Barbeque Summer In Store For Central Europe, Says German Meteorologist

Private meteorologist Dr. Carsten Brandt of donnerwetter.de here predicts a hot and dry barbecue summer for Central Europe.

Donnerwetter.de's summer forecast looks great for barbeques.

Graphic from: www.donnerwetter.de news, click here

But don’t worry, his forecast does not come from the Met Office, and so there is a good chance it’ll be more or less right. Indeed many of Brandt’s seasonal forecasts have been spot on – on par with Joe Bastardi’s track record. For example back in October, 2010, he predicted a cold winter – and it happened. In February, 2011, donnerwetter.de announced a nice and warm spring dominated by high pressure systems  – and that happened too.

Donnerwetter.de predicts the warm and dry conditions will persist through July with a probability of 80%. According to donnerwetter.de, this is all due to a pattern of stubborn high pressure systems taking hold over Germany over the last months, writing:

For about one year now we have been observing a change in patterns in the atmosphere over Europe. Normally the weather over Germany is characterised by powerful low pressure systems which bring lots of rain and temperature fluctuations with them. The high pressure systems are hanging out more and more often over the Mediterranean or over Eastern Europe. Over the last months there have been extremely many high pressure systems settling over Germany and Central Europe.”

Though Germans may enjoy the beautiful weather in the weeks ahead, the low amounts of precipitation are going to wreak havoc on agriculture and pose serious threats of forest fires.

What is behind the spell of dry, warm and sunny weather?

Brandt doesn’t say. From donnerwetter.de, we don’t get the “it’s yet another sign of climate change” crap that we often hear from the AGW hucksters. We can be thankful for that.

But do expect the climate alarmism hatchery that is the Potsdam Institute For Climate Impact Research (PIK) to chime in soon, claiming that a new model had predicted it all along. Producing an after-the-fact model is the tactic they used to explain the past cold winter. So expect crap from them in the weeks ahead.

Is low solar cycle activity inducing a cooling trend?

Since solar activity has wound down over the last years, there really does seem to be some new patterns forming. Is it just a coincidence? Maybe it’s a harbinger for a climate change that most of us have not been expecting – cooling. The PDO has also gone negative and the AMO is headed in that direction. Sounds to me like cooling increasingly can’t be ruled out. Let’s watch how long the La Nina conditions persist.

Accuweather, without Joe Bastardi, botched its Europe spring forecast

Interestingly, Accuweather’s spring forecast for Germany/Central Europe, made on March 18, looks like a real Met Office act, i.e. COMPLETELY  WRONG! In March Accuweather predicted:

U.K., Ireland and Germany to be Stormy, Unsettled
The overall position of the jet stream with a ridge over Spain and North Africa this spring should tend to steer storm systems into the U.K., Ireland and Germany.”

Actually, pretty much just the opposite has and is occurring. Makes you wonder if they’ll be begging Joe Bastardi to come back. According to the latest World Meteorological Organisation report:

The United Kingdom had extremely dry conditions in March and April especially in its southeastern parts and experienced its driest March since 1953. The other parts of western and central Europe all had a dry February, March and April. 2011 was up to now one of the driest 10 years in nearly whole Switzerland since 1864.”