Official blog of the Met Office news team – Met Office blog
January 2024 brought a month of contrasts to the UK weather, with three named storms, a significant spell of cold, wintry weather and finally a new UK daily maximum temperature record for January.
Temperatures and rainfall amounts have varied throughout the month, with mild and wet weather interrupted by a cold and dry spell from the second week of January, albeit with some significant snow for northern areas of the UK.
Overall, this means that the average mean temperature for the UK for January 2024 is near average according to provisional Met Office figures. UK mean temperatures ended the month at 3.8°C, around 0.1°C lower than the long-term average for the month.
The fluctuations in rainfall throughout the month also resulted in near-average rainfall amounts for the month, though Northern Ireland and Scotland were drier than average. UK rainfall was 3% less than average, with 117.5mm of rain. Northern England saw 22% more rain than average, with 111.9mm falling in the month.
Met Office Senior Scientist Mike Kendon said: “Overall, the UK temperature and rainfall for January were fairly near average but these belie the fact that the weather has never been too far away from the headlines. Storms Henk, Jocelyn and Isha all brought significant impacts, as did the cold and snowy conditions around the middle of the month.
“Of course, contrasting winter weather in the UK isn’t a new phenomenon, as subtle shifts in the jet stream can lead to significantly different conditions in the UK. This month we’ve seen clearly how cold northerly winds can bring winter hazards, while Atlantic westerlies can bring some impactful storms. When you add in a late-month warm spell from the south, you get a sense of the mixed conditions the country has had. What this January clearly demonstrates is just how abrupt these changes in weather type can be.”
Gardeners will be glad of more subdued rainfall figures compared to the wet conditions of December, according to Royal Horticultural Society Chief Horticulturist Guy Barter. He said: “Gardeners will have been grateful for a break in January from the rainy autumn and winter weather that has hindered getting the garden ready for spring.
“Although conditions have been pleasant, a cold, but not bitter, January is favoured by gardeners as it holds back the spring flowering of fruit trees and bushes that are vulnerable to frost damage if they flower too early. Gardeners will be hoping for a dry, chilly February.”
A northerly flow of air resulted in a period of significant cold weather from around the second week of January, with snow and ice hazards for many in the northern half of the UK, especially the north of Scotland. Shetland was particularly hard-hit with bitter northerly winds and temperatures struggling to rise much above freezing with deep lying snow.
On 17 January, -14°C at Dalwhinnie (Invernesshire) was the lowest temperatures dipped in the month, with a snow depth of 37cm reported at Altnaharra (Sutherland) on 18 January. Despite the UK’s warming climate, spells of wintry weather are to be expected and this was one of the more notable such spells since the exceptional December of 2010.
On the flip side, the month started mild and very wet and has concluded mild, with a new UK daily maximum temperature record for January of 19.9°C recorded at Achfary on 28 January. This is also Scotland’s highest winter temperature on record.
Mike Kendon explained some of the meteorological factors behind north-west Scotland’s unusually high temperatures near the end of the month. He said: “The Foehn effect causes a marked contrast in temperature across a mountainous area, with cooler, moister conditions on the windward side and warmer, drier conditions on the leeward side as the air dries out as it is forced up and over the higher ground.
“This effect can be responsible for some unusually high winter temperatures in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, although these tend to be highly localized. While the Foehn effect was the primary cause of this record, we must set this against a backdrop of increasing mean and maximum temperatures more generally as our climate continues to warm.”
Since 2011, the UK has recorded a new individual highest maximum daily temperature extreme for six of the 12 months of the year – January (2024), February (2019), July (2022), October (2011), November (2015) and December (2019). In contrast, none of the UK’s individual lowest minimum temperature extremes in a month have occurred this century.
The below maps show contrasting temperature anomalies seen in the month, with a cold pool of air on 17 January and a warm southerly flow coupled with the Foehn effect in parts of Scotland on 28 January.
Despite the mix in conditions, sunshine was a relatively frequent visitor in January.
The UK had its sixth sunniest January on record in a series which goes back to 1910. There were 61 hours of sunshine on average in the UK, which is 28% more than average. The relatively sunny month was a welcome contrast to December, with just 27.9 hours, around two-thirds of normal and less than an hour a day.
January’s sunny theme was replicated across much of the UK, with England and Scotland recording sunshine amounts within their top ten sunniest for the month, with Wales and Northern Ireland also seeing sunshine amounts well above average.
Three named storms impacted the UK in the month as Henk, Isha and Jocelyn brought strong winds and heavy rain for some. A recent blog looks at the underlying factors behind what has been a stormy autumn and winter so far.
Henk brought significant flooding impacts as well as strong winds, while Isha was the most notable windstorm since Eunice in 2022, with extensive Amber wind warnings issued by the Met Office as well as an unusual overnight red warning for some. A gust of 99mph was recorded in Northumberland as part of Storm Isha.
Storm Jocelyn, which was named by Met Eireann, continued to bring strong winds to much of the north of the UK.
Meteorological winter so far is tracking wetter and slightly warmer than average, though with a month still to go there is time for these figures to change significantly.
At this point in the season you’d expect to have seen 68% of the season’s total seasonal average rainfall. At the conclusion of January, the UK has so far seen 89% of the average rainfall for the whole of the season, although much of north-east England and eastern Scotland have already received more than the whole-season average rainfall, with a month still to go.
Throughout autumn and winter there have been a number of sightings of the Northern Lights, or the aurora borealis, in the UK. As 2024 continues, the question for many space weather experts is when we’ll see a peak in the Sun’s activity as part of this solar cycle.
The auroras on Earth, which are most commonly seen over high polar latitudes but can often spread south to be visible over parts of the UK, are chiefly influenced by geomagnetic storms which originate from activity on the Sun.
Space weather forecasters, like those who work at the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC), spend their time studying the Sun’s activity and forecasting the arrival of coronal mass ejections which cause geomagnetic storms, solar flares and solar radiation storms, collectively known as space weather. Space weather typically originates from sunspots on the Sun’s surface.
While these events contribute to the magnificent displays of colours in the sky as part of the auroras, the most severe of these events also have the potential to cause radio blackouts, disrupt GPS systems and interact with some ground-based infrastructure on Earth.
Forecasting of specific events is incredibly complex, with satellites looking at features on the Sun including sunspot activity on the Sun’s surface from around 93million miles away. However, the Sun has a natural rhythm, called the solar cycle, which drives varying levels of activity, with the next peak due in 2024. This cycle works on around an 11-year cycle from one solar maximum to the next maximum.
Met Office Space Weather Manager Simon Machin explained: “While the solar cycle doesn’t help determine specific space weather events, what it does is help our forecasters understand the context of their forecasts.
“In its simplest terms, the solar cycle is linked to the number and intensity of sunspots that are visible on the surface of the Sun. This affects the likelihood of space weather events impacting the Earth.”
The last solar minimum, when the Sun’s activity was at its lowest in the cycle, occurred in December 2019, with the Space Weather Predictions Center (SWPC) now predicting that the solar maximum will occur in 2024.
However, as Simon explains, the passing of solar maximum doesn’t mean that further space weather events won’t occur.
“One of the curious things about the solar maximum is that it’s not possible to declare it has occurred until after it has happened and when you observe that reduction in sunspot activity,” said Simon.
“We know that the solar maximum increases the chances of space weather events impacting the Earth, but even as you move away from it as get through 2024 into 2025 and beyond, the Sun will continue to emit solar flares and geomagnetic storms. This means that further auroral displays are likely, as well as an ongoing chance of potentially impactful space weather events, even as we move towards the next solar minimum.”
MOSWOC is one of a handful of 24/7 space weather prediction centres around the world, constantly looking for signs that the Sun’s activity could impact the Earth. By providing warning of these events reaching the Earth, mitigations can be taken by key industries to avoid some of the most severe impacts from extreme space weather events.
Find out more about the Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre or view the latest Met Office Space Weather forecast.
There has been much coverage of the weather in recent weeks with what has so far felt like an unusually stormy autumn and winter, followed by a spell of extremely cold weather with impacts from snow and ice for many, and then on Sunday (28/01/24) a new provisional maximum temperature record for the UK for January was recorded in northwest Scotland.
To understand what has been happening over the last few months and what we might expect for the coming months, we need to look at the weather outside the UK. Global weather is interconnected and large-scale global weather and climate systems, known as climate drivers, can have major impacts on the UK at this time of year. So, what are these drivers and what are they doing at the moment?
Climate Drivers
El Niño, the naturally occurring warming of the Pacific Ocean, releases heat into the atmosphere, creating warmer and wetter air which can trigger extreme weather around the globe, resulting in impacts such as the ongoing drought in the Amazon.
As we are all aware, so far this winter, the UK, has had a wet and stormy December followed by a colder spell in January. This type of weather is consistent with what we would expect during an El Niño winter. Although we are now in a milder interlude with westerly and southerly winds, the long-range outlook still contains a good chance of a return to colder conditions.
Earlier this month the Met Office announced that globally, 2023 was the warmest year on record (data back to 1850), and it was the tenth successive year that has equalled or exceeded 1.0 °C above the pre-industrial period (1850-1900). Professor Adam Scaife, Principal Fellow and Head of Monthly to Decadal Prediction at the Met Office, said: “The above average temperatures have been driven largely by climate change but are topped up by El Niño. During an El Niño event, winds in the eastern Pacific weaken, keeping warm waters closer to the surface releasing more heat into the atmosphere and raising global temperature.
“The ongoing Amazon drought and wet conditions in parts of Northern Europe in December are also consistent with El Niño.”
Although El Niño has likely peaked in the tropics, its impacts are still being felt around the globe and Professor Adam Scaife, added: “The phenomenon could well lead to unprecedented global temperatures this year, with 2024 being the hottest year on record globally, potentially pushing the world temporarily past the key 1.5C warming milestone.”
El Niño is not the only factor driving our weather patterns. Other drivers influencing the UK this winter include the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO). This is a regular variation of the winds that blow high above the equator. The QBO is currently in an easterly phase, increasing the chance of cold northerly or easterly winds from the Arctic and continental Europe. The Stratospheric Polar Vortex, has tended to be weaker than normal so far this winter but its strength has now returned to around average, and its influence is likely to be limited in the immediate future. An active Madden-Julian Oscillation favours westerly winds over the UK during early February but then a reduction in westerly winds during mid and late February.
All these effects are happening on a background of warming UK winters, consistent with wider global warming trends.
Taking the ‘global drivers’ into consideration, our long-range forecast systems suggest February will start off mild, with the chance of cold weather increasing as we go through the month and into March. This means we could yet see some cold weather-related impacts such as snow and ice. This increased chance of cold does not exclude the possibility of milder conditions.
Despite any speculation you may read elsewhere, the science simply does not allow for specific detail on the amount of rain or snow over the coming months or exactly when severe weather may occur. However, long-range forecasts can provide useful information on the likelihood of possible conditions averaged over the whole of the UK.
The science of longer-range and seasonal outlooks is at the cutting edge of meteorology and the Met Office is one of the leaders in scientific research in the area. Even with ‘perfect’ prediction systems, the fundamentally chaotic nature of the atmosphere means these predictions will always be concerned with the likelihood of different kinds of possible weather conditions and the levels of risk of impacts they might bring. Even with ‘perfect’ prediction systems, the fundamentally chaotic nature of the atmosphere means these predictions will always be concerned with the likelihood of different kinds of possible weather conditions and the levels of risk of impacts they might bring.
You can check the long range forecast and daily weather forecast on our website. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook, as well as on our mobile app which is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from the Google Play store. Our three-month outlooks are updated each month. Keep track of current weather warnings on the weather warning page.
Storm name number ten was given when Jocelyn was named hot on the heels of Isha in what has felt like an unusually stormy autumn and winter for the UK. But why have there been so many named storms, and are there underlying factors at play?
Storm Jocelyn is the tenth storm named since 1 September 2023 by the Met Office’s storm naming group, which includes Met Eireann and KNMI.
The storm name season runs from 1 September to August the following year, with a new alphabetised list of names released at the start of September each year.
Since storm naming was introduced in 2015 to improve the communication of severe weather events, the furthest through the list the group has got is to Storm Katie, which impacted the UK in March 2016.
2023/24’s storm naming season is now just one name away from equalling 2015/16’s number of named storms, with over seven months still to go until the list is reset again.
Storms are named when they’re likely to cause ‘medium’ or ‘high’ impacts in Ireland, the UK or the Netherlands. They’re named to raise awareness of severe weather and help people to prepare themselves so that impacts can be minimised.
To look at why the last few months have had a stormy theme, we need to look at one of the drivers of the UK weather; the jet stream.
Met Office Meteorologist and Presenter Annie Shuttleworth explained: “While we have had some drier and calmer interludes, the stormy nature of the UK’s autumn and winter so far is chiefly dictated by the position and strength of the jet stream, which is a column of air high up in the atmosphere.
“The jet stream greatly influences the weather we experience in the UK and during recent months this has largely been directed towards the UK and Ireland, helping to deepen low pressure systems. These systems have been directed towards the UK and have eventually become named storms due to the strong winds and heavy rain they bring.”
More recently, a pool of very cold air has sunk southwards across North America. The temperature contrast here has intensified the jet stream influencing the development of Storms Isha and Jocelyn.
As storms have only been named by the Met Office since 2015, using the storm name list to assess the impact of climate change isn’t statistically robust because the time period is far too short. Climate scientists typically use long-running datasets that compare decades and centuries to assess the impact of human emissions on long-term weather and climate trends.
In addition, storms are named by meteorological organisations subjectively based on their likely impacts, so it’s not an objective observation-based dataset in terms of measuring the effects of climate change.
One reason people might perceive there to be more storms could be the increase in media and social media coverage when impactful weather is around compared to historical weather events.
However, the Met Office’s long-term climate statistics do give a view of impactful weather in the UK in previous decades.
If you ignore the introduction of named storms in 2015 and look at the longer term Met Office UK climate statistics, it remains hard to detect trends in the number and severity of wind events in the UK.
Dr. Amy Doherty is Science Manager of the National Climate Information Centre at the Met Office. She explained: “The UK has a history of impactful storms stretching back hundreds of years, long before the introduction of named storms in 2015.
“One thing that is clear from observations is that there’s big variability year-to-year in the number and intensity of storms that impact the UK. This large variability is related to the UK’s location at the edge of continental Europe and relatively small geographic size, so small changes in the position of the jet stream – which puts us in the path of low-pressure systems – can make a profound difference in the weather we receive.
“This large variability means that we have to be particularly cautious when analysing the data. In our observational records, it’s hard to detect any trend one way or the other in terms of number and intensity of low-pressure systems that cross the UK. While our climate overall is getting wetter, there are no compelling trends in increasing storminess in recent decades. Recent stormy seasons – such as that of 2013-2014, before the storm naming system was introduced, clearly illustrate the fundamental problem with drawing conclusions from a simple count of the number of named storms.”
Most climate projections indicate that winter windstorms will increase slightly in number and intensity over the UK as a result of climate change. However, there is medium rather than high confidence in this projection because some climate models indicate differently. Year-to-year variability in storm frequency and intensity will also continue to be a major factor in the future climate. We can be confident that the coastal impacts of windstorms, from storm surges and high waves, will worsen as the sea level rises.
After Storm Jocelyn this week, the UK will continue to see spells of wet and windy weather, especially in northern and western areas. Long range models suggest that late January and early February weather could see some drier interludes further south, while wet and windy weather remains possible in the north and west.
In terms of what this means for named storms, it’s too early to pick out when the next one might be, but there remains a chance of further impactful weather as we move through meteorological winter and into spring.
Find full information on storm name seasons from the Met Office since their creation in 2015 at the UK Storm Centre.
As shared in our recent blog post on understanding weather and climate extremes, we are seeing an increase of extreme weather around the world including in the UK. Since the industrial revolution, the average temperature of the planet has risen by around 1.26 °C (based on the suggested approach of Met Office researchers). This is a rapid change in terms of our global climate system and has already led to the changes in the extreme weather we are experiencing.
The Met Office’s dedicated team looking at weather and climate extremes has collated the latest published academic literature on severe weather in the UK in the context of our changing climate. In this blog post, Climate Extremes Principal Fellow and Chief Meteorologist Paul Davies shares some of the findings from that work.
The frequency and intensity of heatwaves have increased worldwide. A number of major heatwaves in the UK have occurred in the past 5 years (2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022), each seeing new temperature records set. Notably the England record has been set three times over. Numerous climate attribution studies have shown that human influences have increased the chances of occurrence of specific extreme heat events such as the summer of 2018 and July 2022. Almost all studies on extreme heat events indicate human influence.
Looking ahead, the headline findings from UK Climate Projections (UKCP) indicate that on average, summers will become hotter. Met Office UKCP Local projections indicate that hot spells will become more frequent in our future climate, particularly over the south-east of the UK, with temperatures projected to rise in all seasons.
In the recent climate, it has generally become wetter, particularly during winter. The winters of 2014, 2016 and 2020 are all in the top five wettest (the other winters being 1995 and 1990). One reason for this is the large annual, seasonal and decadal variability in rainfall, but in winter the emerging climate change signal resulting from increased atmospheric moisture is an important secondary factor. Rainfall totals on the wettest days have increased, this is more strongly linked to climate change.
In the future, climate projections for the UK indicate there being a greater risk of heavy precipitation and prolonged events in the future, particularly during winter.
As the atmosphere warms due to human induced climate change it can hold more moisture, at a rate of around 7% more moisture for every degree of warming. This means that when it does rain it can be more intense. On a simple level, this explains why in many regions of the world projections show an increase in precipitation as a consequence of human induced climate change.
In the recent climate, trends in short rainfall events lasting less that one day are difficult to detect, due to historically sparse sub-daily observations and natural year-to-year and decade-to-decade variability. Extreme precipitation associated with thunderstorms, is, however, projected to intensify with climate change.
In the future, rainfall events exceeding 20mm per hour, which can cause flash flooding, are expected to be four times as frequent by the 2070s compared to the 1980s, under a high emissions scenario i.e., if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated at a high level. Changes are not projected to happen gradually, but instead extreme years with lots of events could tend to cluster. When and by how much these changes are projected to occur varies in different regions of the UK.
In the recent climate, there is no evidence of positive or negative trends in windstorm number or intensity over the UK. Trends in windstorm numbers are difficult to detect, due to how these naturally vary year-to-year and decade-to-decade. As well as wind damage, windstorms can cause impacts from storm surges and high waves in coastal areas. These are expected to worsen as sea level rises.
Most climate projections indicate that winter windstorms will increase slightly in number and intensity over the UK i.e., more winter storms, including disproportionately more severe storms. However, there is medium rather than high confidence in this projection because some climate models indicate differently.
Whilst there have been observed changes in the drivers of drought in the UK, there is much less evidence of trends in many drought metrics at present. However, the impact of extreme hot periods in summer has been noticeable in recent years (2018 and 2022) and shows the impact rising temperatures can have on water supply and demand.
Currently, there are no UK climate attribution studies available that clearly link human induced climate change with an altered risk of drought events. However, attribution studies have been carried out for extreme temperature events, which can lead to increases in evaporation, drier soil and considerable impacts on water supplies.
Most studies into our future climate point towards general increases in frequency and length of meteorological drought for the UK. This general rainfall deficit can exacerbate other forms of drought such as hydrological drought or agricultural drought, but these other forms of drought can have other drivers such as groundwater storage, drier soil and low river flows.
Despite the warming climate, extreme cold events still occur in the UK due to natural variability. The decrease in the frequency, duration, and intensity of these events over recent decades is clearly linked to the observed warming of the planet and can be attributed to human activity. For example, attribution studies have found that the unusually cold European winter of 2009/2010, UK cold snap in March 2018 (which included the event widely known as the Beast from the East) and the cold UK spring of 2013 would be much more likely without human influence on the climate.
The number of air and ground frost days in recent years has also decreased, with 4% fewer days of air frost in the most recent decade (2013-2022) than the 1991–2020 average, and 15% fewer than the 1961–1990 average. 2013-2022 also had 7% fewer days of ground frost than the 1991-2020 average and 24% fewer than the 1961-1990 average.
Future UK winter climate will still be variable year to year, so severely cold winters are still likely to occur – just less often – so it is important to remain resilient to severe winters when they do occur. Snow in the UK is very conditional on the setup of the weather; it is not just low temperatures that lead to snow. Overall, projections show that the frequency of snow events will decrease in the UK in future. There is less certainty about the intensity of future snow events due to more complex atmospheric interactions.
Mitigating against a changing climate by reducing greenhouse gas emissions is critical to limiting warming which would help us avoid the worst impacts of climate change. We also need to adapt to the climate changes we are already seeing and the changes that are expected in the coming decades to make sure we avoid the most significant impacts.
Action is required across all levels of society – to find out more about how you can make a difference, take a look at our Get Climate Ready webpages.
Follow the #GetClimateReady hashtag on X (formerly Twitter) to learn more about weather and climate extremes this month.
Climate change is, as expected, leading to an increase in extreme weather, including in the UK. The latest State of the UK Climate report, published in July 2023 and providing a look back at 2022, highlighted a year of extremes. 2022 was shown to be the warmest year in the UK series from 1884, 0.9 °C above the 1991–2020 average, and included the first time 40 °C was recorded in the UK. Earlier this month, we also announced that 2023 was provisionally the second warmest year on record for the UK. Records also show that the UK is getting wetter, and heavy rainfall exceeding 50mm has become more frequent in the autumn. A warmer, moister atmosphere increases the capacity for deluges of rain, which can result in serious flooding.
In recognition of this increase in extremes and a need to continue to improve predictions of extreme weather and to assess its impacts, last year we formed a team of experts from across the Met Office to focus on the links between climate change and weather extremes. Ultimately this team seeks to help the public, industry, business, and local and national government deal with extreme weather and remain safe and resilient in a changing climate.
As the UK’s national weather service, forecasting the weather is the Met Office’s core business, but combining this with world-leading climate science from the Met Office Hadley Centre means that we can provide seamless scientific expertise across weather and climate timescales.
The new team is co-ordinating and developing a trans-disciplinary approach across the Met Office and our partners, with the team itself bringing together different areas of expertise. Headed up by Climate Extremes Principal Fellow and Chief Meteorologist Paul Davies, the team also includes experts in climate monitoring, weather and climate extremes and the Met Office’s first Socio-Meteorologist.
A key role of the new team is to help provide the context around extreme weather. Increasingly, the public, media, industry and government are asking questions about whether particular weather trends or extreme weather events are due to climate change or part of the natural variability of UK weather. One of the key initial tasks of the team last year was to collate the latest science on different weather extremes for the UK, helping provide colleagues with the right information they needed to answer some of these questions. We’ll be exploring some of the top-level findings of this work in another blog post later this month.
In the midst of a severe weather event, we often get asked whether this has been caused by climate change. Our team of experts has been building on the high levels of expertise in attribution science from within the Met Office, to help provide quicker answers to these questions without moving away from the scientific rigour of attribution studies. You can learn more about attributing extreme weather to climate change on our website.
As well as bringing together the science of weather and climate, understanding the impacts of extreme weather and climate change is critical to improving resilience. Through a process of reviewing extreme events and considering the likelihood of unprecedented extremes, Paul Davies’ team is helping to bring together information that will assist all parts of society in preparing for and adapting to extreme weather. We know that extreme weather due to our changing climate is already happening and will continue to happen in the years to come, so building resilience is critical.
Building resilience is one part of the puzzle in how we can tackle climate change, but adaptation needs to go hand in hand with mitigation. Deep and rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions will help reduce the likelihood of the most severe impacts of climate change.
Action is required across all levels of society – to find out more about how you can make a difference, take a look at our Get Climate Ready webpages.
Follow the #GetClimateReady hashtag on X (formerly Twitter) to learn more about weather and climate extremes this month.
Will the current cold spell last or will we see a return to the wet and windy weather we experienced through the Christmas and new year period?
After the unsettled Christmas and New Year period we are now seeing an abrupt change to much colder weather with temperatures below average for January for much of the UK and an increasing chance of cold weather impacts. Frost is likely overnight and, given the ground moisture, calm conditions, and long nights, there is also a risk of fog and icy conditions.
As always, there is a great deal of speculation about how long the cold spell might last and how cold it might get. To answer these questions, we need to look beyond the UK. When looking at forecasts beyond five days into the future, global weather can have significant impacts on the UK weather and can drive persistent weather patterns here.
World weather is interconnected, and longer-range forecasts rely on slowly varying aspects of the global weather and climate system, known as climate drivers. There are large scale global drivers which we know have influences on UK weather at this time of year – so what are these doing at the moment?
A strong El Niño, the naturally occurring warming of the Pacific Ocean, is now fully developed. This increases the likelihood that the second half of winter and early spring will be colder and drier than the first half.
There is also a Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) underway, but this is currently a minor event as the stratospheric winds are only expected to weaken and are not expected to fully reverse. Even so, this could still impact weather at the earth’s surface as the Stratospheric Polar Vortex is very weak compared to its usual strong westerly state and it is also still possible that a major SSW could occur later this winter.
A SSW can result in a ‘blocked’ weather pattern for the UK, leading to a reduction in Atlantic low pressure systems crossing the UK and therefore, increasing the chance of cold, dry weather here and mild, wet and windy conditions for southern Europe. However, the impacts of an SSW on UK weather can also be benign, it does not always lead to cold weather.
Professor Adam Scaife, Head of Long-Range Forecasting at the Met Office, said: “The current weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex tallies with our forecasts for more blocked, colder and drier conditions in the coming month.”
Another factor influencing the UK this winter is the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), a regular variation of the winds that blow high above the equator. The QBO is currently in an easterly phase, increasing the likelihood of cold northerly or easterly winds from the Arctic and continental Europe.
Meanwhile the North Atlantic Oscillation, variations in the large-scale surface pressure gradient in the North Atlantic region, is moving into a negative phase. This reduces the risk of storms and also increases the risk of colder weather. The current pattern of sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean is yet another driver which, at this time, is conducive to a reduction in the chance of storm bearing westerly winds.
All these effects are happening on a background of warming UK winters, consistent with wider global warming trends.
Therefore, taking all these ‘global drivers’ into consideration, our long-range forecast systems suggest that there is an increased chance of colder than average conditions compared to normal as we head through the rest of this winter with an increasing risk of cold weather impacts such as snow and ice.
It is important to remember that the science of longer-range and seasonal outlooks is at the cutting edge of meteorology and comes with inherent uncertainties. While the Met Office is one of the leaders in scientific research in the area, even with ‘perfect’ prediction systems and ‘perfect’ meteorological observations, the fundamental chaotic nature of the atmosphere will still limit the skill of these predictions.
Despite any speculation you may read elsewhere the science at this time simply does not allow for specific detail on the amount of rain or snow over the coming months or exactly when severe weather may occur. However, long-range forecasts can provide useful information on the likelihood of possible conditions averaged over the UK for the season as a whole.
You can check the long range forecast and daily weather forecast on our website. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook, as well as on our mobile app which is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from the Google Play store. Our three-month outlooks are updated each month. Keep track of current weather warnings on the weather warning page.
With temperature and rainfall records broken, red warnings issued and a flurry of named storms, 2023 has been another eventful year of weather for the UK.
While the full year’s provisional weather and climate statistics will be available on 2 January, along with the full UK State of the Climate Report later in 2024, we take a look back at the moments that defined 2023’s weather.
With eight of the 12 months of the year warmer than average, 2023 will go down as one of the five warmest years on record for the UK, though the position for the full year will be announced on 2 January. This means the five warmest years in the UK series from 1884 include 2020, 2022 and 2023 – an indication of just how fast our climate continues to change.
As well as being much warmer than average, it has been a wetter than average year for most areas except western Scotland while for England and Northern Ireland this will be one of the ten wettest years on record in a series from 1836. Some areas have seen more than a quarter more rainfall than normal.
Met Office Senior Scientist Mike Kendon said: “The UK’s highly variable weather means that every year is different. However, there are clearly some common themes: firstly, our climate is continuing to change dramatically – 2023 has been yet another very warm year, as well as wetter than average – and we expect this to continue in future decades. Secondly, we have broken a number of high temperature and rainfall records over the year, and this pattern is also consistent with our changing climate. Finally, as with every year, we have seen some extreme and impactful weather, particularly the run of named storms through the Autumn and in December.
“2023 will be one of the five warmest years on record for the UK, although its exact position in the provisional figures will be confirmed in the new year.”
The lion’s share of warm, dry, settled, sunny weather during the summer occurred in June – this being the warmest summer month (the last time this occurred was in 1966). Temperatures exceeded 30°C in the UK on five days in June, only one in July and none at all in August, with the highest summer maximum a modest 32.2°C compared to last year’s unprecedented 40.3°C.
June 2023 was confirmed as the hottest June on record for the UK, something that was made more likely due to climate change, according to a Met Office attribution study.
The average mean temperature of 15.8°C in the month eclipsed the previous record for the Junes of 1940 and 1976 by 0.9°C, a huge margin. The UK monthly mean temperature was 2.5°C above the 1991-2020 average, this being the highest monthly anomaly since December 2015. Met Office scientists found that the chances of surpassing the previous record of 14.9°C had more than doubled since the period around 1940 due to human-induced climate change.
Unusually, the two most prolonged spells of fine weather occurred in June and September, separated by rather unsettled weather in July and August, including two named storms.
The early September heatwave saw temperatures exceeding 30°C somewhere in the UK for a run of seven consecutive days, a UK record. This resulted in the UK’s joint-warmest September on record for the UK – and the warmest for England and Wales – in series which go back to 1884.
Temperatures peaked at 33.5°C at Faversham on 10 September, in what was the highest temperature recorded in the UK in 2023 – only the fifth time this has occurred in September in observational records.
With the UK’s sixth wettest March, sixth wettest July and equal sixth wettest October on record in series from 1836, overall this has been a wet year for most areas.
At the start of 2023, following the recording breaking warmth and relative lack of rainfall in 2022, water scarcity and drought were in the headlines. Through 2023, rainfall amounts were tracking relatively close to average, with drier spells in February and June compensated for by wet weather in March and July. Autumn rainfall has brought rainfall amounts to above average for most of the UK, following some notable and impactful rain, especially in the east of Scotland.
Eastern Scotland had its wettest October on record, chiefly led by the exceptional rainfall brought on by Storm Babet.
Storms have been named by the Met Office since 2015 in a joint initiative between the Met Office, Met Eireann and KNMI (the Irish and Dutch national weather services), to better communicate warnings of severe weather. For the 2022/23 season (from September 2022 to August 2023), the first storm to be named by the group happened in August 2023 – the longest wait since storm naming was introduced in the UK. However, Storms Otto and Noa, which were named by other storm naming groups, did impact the UK earlier in the year.
Seven storms have been named by the Met Office’s group since 1 September, the fastest start to a storm naming season since it began in 2015, with the run of seven storms including Agnes (late September), Babet (mid-October), Ciaran (start of November), Debi (mid-November), Elin and Fergus (early December) and Gerrit (late December).
Storm Babet occurred during a prolonged period of very wet, unsettled weather and shortly after Scotland’s wettest 2-day period on record on 6 to 7 October. Two red warnings for rain were issued by the Met Office, covering parts of eastern Scotland. For the county of Angus – coinciding with a red warning area – 19 October 2023 was, by a wide margin, the wettest day on record in a series from 1891. Babet caused widespread, extensive and severe flooding in many areas of all four nations.
2023 had several cold snaps, in the second half of January, early March and early December, with hard frosts and snow causing significant disruption at times (for example -16.0°C at Altnaharra, Sutherland on 9th March and 32cm at Buxton in Derbyshire on 10th March).
2023 also had an official White Christmas, which is defined as one snowflake falling in the UK on 25 December, though this was confined largely to high ground in the north of Scotland.
Winter 2023 was drier, sunnier and slightly milder than average, with February particularly dry across England and Wales.
Spring 2023 brought into focus the shifting rainfall patterns around the UK; March was very wet in the south, in contrast May was drier than average in the north and west.
Summer 2023 was warmer and wetter than average with a record-breaking June.
Autumn 2023 was milder and wetter than average, with a fine start, a very wet October and a run of named storms.
December 2023 and the whole year’s provisional stats will be published on 2 January, with the full UK State of the Climate Report planned to be released later in 2024.
As we head towards Christmas there is, as always, a great deal of media and public speculation about what weather we might have in store for the festive season as well as the rest of winter.
Starting with Christmas and the all-important question of whether it will be a white or not. Wintry showers are expected in the north which could technically make it a white Christmas, as we only need to see a single snowflake falling, but any lying snow will probably be confined to the mountains of Scotland. Elsewhere, showers are likely to fall mostly as rain, and so it’s unlikely that we will see widespread or settling snow this year. So although technically it might be a white Christmas in a few places, don’t get your hopes up for a picture-perfect white landscape. Looking towards the New Year, the weather looks to remain unsettled with low pressure bringing periods of breezy and wet weather for many.
To answer questions about the rest of winter, we need to look beyond the UK. The worlds’ weather is interconnected, and there are large scale global drivers which we know have influences on UK weather at this time of year – so what are these doing at the moment?
A strong El Niño, the naturally occurring warming of the Pacific Ocean, is underway. This increases the likelihood that the second half of winter and early spring will be colder and drier than the first half.
The Stratospheric Polar Vortex is also weakening, which increases the chances of a Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW). A SSW often makes the jet stream (5 to 7 miles above the Earth) meander more, which can lead to the development of a large area of high pressure over northern Europe at the Earth’s surface. This can ‘block’ the Atlantic low pressure systems, which often bring mild, wet and windy weather, from crossing the UK. Therefore, increasing the chance of cold, dry weather here and mild, wet and windy conditions for southern Europe. However, the impacts of an SSW on UK weather can also be benign, it does not always equate to cold weather, for example, in 2019, there was an SSW but little impact on the weather for the UK and NW Europe.
Stratospheric Polar Vortex strength 19 December 2023
Professor Adam Scaife, Head of Long-Range Forecasting at the Met Office, said: “There is an increased chance of an SSW occurring later this winter. Although any impacts will become clearer nearer the time, any effect on UK weather is most likely to occur in January and February.”
Another factor also influencing the UK this winter is the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), a regular variation of the winds that blow high above the equator. It is currently in an easterly phase which also increases the likelihood of an SSW. Meanwhile, the current pattern of sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean is also conducive to a reduction in the chance of westerlies. These effects are on a background of warming UK winters, consistent with wider global warming trends.
The science of longer-range and seasonal outlooks is at the cutting edge of meteorology and the Met Office is one of the leaders in scientific research in the area. However, even with ‘perfect’ prediction systems and ‘perfect’ meteorological observations, the fundamental chaotic nature of the atmosphere will still limit the skill of these predictions. Although, the science does not allow for specific detail on the amount of rain or snow over the coming months or exactly when severe weather may occur, long-range forecasts can provide useful information on the likelihood of possible conditions averaged over the UK for the season as a whole.
You can check the long range forecast and daily weather forecast on our website. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook, as well as on our mobile app which is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from the Google Play store. Our three-month outlooks are updated each month. Keep track of current weather warnings on the weather warning page.
Since the Paris Agreement at COP21 in December 2015, the 1.5°C target as a limit for global warming is much discussed, but why 1.5°C?
Where did the 1.5°C target come from?
The concept of identifying a threshold for climate change has existed for over 30 years. Article 2 of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) states:
“The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
A key consideration is around the definition of the term ‘dangerous’ in this context of anthropogenic climate change. A vast array of scientific research has been conducted looking at a wide range of topics considering the environment (coral bleaching, ice sheet stability, food and water security, forests & vegetation) and also the point at which climate tipping points could occur. Through the 1990s and early 2000s several nations determined that a good target with respect to Article 2 commitments and considerations around climate vulnerabilities was 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, to prevent worsening and potentially irreversible effects of climate change. This 2 °C target was agreed as a goal at COP16 in Cancun.
Research commissioned by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), in addition to further research and understanding of the impacts of climate change on sea level rise (including committed sea level rise from warming that has already occurred), resulted in a growing concern around future sea level at a 2 °C target. These concerns for AOSIS and other climate vulnerable countries building on scientific evidence from the IPCC 5th Assessment Report (including other impacts such as temperature extremes) fed into an expert led process under UNFCCC assessing the evidence related to 2 °C and found the 2 °C “guardrail” concept to be inadequate.
On 12 December 2015, the 196 parties at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21 – the UNs climate summit) adopted the Paris Agreement, which stated a goal to hold “The increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.”
As well as the goal of a 1.5 °C limit becoming a stated target, the agreement stated “well below 2 °C” a change in tone from previous limits “of 2 °C”. The period defined as representing the “pre-industrial levels” was 1850-1900.
Does half a degree make any difference?
Figure 1 shows the differences in global mean warming over the whole year for a world that stabilises at either 1.5 °C, 2 °C or 4 °C. There are stark differences between the 2 °C and 4 °C worlds as you would well expect, but there are also noticeable differences between the 2 °C and 1.5 °C futures. In all three different warming level futures, the distribution of the amount of warming is varied across the world with a consistent pattern in all three futures. The greatest warming is projected over high latitudes, and on land compared to oceans in the mid-latitudes and tropics.
Comparing the 1.5 °C and 2 °C worlds, the distribution of warming is consistent between the two different futures. However, the magnitude of some of these changes can also be quite large. There are some noticeable changes in the high Arctic particularly for the Russian and Canadian Arctic coastlines, with increases in warming of 2 to 4 °C for these regions. Elsewhere, there are increases of around 1 to 1.5 °C in the USA, Europe, parts of Australia and the Antarctic seas, while in South America, Saharan Africa, Southern Africa, the Middle East and central Asia increases could be around 2 °C.
From Paris to present
As a response to the Paris Agreement, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was commissioned to produce a Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C. The report indicated that crossing the 1.5 °C threshold risks the occurrence of far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves, and rainfall. The report noted higher impacts on biodiversity and the number of species extinctions (both on land and in the ocean) and a 10 cm higher rise in global mean sea level in the 2 °C compared to the 1.5 °C future world.
To assess the progress of countries towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, each year countries release their Nationally Determined Contributions, the promises each country makes outlining their pathway to Net Zero, with each five-year cycle of reporting seeing increasingly ambitious targets. You can review the 2023 report from the UNFCCC here.
Pathways to 1.5 °C
The Special Report also discussed the pathways to 1.5 °C future, and the associated risks of any overshoots in these pathways. Based on climate model projections produced for the report, the mean time by which the world needs greenhouse gas emissions to peak is before 2025 with a decline of 43% (relative to 2019) by 2030, with Net Zero reached by 2050.
A single year?
For the year to date, 2023 looks well on course to become the warmest year on record, and predictions for the next five years indicate a 66% chance of one of those years exceeding 1.5 °C. As such, it is useful to understand how an individual year greater than 1.5 °C sits within the concept of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. Essentially, the question being: “If we have a year warmer than this threshold, then has the target already been missed?”
The simple answer is no. We have seen individual months above 1.5 °C and in November 2023 some days above 2 °C, these events, even an individual year above 1.5 °C would not constitute a breach of the Paris Agreement goal. However, as recently highlighted in a paper by Met Office scientists led by Richard Betts highlighted that the concept of a 1.5 °C world not formally defined in the Paris Agreement, and outlined different approaches that could be used to define a formal metric in the future.
A standard approach* within climate science would be to define it based on a climatological mean of 1.5 °C, which would be defined over a period of 20 years. Using this approach and using the HadCRUT dataset, the most recent 20-year period (2003-2022) has a 20-year global mean temperature anomaly of 1.03 °C warmer than the pre-industrial period of 1850-1900. Within this period, individual year temperatures have ranged from 0.81 °C (2004 & 2008) to 1.27 °C (2016) warmer than the pre-industrial period.
The variability around the mean temperature is representative of the role of natural variability within the Earth’s climate (for example, the warming effect of El Niño vs the cooling effect of La Niña). A 1.5 °C future world will also experience these variations and therefore there will be years when the climate is warmer and years when the world is cooler than 1.5 °C.
But, this same variability also means that in our present-day climate an individual year of 1.5 °C (or warmer) does not mean that we have reached the threshold of a 1.5 °C climate future. However, it is worth considering that whilst exceeding 1.5°C for a month or a year doesn’t represent a failure to achieve the longer-term Paris Agreement target, it does indicate that we are getting closer, and urgent action is needed to mitigate future warming and to adapt to increasing climate risks.
[1] – The recent paper by Betts et al. highlighted the risk of this approach that it results in a delay to the recognition of a threshold being crossed, in the case of a 20-year mean, this is around 10 years delay. They highlighted that current IPCC research indicates that the 1.5 °C future will be reached in 2030, but the 20-year mean approach won’t allow this to be formally recognised until 2040.
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