Last year the North West experienced a heat wave, Beast from the East, five named storms (including Storm Deirdre just last month) and everything in-between.
We were on hand throughout to ensure we kept powering the lives of our five million customers across the region.
There’s been lots of talk in the media recently about potentially another Beast from the East happening soon. Let’s find out whether these reports are true in the latest weather update from MeteoGroup senior meteorologists Matt Dobson and George Goodfellow.
A look back at 2018 and December
We saw a lot a variation in the weather during 2018, including a prolonged heat wave and drought during the late spring and early summer, the infamous ‘Beast from the East’ at end of February and early March, and almost everything in between! December 2018 wasn’t quite as dramatic and there were spells of quite benign weather, but with a couple of ‘interesting’ events too!
December started on an unsettled note as a series of Atlantic low pressure areas moved eastwards. These systems brought spells of wet and windy weather to the North West. One of the stormiest spells of the month occurred on Friday 7th and into Saturday 8th December. Winds gusts of 40-50mph were observed over northern England on Friday daytime and then peak gusts of 50-60mph occurred on Friday night and during Saturday morning.
A spell of calmer weather followed, as high pressure centred over Scandinavia extended westwards across the UK. Whilst it was drier and less windy, it also became colder, especially around the middle of the month. A brisk south-easterly wind brought chilly continental air to the region.
The transition from cold to milder weather took place on Saturday the 15th December and it was a messy affair thanks to Storm Deirdre. Rain had already spread across the South West of the UK overnight. As the rain band pushed northwards into the colder air that lingered across northern England on Saturday, it fell increasingly as sleet and snow for a time. However, as the milder raced in rapidly, temperatures over the hillier areas were slower to reach above 0C, and this produced a spell of freezing rain. This is when rain, falling from a layer of much milder air aloft, freezes on contact with any sub-zero surfaces, including trees and power lines. Black ice can form quickly on the roads, even if they were recently gritted, as the rain drops can dilute and wash the salt off before they freeze.
The final third of December saw a spell of quieter and largely hazard-free weather, as high pressure dominated. The air was very mild at times, with a lack of frost at night.
A look ahead
Despite the change in the year, the huge high pressure area that decided to settle down close to the UK during the final third of December shows little sign of shifting for the time being. The predominantly dry theme will continue on many days, so it’s a good job we saw some wet weather during the autumn, to help boost the river levels and reservoirs after the dry and hot summer.
Despite the overall dry theme in the next ten days, we are keeping an eye on a short wet and windy interlude on Monday 7th January into Tuesday 8th January. Indeed, we could see gusts over 50mph for a time, as small but rapidly strengthening low pressure area crashes through the current high pressure bringing strong winds from the North West with a colder interlude in the middle of next week.
MeteoGroup forecasters are also keeping a very close eye on developments high above the North Pole. The weather computer models we use are confirming that we are currently seeing dramatic increases in temperature and changes in wind patterns in the Polar Stratosphere, a layer of the atmosphere 10-50km above the surface. Meteorologists call these events major Stratospheric Sudden Warmings or SSWs. They are part of the natural cycle of variability of the global climate system, and occur during mid-late winter several times per decade. We actually saw once as recently as mid-February last year. This one appeared to trigger the ‘Beast from the East’ cold spell, about 2-3 weeks afterwards. Not all SSW events are followed by cold and snowy weather over the UK, but generally do tend to ‘load the dice’ in favour of colder patterns, rather than mild ones. Therefore, don’t be surprised if you start to see forecasts of much colder weather on the way later in January and into February!
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