmer air flowed towards the North Pole, in constant darkness at this
time of year, the temperature there nudging above freezing at one point, if I
remember reading rightly. Certainly temperatures in parts of Siberia have been
35oC above the historical average this February, and a record 61 hours
above freezing in Greenland so far this year (The Guardian).
Links
Weather
UK Met. Office website
About synoptic charts / symbols
used: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/synoptic-weather-chart
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/guide/weather/symbols
Meteo France - http://www.meteofrance.com/accueil
Meteoalarm (Europe) – weather
warnings across Europe, with links to national weather services - https://www.meteoalarm.eu/
Met. Office News Releases
Storm Eleanor (02/02/18) - https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/storm-eleanor-heads-for-the-uk
Storm Georgina (24/01/18) - https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/storm-georgina-brings-strong-winds-to-the-uk-and-ireland
UK Weather stats (rainfall,
temperatures, sunshine hours) for January (01/02/18) - https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/january-statistics
February new releases point to a
trend to generally drier and much colder weather, especially at the end of the
month, and into March, thanks to warming of the stratosphere over the Arctic
triggering a slowing of the north Atlantic jetstream and an intense anticyclone
building over Scandinavia bringing very dry and bitterly cold northeasterlies
from Siberia.
Snow for many parts of the UK,
(05/02/18) - https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/snow-for-many-parts-of-the-uk
How long will the cold conditions
last? (09/02/18) – mention of sudden stratospheric warming possibility
prompting marked changes lower in the atmosphere (in the troposphere) to the
course of the jetstream and synoptic pattern. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/how-long-will-the-cold-conditions-remain
Weather phenomena – Sudden
Stratospheric Warming - https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/how-weather-works/sudden-stratospheric-warming
A mixed week of weather (12th
February) – some milder and wetter weather, but confirmation that stratospheric
warming over the Arctic has occurred, which could shape subsequent weather - https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/a-mixed-week-of-weather-ahead
Freezing conditions to last into
spring (March) (23/02/18) – blocking pattern setting in as high pressure
settles and intensifies over Scandinavia, winds shift to easterly / north easterly,
bringing in bitterly cold air from Siberia. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/freezing-start-to-spring
Bitterly cold with widespread
snow (25th February) – the coldest weather of winter 2017/18 so far,
and the coldest since 2013, when bitterly cold easterlies set in during the
first half of March and persisted until May. No word yet, though as to when
this year’s blocked, cold pattern will break.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/cold-and-snowy-week-ahead
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/cold-and-snowy-week-ahead
Bitterly cold with snow
(27/02/18) – amber and yellow weather warnings around the UK this week (26Feb –
2nd March), bitter cold, especially with wind chill; and snow in the
east and southeast on Tuesday. March to begin with the possibility of snow, ice
in southern England as fronts come in from the south as low pressure passes
over Iberia (Storm Emma, according to the Portuguese weather service).
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2018/bitterly-cold-weather-continues
Meteo France News Releases
An exceptionally mild but
perturbed January with a succession of named storms - http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites/58919551-janvier-2018-mois-de-tous-les-records
Winter 2018 – Rain and Flood
(02/02/18) - http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites/58710117-hiver-2018-pluies-et-inondations
Tempête David affects northern
France (and the UK) (18/02/18) - http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites/58131340-tempete-david-sur-le-nord
Tempête Eleanor in northern and
eastern France - http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites/57351393-tempete-eleanor-sur-le-nord-et-l-est
http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites/57448719-retour-sur-la-tempete-eleanor-des-2-et-3-janvier
Snowy and cold start to February
- http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites/59115031-debut-fevrier-froid-et-neigeux
. Subsequent snowy episodes during the first week of February.
A cold end to the month
(20/02/18) http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites/59409721-video-une-fin-de-mois-tres-froide
Shows the cold air forecast to
come in from Russia / the NE
BBC News
Snow / weather disruption – BBC,
27/02/18 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43207709
Water
CEH hydrology / monthly
hydrological summaries for the UK
Environment Agency – River and
Sea Levels, England
Environment Agency – Weekly and
monthly water situation reports
Similar info’ for Scotland and
Wales, at respectively, SEPA and Cymru
Eaufrance
Vigicrues (flood warnings and
gauged river flows, France) - https://www.vigicrues.gouv.fr/
Other
Moon phases, London https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/uk/london
The Guardian – online 27/02/18, paper
edition 28/02/18:
