It feels like winter has kicked in early this year! Where was the summer? I think back in May and early June scotland certainly had its summer. Since then, theres been nothing special, no heatwaves, rare consecutive days of sunshine. Yesterday morning there was pretty thick frost on the car roofs, and sitting here at 9pm at the start of October it is already only 5C outside.
The different weather patterns around the world have been thanks to La Niña, which is the natural cooling of large parts of the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean is the driving force behind hte World’s weather patterns. NOAA’s La Niña Page
At the start of the year there was much talk about how far the ice will receed in the Artic, after the record breaking melt in 2007. Well as I predicted, This summer was cooler…and as a result the summer melt in the Arctic was not as bad as had been feared, and infact it was less than the melt experinced during summer 07. [BBC - No 2008 record for Arctic sea ice]
This is also good news for next summer since the ice will have more time to harden and recover after last summer. The thicker the ice gets, the harder it is to melt, so the longer it will last during a warm summer.
From this, I am going to predict a similar winter to last year, with slighty more snow than average, and cooler temperatures than in the previous 5 years. Perhaps there might be early short lived snow falls in late october or November? And why not, lets predict a white chritsmas for the whole of Scotland! Its been a while so its about time it happened. You have to agree, theres nothing nicer than waking up on christmas morning and looking out on a fresh, thick blanket of snow that hasn’t been touched. The greatest amount of snow will fall in January and as usual, there will be snow somewhere in the UK on the weekend nearest Valentines day! Wouldn’t it be lovelly to have something like this:
Although its not the best kind of weather for us farmers, who have to go out and feed the sheep even more during times of snow and frost! Also don’t forget to sign up to www.snow-falls.com to keep up to date with the world’s winter weather and share your snowy, frosty photos.
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