Has the prevailing wind switched sides?

[Ex-SolentBoy]

I live on the Isle of Wight and almost every day I walk on the cliffs overlooking the channel. I plan the walk in one of two directions aimed at doing the long bit on the cliffs with the wind behind me.

For many years this was always west to east, but I have hardly done that at all in the last year.

It seems to me we are getting a lot more easterlies, and looking at next week there is another week of them to come.

Perhaps those old routing charts with wind roses need updating.

 

[lustyd]

I live on the Isle of Wight and almost every day I walk on the cliffs overlooking the channel. I plan the walk in one of two directions aimed at doing the long bit on the cliffs with the wind behind me.

For many years this was always west to east, but I have hardly done that at all in the last year.

It seems to me we are getting a lot more easterlies, and looking at next week there is another week of them to come.

Perhaps those old routing charts with wind roses need updating.

This time of year has had easterlies for the last three years at least but the weather is definitely getting worse!

 

[Blueboatman]

When you own a junk rig in Northern Europe the nuances of the wind direction become fascinating. The Great Escape west from the Solent was always highly doable just a tad too early in the season- now! as far back as i can remember..Ditto riding motorcycles one was well wary of t'easterlies of spring .
I think our digital accuracy and algorithms play up
the natural variation a tad more?

 

[Lakesailor]

A weatherperson did their best to explain it on telly last night. Because the controlling high is sitting to our North the clockwise airflow is dragging cold winds from the East.
It traditionally sat to our South and dragged the moist and warmer winds from the West.

They didn't explain why it had moved.

 

[Conachair]

It seems to me we are getting a lot more easterlies, and looking at next week there is another week of them to come.

Perhaps those old routing charts with wind roses need updating.

Maybe not in need of much updating, human perception can't really be relied on very much, you can see patterns which aren't there quite easily.

Good site here...
http://www.pitufa.at/map/
Based on data from here.. http://cioss.coas.oregonstate.edu/cogow/index.html
Which is accurate satellite wind data averages from August 1999 – July 2004
Click on a wind arrow to bring up a wind rose

Mostly westerly quadrant but some easterlies in there, the recent easterlies probably won't change that average much.
Wish that cold easterly would bugg=r off though, been freezing for ages. I want to slap some paint on

 

[pagoda]

A weatherperson did their best to explain it on telly last night. Because the controlling high is sitting to our North the clockwise airflow is dragging cold winds from the East.
It traditionally sat to our South and dragged the moist and warmer winds from the West.

They didn't explain why it had moved.

Normal UK weather in the traditional style has the jetstream blasting at high altitude from SW to NE over the Northern half of the UK.
Typically Southern UK used to get slightly more settled High Pressure, Scotland more of the Low pressure systems & poorer weather -but more wind

A lot of the last few months - the jetstream has been stuck flowing almost West>East - from the Atlantic over Spain, so the milder air we often get has been blocked to some extent and Arctic air has had access to UK / western Europe from Russia / Baltic as cold Easterlies -and will continue to do so as long as the jetstream is where it is . Where the two air masses collide- we get mega precipitation with snow / rain. Any low pressure systems from the Atlantic have been coming in much further South and the squeeze against the cold air is generating the strength of the easterlies...

I'm 40 miles east of Hull right now...40-55Kts about 1C utterly brass monkey weather out on deck !!

I don't see any real change in the next week anyway. maybe colder later next week

 

[Lakesailor]

I'm 40 miles east of Hull right now...40-55Kts about 1C utterly brass monkey weather out on deck !!

Comfort yourself in the knowledge you are not 40 miles to the West of your current position.

 

[gordmac]

I would say that there is a lot more easterly wind over the last few years than I remember from my youth. And a lot less snow in winter.

 

[Conachair]

check it all in here..

http://www.wunderground.com/history...tml?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA

 

[macd]

Pagoda & Lakesailor's posts go to the heart of it. The position of the jetstream is a key determinant on the track of Atlantic lows. If the stream is to the south of the British Isles, the UK mainly receives winds from the easterly quadrant, curving in over the top of the low. If the Continent is cold, so's the wind. Yet in April 2007 (and many other times), the resulting winds (mainly south easterly) gave an unusually sunny, mild month. The Isle of Man, not normally the driest or most settled of places, received not a single April shower. Spain and Portugal and much of the northern Med, on the other hand, had a cold, wet month dominated by the very westerlies which 'should' have hit the UK. From reports of friends back home, I think the UK received something of the same last March.

Ex-SolentBoy's observations are, as Conachair wrote, of little significance (which isn't so say they're not real). In the notorious winter of 1962-63, the winds were easterly almost continuously from late December until March, resulting in the 'Big Freeze' (and the pools panel to decide what the results would have been if hundreds of postponed footie matches had actually taken place). Had Ex-SolentBoy been walking his clifftops then, he'd no doubt have concluded that things had changed, big time. Yet they hadn't and didn't: westerlies and Atlantic lows were still the norm.

Historically the jet stream has wandered about (although since almost nothing was known about it until WW2, the data is not extensive), partly under the influence of El Nino and La Nina events, and there may be some evidence that it is more erratic than it once was. Over the last few years it's adopted an unusually low latitude, around the southern fringe of the UK. This was particularly the case in 2012, which anyone doing an Atlantic crossing at the time will remember well, because the lows were a long-way south and they got a right battering. I crossed at 32 degrees north, which is normally a recipe for becalming, and I was anything but.

On the other hand for the last two decades of the 20th Century, the jetstream spent most of its time inching northwards, no doubt giving people living at that time their own impression of 'normality'.

 

[lenseman]

Not wanting to research for any previous years but but winters that start 1932, 1937, 1942, 1947, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 1012, seem to always be cold and snowy. (Try Googling "Winter 1952 or 37" and see.)

I noticed this whilst at Grammar School way back in the 50's and have always wondered about it and I cannot tie it down to any solar cycle which is every eleven years?



.

 

[mainsail1]

Interesting.

Not wanting to research for any previous years but but winters that start 1932, 1937, 1942, 1947, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 1012, seem to always be cold and snowy. (Try Googling "Winter 1952 or 37" and see.)

I noticed this whilst at Grammar School way back in the 50's and have always wondered about it and I cannot tie it down to any solar cycle which is every eleven years?



.

 

[macd]

Not wanting to research for any previous years but but winters that start 1932, 1937, 1942, 1947, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, 1012, seem to always be cold and snowy. (Try Googling "Winter 1952 or 37" and see.)

Interesting. Such figures can be somewhat deceptive in general: January 1982 had sustained record-breaking low temps and snowfall in an otherwise unremarkable winter. I suspect the same might be true of the current freeze.
I wasn't there for the latter, but weren't 2009/10 and 2010/11 especially cold and snowy?
As to whether 2012/13 qualifies as especially cold and snowy, in much of England the month to mid-Feb was the warmest for that part of the year for 342 years. Does this winter qualify overall as especially cold/snowy? I haven't been there (except for a fairly mild Xmas/New Year), so can't say.

 

[Lakesailor]

I think you are right.
Anyone's perception of the severity of a season will depend on their own locale.

We have had small amounts of snow this year at lake level (It's always snowy on the fells) but more frequent.

We see pictures like those from this weekend with vehicles an houses covered in drifts (in one case only 40 miles away, on the coast) and realise the weather is bad. However we still think it hasn't been a bad winter.

Those people without power and snowed in will have an entirely different perspective.