After December’s Troll from Trondheim and this week’s Nightmare from the North, the British confront what might be the worst chill of the winter: a polar vortex February Freeze.
The similar event contributed to the Beast from the East in 2018 and the Big Freeze in December 2010.
The Met Office predicted that high-altitude polar vortex winds — which encircle the North Pole and trap cold air in the Arctic – might drastically decrease the following week.
A knock-on impact is a weaker jet stream, which often provides our pleasant westerly Atlantic breezes, so allowing Arctic air to plunge into Britain almost two weeks later.
Transport executives who rely on ice and floods forecasts are turning to Met Office competitor MetDesk.
A pair of swans fly over a frozen pond in London’s Bushy Park.
Met office is once more rebuffed…
An upstart private weather service headquartered in a provincial marketplace has blocked the Met Office from important contracts.
In a further blow to the Met Office following the BBC’s defection to DTN MeteoGroup, transport bosses are now paying for winter briefings from MetDesk, which was founded in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, eleven years ago.
The company, which has 50 employees compared to the Met Office’s 2,200, has earned a £1.8 million contract with National Highways for four years and a £1 million contract with Network Rail. People will wonder, “Why isn’t the Met Office making these forecasts?” according to a source in the meteorological sector.
National Highways stated that it had a contract with the Met Office for national forecasts and alerts, although MetDesk was responsible for South and North winter road condition forecasts. DTN MeteoGroup protects the Midlands.
The Met Office stated that its “extensive” observation network was the foundation for all UK forecasts.
By mid-February, it is possible that temperatures could be even colder than this week’s -10 °C, and that snow will fall in a number of places.
There is even a 25% chance that the polar vortex will weaken to the point where it triggers a rare phenomenon known as a “sudden stratospheric warming” (SSW), in which the North Pole’s high-altitude air suddenly warms up, possibly directing an even more intense mass of bitter low-level polar air towards the United Kingdom.
An SSW would be the first since January 2021, when it brought the coldest weather in Britain in 26 years, -23 degrees Celsius, in Aberdeenshire.
Met Office forecaster Alex Deakin stated, “Computer models indicate the possibility of an SSW.”
John Hammond, a former BBC and Met Office forecaster, stated on the Weathertrending website that the polar vortex might drastically weaken, prolonging the present dry spell into February.
The good news for Brits traveling to the Alps over February half-term is that cold weather moving into Europe is expected to bring natural snow after many resorts were forced to create it artificially at the beginning of the season.
The cold wave in the United Kingdom will last until Tuesday, chilling the South with -5C lows this morning and 3C highs on sunny days. The temperature in the North will be 7 degrees Celsius, however there will be drizzle.
The United Kingdom is facing a February Freeze worse than the Troll from Trondheim.
According to the Met Office, their “extensive” observation network is the foundation for all UK forecasting.