Permanent Changes to Weather?

[Charlie P]

I was wondering if there are any Meteorological Specialists on line? I have sailed the West of Scotland and N Ireland for over 50 years but it feels that the Summer weather is becoming more consistently wet and windy with low-after-low barreling through. Is this part of the normal cycles of weather that we will see (1985 and 1986 also gave us relentless gales) or has there been a permanent shift in the jet stream, sending high pressure systems further south? Is El Nino responsible? Is this the outworking of Climate Change and are we seeing a new normal?

 

[Bodach na mara]

It's a short-term memory thing. Looking at the logbook for the last few years, we last had a lot of wind on our cruise in the western isles in 2019. I have no idea what 2020 was like as we couldn't use the boat much. But in 2021, 22 and 23 we had to do a lot of motoring to get anywhere in the calm conditions that prevailed.
Going much further back? I remember holidays when the kids were young that were difficult because of the difficulty of getting a dry day. And going further back my abiding memory of holidays in Kintyre in the 1940s is of sitting in the sand dunes at the beach wearing an Aran jumper and wrapped in a travelling rug watching my dad trying to get a pressure stove lit to make a nice hot cup of tea.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

August is always pants on the west coast of Scotland. The tropical storm season in the west Atlantic has got going & we get the tail end of them. We get endless lows until their season is over & we transition into autumnal anticyclonic gloom in November. What was less apparent this year is the usual period of sunny dry cool weather mid May to mid June.

 

[Wansworth]

Definatley seems to be getting warmer and drier here in Galicia and the anticyclone is sending the depressions further north over the UKarea

 

[dunedin]

I enjoy reading old books of sailing cruises from a long time ago and they seemed to be perpetually soaked by rain or storm bound. Try reading Frank Cowper’s Sailing Tour Pt 5 for example - Frank Cowper - Sailing Tours the forefather of modern cruising - Practical Boat Owner

Been lovely high pressure, light winds and sunny this week in the Clyde

 

[mjcoon]

BBC weather forecasters love to mention the jet stream and show how it wiggles. It acts as a barrier preventing two regions of atmosphere from mixing as much as they otherwise might. It is clear that it often has a sharp bend approximately over the UK, but it shifts both E/W and N/S so that sometimes the path puts the UK N of it so we are in the arctic region or it N of UK so we are in the tropical region...

 

[RunAgroundHard]

I spent most of the 80’s in glorious west coast summer sun and great sailing wind. A few years back, before Covid, everyone south of Ardnamurchan enjoyed great weather, everyone north got crap weather.

I don’t think we see any significant effects of MMGW yet. Time will tell.

Sunny days since 2015 hasnt changed much. Likely it is just a general feeling of being miserable, with age and the state of current affairs being generally negative for a few years.

Scotland: monthly sunshine hours 2023 | Statista

 

[Sandy]

It was a lot wetter when I was a child in Fort William.

Every time I go home we get three days a week with no rain.

 

[colind3782]

Just got back from three weeks in Empuriabrava and the temps were in the high 30s everyday with 45C clocked on the car temp gauge on Monday at Girona Airport. Even for July that is a very hot spell. I don't remember it being that consistently hot there even in summer and I've been going there since 1985. We'll certainly avoid July and August in future if that continues.

 

[johnalison]

Periods of about twenty years of settled or windy weather seem to occur. I imagine that this is sometimes a statistical blip and sometimes to climatic changes. Most often I imagine it is just a selective memory thing, as in #2. We got the impression that the 2000s were very windy, but it may just have been our greater exposure with my retirement and a new boat. I hope that our summers continue to be unpredictable, like in the ‘50s when the summer without a sun in 1956 was closely followed by the epic summer of 1959.

 

[sfellows]

Having lived in the USA many years ago, I was always fascinated by their weather forecasts which often included graphics of where the jet-stream was located and its forecasted location. It made me realise how important the jet-stream is.

It is only recently that the jet-stream is (rarely) mentioned in the UK forecasts, and yet this is one of the most useful indicators of weather. For example, this summer (sic) it's been miles further south than normal, bringing low after low through the south of the UK.

IMO (often wrong) I would say that in the last 2-3 years the jet-stream has definitely been further south than average in the summer months and this has consequences for the weather. Mainly worse.

 

[Minerva]

Having lived in the USA many years ago, I was always fascinated by their weather forecasts which often included graphics of where the jet-stream was located and its forecasted location. It made me realise how important the jet-stream is.

It is only recently that the jet-stream is (rarely) mentioned in the UK forecasts, and yet this is one of the most useful indicators of weather. For example, this summer (sic) it's been miles further south than normal, bringing low after low through the south of the UK.

IMO (often wrong) I would say that in the last 2-3 years the jet-stream has definitely been further south than average in the summer months and this has consequences for the weather. Mainly worse.

I'd argue the forecasts we get now are very dumbed down. No isobars on mainstream forecasts and only generally saying if it's going to we raining, cloudy or sunny.

 

[wonkywinch]

Our personal window of observation is so small as to not really be valid but it's interesting meterologists turn to art history to see how the weather appeared to the artist hundreds/thousands of years ago.

Painting Climate Change in the 17th Century

 

[GunfleetSand]

Slightly off topic but I do like this site to go along with other forecasts. The jet stream is an important and influential feature of the weather in the UK, View the jet stream forecast with our animated map.

This site gives a weather overview going back a few years Weather in August 2010 in Essex, England, United Kingdom

 

[NormanS]

Last year on the West Coast, the weather was mostly good. This year it has been mostly rubbish. It's weather, it's changeable. Get used to it.

 

[LittleSister]

Definatley seems to be getting warmer and drier here in Galicia and the anticyclone is sending the depressions further north over the UKarea

It is those dastardly foreigners on the continent sending us their depressions in reprisal for something or other.

I'd argue the forecasts we get now are very dumbed down. No isobars on mainstream forecasts and only generally saying if it's going to we raining, cloudy or sunny.

You are obviously watching the wrong forecasts for your tastes then. Even the Met Office's morning and evening forecasts use isobars.

I particularly enjoy the Met Office's longer format weekly forecasts - '10 Day Trend' & 'Deep Dive' - on YouTube, which use isobars, jet streams and vast range of clever charts and graphics, and compare Met Office forecasts to the USA and European models' outputs. These two weekly forecasts very much aim to help understand what's currently going on with the weather (including the uncertainties), rather than just predict what will happen when.

 

[srm]

Well the last couple of month the Azores high has been wobbling around pretty much over the Azores. But then that is what it normally does at this time of year. Not much rain here so have not had to cut the grass as too dry. But then in grows most during the winter with wet and warm weather.

if you do not know it have a look at www.windy.com for forecast maps, lots of different layers to play with.

 

[franksingleton]

I was wondering if there are any Meteorological Specialists on line? I have sailed the West of Scotland and N Ireland for over 50 years but it feels that the Summer weather is becoming more consistently wet and windy with low-after-low barreling through. Is this part of the normal cycles of weather that we will see (1985 and 1986 also gave us relentless gales) or has there been a permanent shift in the jet stream, sending high pressure systems further south? Is El Nino responsible? Is this the outworking of Climate Change and are we seeing a new normal?

As we all know, the climate is changing because of increasing CO2. Inevitably, the global circulation - oceanic and atmospheric will change. It is highly likely that we are now seeing the effects on our sailing weather. It is, of course, incredibly difficult to identify some particular event or series of events and say that it is/they are due to climate change. There is natural variability but climate scientists are getting to the stage where they are attributing specific events or series of events to our warming climate.
Try reading about the AMOC.

 

[ronsurf]

The jet stream is an important part of the weather, it's also the least understood.

There are also long term cycles that may have an effect on the weather patterns, and they are all longer than most poeple's memory: Recession of the nodes, sunspot cycles, El Nino effects, as well as the jet stream.

When I studied meteorology at uni, we were told that the Rockies fix one part of the jet stream, then there is either an odd wave pattern or an even wave pattern, and the triggers for changing this was unknown. The odd or even pattern dictates whether it's fair weather or foul weathe for the UK. Of course, this also applies in the winter, and the same patterns that produce fine summers also produce very cold winters.

 

[franksingleton]

The jet stream is an important part of the weather, it's also the least understood.

By the general public, yes. Not by those studying weather and climate scientifically.

There are also long term cycles that may have an effect on the weather patterns, and they are all longer than most poeple's memory: Recession of the nodes, sunspot cycles, El Nino effects, as well as the jet stream.

The major changes in climate that we are seeing are not cyclical. When were CO2 levels last up to current values?

When I studied meteorology at uni, we were told that the Rockies fix one part of the jet stream, then there is either an odd wave pattern or an even wave pattern, and the triggers for changing this was unknown. The odd or even pattern dictates whether it's fair weather or foul weathe for the UK. Of course, this also applies in the winter, and the same patterns that produce fine summers also produce very cold winters.

That sounds very like a geographers view. Meteorology has moved beyond recognition compared to the period when I guess you were at university.