NOAA Models Project Harsh 2017/18 European Winter…Possibly Coldest This Century

Weather and climate analyst Schneefan here writes that the 2017/18 winter in Europe could be one of the coldest of the last 20 years.

In mid September NOAA’s CFSv2 weather model once again crunched out a cold temperatures across Europe for all three winter months (December (left), January (center), February (right)) for the coming 2017/18 winter:

Meteociel/CFS prognosis dated 1 September 2017 for the temperature deviation from the long-term mean at 850 hPa (approx. 1500 m) in Europe for the 2017/18 winter. Source: http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfsme_cartes.php

Schneefan writes one has to go back to the 1990s to find a negative 2.0°C deviation from the 1961-1990 mean that is projected for Germany. That deviation translates to almost 3°C when compared to the 1981-2010 mean. That would would be awfully cold.

The following chart shows the winter temperature anomalies for Germany for each year since 1901:

If projections come true, Germany would face one of its coldest winters in the last 50 years. Source: http://www.wzforum.de/forum2/read.php?6,3260663,3260663#msg-3260663

The latest CSFv2 model run confirms the earlier cold projections that have been calculated since mid June, 2017.

Cooler than normal autumn

Projections for this fall (September, October, November) are also on the cool side. An analysis from 17 September shows that Central Europe will see temperatures that are about 1°C below the 1981-2010 mean. So far the first three weeks have been right on the money.

Schneefan warns that it’s still too early to rely on the latest trend and to bank on it, but adds: “If these cold projections for the 2017/18 winter keep appearing in the next model runs this fall, then the probability increases.”

Also Schneefan writes that we should not expect any general warming trend soon after the coming winter, due to the lowest solar activity is 200 years, the cooling La Niña that is beginning to take hold, and the already falling temperatures taking place in the wake of the 2015/15 El-Niño.

There are other signs that change is possibly in the works:

After the ice mass growth in Greenland for the first time in the current century and a new record cold July temperature (-33°C) set in Greenland, no one should be surprised that the 2017/18 winter will be the coldest in Europe and other parts of the northern hemisphere this century.

And to potentially make matters worse, the Bali volcano Agung is now at warning level “orange”. The last eruption was in 1963 with a VEI of 5!. So rapidly could global climate unexpectedly and naturally change.

Readers need to note that the projections involve considerable uncertainty, and the winter of course may develop completely differently. Yet, many meteorologists had projected earlier this year a severe hurricane season this year based on oceanic patterns, and that has come true.

 

28 responses to “NOAA Models Project Harsh 2017/18 European Winter…Possibly Coldest This Century”

  1. sunsettommy

    It is does come in cold,with warmists teeth chatter from it?

  2. tom0mason

    Indeed a colder winter.

    However there are a few caveats should be noted here regarding the performance of these weather models — they are only about 1000% (or more) better than any of the currently used climate model. So there is still quite a lot of unpredictability with weather models.
    That said, with the ocean cycles turning cool then oceanic influences should be re-enforcing the cold forecast.
    The big unknown is if there will be any major solar events — another coronal hole (like last winter), or (as in the last couple of weeks) a small number of very active sunspots.

    Certainly no amount of CO2 (or the imagined effect of it) will help one way or the other as CO2 does nothing measurable to warm up the atmosphere.

    1. Kenneth Richard

      Indeed a colder summer too. For the first time in 38 years, Denmark had a summer-less July.

      https://www.thelocal.dk/20170726/denmark-faces-first-summer-less-july-in-38-years

      1. tom0mason

        From your link, brrrr…

        ” If the next five days come and go without hitting 25C as predicted, it will mark the first time that Danes will have suffered through a summer-less July in nearly four decades.

        “There are only three years in our records in which July contains a big fat zero when it comes to summer days and temps above 25C. That’s 1962, 1974 and 1979,” climatologist John Cappelen said on the DMI website.

        DMI’s database goes back to 1874. “

        … and western parts of the USA (the bread-basket states) have had a terrible spring/summer.

        Ho-humm back to the climate of the 1960s?

        1. tom0mason

          Oops typo…

          … and western mid and eastern parts of the USA (the bread-basket states) have had a terrible spring/summer. Wet and cold.

        2. RAH

          I think we’re still in for a relatively great year for corn and soybeans because the southern states have had an excellent year.
          USDA as of August said corn down 7% Soybeans up 2% from the bumper crop year of 2016 but both above the 2015.
          http://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/news_home/Business/2017/08/US_corn_production_forecast_do.aspx?ID=%7B9DE9B0BD-5724-4EA1-AD4A-EABDA6FED912%7D&cck=1

        3. RAH

          BTW my big truck driving has taken me down through eastern Missouri and Arkansas the last couple of weeks. Rice already being harvested and the stubble being burned off the fields. Cotton, Corn, and soybean fields look great at this time from my vantage point. I have driven down there for years and seen far worse than I’m seeing this year usually because of fields being flooded.

          1. tom0mason

            Thanks for the up-date RAH.

          2. AZ1971

            RAH, do you know whether or not the rice growers in Arkansas and Missouri also grow crawfish in their paddies once the crop’s been harvested? I read earlier this summer than the Louisiana crawfish harvest is being decimated by a viral infection that’s spreading like wildfire. I love those things; it would be a shame if the state lost such an important part of its agricultural portfolio, but worth neighboring states to capitalize on their loss.

  3. John F. Hultquist

    Mount Agung, Bali — in English
    https://phys.org/news/2017-09-indonesia-bali-volcano.html

    Mostly agree with tom0mason, above.

    1. clipe

      From the Associated Press report.

      “The disaster agency said the volcano […] hurling ash as high as 10 kilometers (16 miles).”

  4. Don from Oz

    Ahh 10 miles = 16 kilometres

    1. toorightmate

      16.09344 approximately.

  5. toorightmate

    Scheefan MUST be wrong.
    We have had “experts” telling us that 2017 will be the hottest year EEEVVVAAAAHHHHH – and that was even before the year started.

  6. stefan pedersen

    Coldest summer in Norway aswell

  7. Bitter&twisted

    Most snow on Kitzsteinhorn (Austria) since 2006.
    That’s the first year of the “compare snowfall” graphs.
    Looking forwards to good skiing!

    1. Fred Harwood

      Grosglockner closed today due to snow.
      Plowing underway at Crater Lake.
      Snowing on Mt Shasta, Tetons, Yellowstone.

  8. tom0mason

    FAILED CLIMATE PREDICTIONS (and some related stupid sayings)
    Maybe, just maybe some of these alarmist are reassessing their stance on the vagaries of climate and how it ONLY changes naturally.

    1. “Due to global warming, the coming winters in the local regions will become milder.”
    Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, University of Potsdam, February 8, 2006

    ****

    2. “Milder winters, drier summers: Climate study shows a need to adapt in Saxony Anhalt.”
    Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Press Release, January 10, 2010.

    ****

    3. “More heat waves, no snow in the winter… Climate models… over 20 times more precise than the UN IPCC global models. In no other country do we have more precise calculations of climate consequences. They should form the basis for political planning… Temperatures in the wintertime will rise the most… there will be less cold air coming to Central Europe from the east…In the Alps winters will be 2°C warmer already between 2021 and 2050.”

    Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, September 2, 2008.

    ****

    4. “The new Germany will be characterized by dry-hot summers and warm-wet winters.”
    Wilhelm Gerstengarbe and Peter Werner, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), March 2, 2007

    ****

    5. “Clear climate trends are seen from the computer simulations. Foremost the winter months will be warmer all over Germany. Depending of CO2 emissions, temperatures will rise by up to 4°C, in the Alps by up to 5°C.”
    Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, 7 Dec 2009.

    ****

    6. “In summer under certain conditions the scientists reckon with a complete melting of the Arctic sea ice. For Europe we expect an increase in drier and warmer summers. Winters on the other hand will be warmer and wetter.”
    Erich Roeckner, Max Planck Institute, Hamburg, 29 Sept 2005.

    ****

    7. “The more than ‘unusually ‘warm January weather is yet ‘another extreme event’, ‘a harbinger of the winters that are ahead of us’. … The global temperature will ‘increase every year by 0.2°C’”
    Michael Müller, Socialist, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Environment,
    Die Zeit, 15 Jan 2007

    ****

    8. “Harsh winters likely will be more seldom and precipitation in the wintertime will be heavier everywhere. However, due to the milder temperatures, it’ll fall more often as rain than as snow.”
    Online-Atlas of the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, 2010

    9. “We’ve mostly had mild winters in which only a few cold months were scattered about, like January 2009. This winter is a cold outlier, but that doesn’t change the picture as a whole. Generally it’s going to get warmer, also in the wintertime.”
    Gerhard Müller-Westermeier, German Weather Service (DWD), 26 Jan 2010

    ****

    10. “Winters with strong frost and lots of snow like we had 20 years ago will cease to exist at our latitudes.”
    Mojib Latif, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, 1 April 2000

    ****

    11. “Good bye winter. Never again snow?”
    Spiegel, 1 April 2000

    ****

    12. “In the northern part of the continent there likely will be some benefits in the form of reduced cold periods and higher agricultural yields. But the continued increase in temperatures will cancel off these benefits. In some regions up to 60% of the species could die off by 2080.”

    3Sat, 26 June 2003

    ****

    13. “Although the magnitude of the trends shows large variation among different models, Miller et al. (2006) find that none of the 14 models exhibits a trend towards a lower NAM index and higher arctic SLP.”
    IPCC 2007 4AR, (quoted by Georg Hoffmann)

    ****

    14. “Based on the rising temperature, less snow will be expected regionally. While currently 1/3 of the precipitation in the Alps falls as snow, the snow-share of precipitation by the end of the century could end up being just one sixth.”
    Germanwatch, Page 7, Feb 2007

    ****

    15. “Assuming there will be a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, as is projected by the year 2030. The consequences could be hotter and drier summers, and winters warmer and wetter. Such a warming will be proportionately higher at higher elevations – and especially will have a powerful impact on the glaciers of the Firn regions.”

    and

    “ The ski areas that reliably have snow will shift from 1200 meters to 1500 meters elevation by the year 2050; because of the climate prognoses warmer winters have to be anticipated.”
    Scinexx Wissenschaft Magazin, 26 Mar 2002

    1. tom0mason

      Of course one of those quotes is a fake…the date gives it away.
      But which one?

      However Professor Peter Wadhams said in the past few years.

      Daily Telegraph – 8 November 2011 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/8877491/Arctic-sea-ice-to-melt-by-2015.html)
      Arctic sea ice ‘to melt by 2015′
      Prof Wadhams said: “His [model] is the most extreme but he is also the best modeller around.

      No hubris there then.

      “It is really showing the fall-off in ice volume is so fast that it is going to bring us to zero very quickly. 2015 is a very serious prediction and I think I am pretty much persuaded that that’s when it will happen.”

    2. The Indomitable Snowman, Ph.D.

      You missed one, and it’s Pierre’s favorite! 🙂

      “SHUMLIN: Any reasonable scientist will tell you that we’re going to rise anywhere between another two and three degrees in the next 30 years. That means that New Jersey’s climate is moving to Vermont in the next decade. That has tremendous implications in our economy’s ski, maple-sugar making, leaf-peeping and the list goes on and on. So we are — I at least am — looking at this with a major sense of panic.”

      (Marketplace.org, 18 April 2007)

      And to celebrate the arrival of the deadline for “in the next decade”:

      “We had a storm total snowfall of 30.4 inches at BTV, making
      this the greatest March snowstorm on record and the 2nd most
      all-time (records date back to 1883).”

      (KBTV NWS final summary of the “Pi Day” storm of 14 – 15 March 2017)

      And the ski industry had a fantastic year.

      God enjoys laughing at the thermophobes and ecochondriacs.

  9. NOAA - Progetto modello Harsh 2017/18: Inverno in Europa ... Possibile il più freddo di questo secolo : Attività Solare ( Solar Activity )

    […] Fonte: No Tricks Zone  […]

  10. NOAA Predicts Bitterly Cold European Winter 2017/18 | Principia Scientific International

    […] Read more at notrickszone.com […]

  11. Ron Clutz

    Dr. Judah Cohen of AER bases his winter forecasts on signals from autumn snowfalls in Siberian. And the outlook is consistent with that above.

    “My, along with my colleagues and others, research has shown that extensive Siberian snow cover in the fall favors a trough across East Asia with a ridge to the west near the Urals. The atmospheric circulation pattern favors more active poleward heat flux, a weaker PV and cold temperatures across the NH. With a predicted strong negative AO in the coming weeks, snow cover is likely to advance relatively quickly heading into October. It is very early in the snow season but recent falls have been snowy across Siberia and therefore I do expect another upcoming snowy fall across Siberia.”

    https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/09/20/overview-winter-climate-for-nh/

    1. AZ1971

      Ron, they said the same thing about winter 2016/17 – there was a lot of expectation of US West Coast precipitation being lackluster due to ENSO-neutral conditions and the Siberian-East Asian trough, and yet California got walloped by one of the biggest seasonal snowfall totals in decades. Is there any prediction for whether ENSO-negative (La Niña) would similarly result in a moderation of US West Coast winter precipitation from its otherwise presumed drier-than-normal forecast?

  12. GoFigure

    co2 has been steadily increasing, and, unless there is some other stronger (and evidently unknown) forcing, the temperature must supposedly respond to increasing co2 level by increasing. (oops. we also know that co2 supposed capability to influence warming rapidly diminishes as its level increases. Perhaps co2, having doubled 8 times already, has shot its wad?)

    But wait…. the UN’s IPCC claims that human activity (via co2 increase) is the PRINCIPLE cause of global warming! Can there be some as yet unexplained stronger force?

  13. Gary Meyers

    I hope that they have enough renewables to keep their stupid butts warm. It’s hard to generate power when the sun doesn’t shine, and the windmills are frozen in place.

    1. yonason

      Outlook in doubt.
      https://www.thegwpf.com/germanys-800-billion-climate-flop-how-merkels-green-energy-policy-has-fueled-demand-for-coal/

      Looking forward to hearing good news of a meaningful change of course tomorrow, if that’s even possible.

  14. John Swallow

    02/21/2014
    “Farmers’ Almanac More Reliable Than Warming Climate Models”
    “Bad Science: It turns out that a 200-year-old publication for farmers beats climate-change scientists in predicting this year’s harsh winter as the lowly caterpillar beats supercomputers that can’t even predict the past.
    Last fall, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) predicted above-normal temperatures from November through January across much of the continental U.S. The Farmers’ Almanac, first published in 1818, predicted a bitterly cold, snowy winter.
    The Maine-based Farmers’ Almanac’s still-secret methodology includes variables such as planetary positions, sunspots, lunar cycles and tidal action. It claims an 80% accuracy rate, surely better than those who obsess over fossil fuels and CO2.
    The winter has stayed cold in 2014, and snowfall and snow cover are way above average. USA Today reported on Feb. 14 that there was snow on the ground in part of every state except Florida. That includes Hawaii. http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/022114-690857-farmers-almanac-more-accurate-than-climate-models.htm

    Are climate change models becoming more accurate and less reliable?

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