🌍 Postdoc research opportunity: Predictability and Climate Dynamics - University of Oxford, UK 📚 The position sits within the Predictability of Weather and Climate and Climate Dynamics research groups in Oxford’s Department of Physics. @timwoollings.bsky.social @oxfordphysics.bsky.social 🧵

06Z GFS has remarkably persistent Greenland blocking for the full run, and a very weak stratospheric vortex by the end of it too. Posting this just for fun, but falls within what seems to be the range of possible outcomes based on recent modelling.

What is it that possesses someone to hold a phone call **on speakerphone** on an otherwise silent bus?

A damaging hurricane in a warmer world How would a major hurricane that hit Jamaica in 1903 be different today, in a warmer world? It would drop more rain. (At least) climatelabbook.substack.com/p/a-damaging...

Alrighty, ready to see something really cool? (and maybe a little nauseating) The evolution of Hurricane Melissa's mesovortices at peak strength.

1-minute #GOES19/#GOESEast Visible images showed that soon after making landfall, the eye of Hurricane #Melissa became cloud-filled as the storm interacted with higher terrain on the western edge of Jamaica.

Insane. This is Hurricane #Melissa seen right near landfall by the Copernicus / @esa.int Sentinel-2C satellite. It looks so beautiful, and it's hard to comprehend how much destruction a hurricane like this can cause. Best wishes to everyone in Jamaica.

One factor that supported Melissa reaching this record: an Argo float southeast of Jamaica shows a dramatic decrease in upper-level ocean temperature before (18 Oct) and after (28 Oct) the storm. My heart goes out to the folks in Jamaica facing this powerful hurricane's numerous hazards today. 💔

219-kt peak wind would be the highest wind value a dropsonde has ever recorded, ahead of 215-kt value in Super Typhoon Megi in 2010 & the 210 kt recorded just yesterday in #Hurricane #Melissa. Still needs to be validated… so this data is preliminary.

Literal chills seeing the latest data for Melissa

This storm is a testament to what can happen if a hurricane doesn't blow out its eyewall too quickly. Melissa didn't seem to develop the unstable pinhole eye true of many cat 5 storms. And of course a testament to the power of weather prediction that we can forecast these things days in advance.

This meso loop of #Melissa from CIRA is absolutely stunning at it makes its closes in on landfall in southwestern Jamaica. rammb-data.cira.colostate.edu/tc_realtime/... #hurricanemelissa

Those radially propagating gravity waves 😍

The NHC forecast for Melissa at 15 UTC today was the first time they have ever projected a hurricane to reach 130kt at 96 hours, starting from a 40kt storm. Projecting 130kt at 96 hours is rare, just in general.

“…there is a distinct possibility that Melissa could become a Category 5 hurricane during this time period. In fact, the latest 12z Google DeepMind ensemble distribution shows the majority of its members reaching this lofty intensity.”

QBOi-SNAP-QUOCA workshop: improved simulations of the stratosphere for better predictions of weather, climate and extreme events Meeting report from the @wcrpclimate.bsky.social APARC workshop in Cambridge earlier this year Free to view in @rmets.org Weather: doi.org/10.1002/wea....

I often find myself confused by some app forecasts where the icon is rain, but the stated probability of precipitation is small (e.g., 30%). So it's more likely to be dry but... the expectation is (somehow) rain? Or is the icon just flagging a risk? Do non-meteorologists actually think about this?

A named storm. But maybe not. But maybe it will be, but maybe not because of impacts in the UK. And maybe it will have a name from our list, or someone else’s list. Bram or Benjamin. And if it isn’t named it might still be bad locally. www.bbc.com/weather/arti...

Can we all agree that subseasonal is one word, without a hyphen

8 AM EDT WED OCT 19 2005 "BASED ON DROPSONDE AND FLIGHT-LEVEL DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE PLANE JUST RETURNING FROM ITS MISSION IN WILMA...THE MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS ESTIMATED TO BE 882 MB...26.05 INCHES. THIS IS THE LOWEST PRESSURE ON RECORD FOR A HURRICANE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN"

Storm Amy really sticks out in an otherwise dominantly slowly-varying & anticyclonic month (until today, that is!). Pressure data from northeast Fife (~10m above sea level)

Tackling challenges of subseasonal-to-seasonal forecasting—which could transform our ability to anticipate heatwaves, flooding, wildfires, and more—requires siloed scientific communities to work together, write Jadigwa Richter and Everette Joseph of @ncar-ucar.bsky.social. eos.org/opinions/sci...

Fun mesoscale vortex in the Stratocumulus over the Irish Sea 🌀

This is definitely something worthy of quantitative analysis and experiments. It is very hard to know otherwise how much of the error was due to the lack of weather balloons. Forecast failures happen, and tropical cyclones moving into the extratropics are a common source of these.

UGH! When will it end. 😭 "Effective October 15, 2025, due to non-renewed funding, NSIDC has suspended or reduced several Sea Ice Today tools and services." nsidc.org/data/user-re...

Two headlines for the same BBC News article. One makes it much clearer this is a reference to global-mean temperatures (not UK-mean). Both unclear that they refer to 2°C total warming since preindustrial, not an additional 2°C from where we are today.

Even sunny St Andrews isn't immune from the anticyclonic gloom today ☁️

An atmospheric general circulation model you can run on a Python Jupyter notebook?! Heck yeah! Check out this project- both an educational tool for undergraduates/graduate students, and a research tool for scientists interested in idealized climate modeling. journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

Our first years headed out on their first field trip to Ruddons Point on the Fife coast this weekend – diving into Quaternary landscape evolution & sea level changes! Plenty of sunshine on the Saturday trips, but Sunday morning brought the haar (and not just the 'haar haar' response to staff jokes)

I'm teaching teleconnections & atmospheric/oceanic variability (+ a soupçon of sub/seasonal forecasting) to our Junior Honours students at the moment, so it's perfect timing to also be quoted here on forecasts for the coming season (article better than headline!) www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

Global and regional climate in 2024 🌡️📈 The latest annual assessment from the Hadley Centre @metoffice.gov.uk published in @rmets.org Weather Free to read: doi.org/10.1002/wea....

Storm Floris at 12 UTC 4 August 2025 vs. Storm Amy at 18 UTC 3 October 2025. Strikingly similar synoptic patterns and locations of the two storms separated by only two months!

And here is the percentage of the world's land area setting a new all-time monthly maximum temperature record in each decade:

The west–east temperature contrast across North America is a hallmark of the Pacific Ridge regime, which is currently at 1.5–2 standard deviations simonleewx.com/ecmwf_north_...

This is absolutely staggering.

#StormAmy boomerang loop of #Meteosat12 #MTG water vapour 6.2micron channel imagery over 36h (3-4 Oct 2025) shows extent & expansion of deep dry air intrusion, before being spun majestically around the record-breaking deep cyclone centre #VorticityInAction

Evolution of #StormAmy from 18 UTC 1 October through 12 UTC 4 October per Met Office analyses. The initial disturbance was perfectly phased with a wave in the jet, undergoing explosive cyclogenesis & evolving into a powerful Shapiro–Keyser cyclone, setting low pressure records for the time of year.

Storm Amy has brought severe disruption to Scotland with 96mph winds and widespread power outages, while setting a new October pressure record for the British Isles at 947.9hPa on Friday.

I’m a bit perplexed why Network Rail Scotland are claiming Storm Amy to have hit “much harder and more quickly than expected” — forecasts from earlier today seem correct to me; intensity shifted up from yesterday’s forecasts, conveyed in warning text mentioning gusts up to 100mph (as observed)

#StormAmy down to 952 hPa over Outer Hebrides on 18Z analysis from the Met Office, which continues the Shapiro-Keyser structure from the 12Z analysis (frontal fracture)

Aargh.. Tiree appears to have lost power for 20h (19z) SYNOP report.. (just when you want it most)

Zoomed-in a bit more

High end of the forecast wind gusts verifying with 95 mph at Tiree, Inner Hebrides #StormAmy

Remarkably rapid increase in wind speeds here in northeast Fife in last half hour – really roaring now after earlier calm. Gusts exceeding 50mph

Malin Head up to 92 mph at 16 UTC - likely gusting well over 100 mph offshore. #StormAmy

Magilligan No 2 03907 gusting 80kn, 92mph

EUMETSAT view: Current UK and Western Europe to 1600 UTC.

Gust of 89.8mph reported at Eglinton, Northern Ireland at 1520 UTC #StormAmy METAR EGAE 031520Z 23055G78KT

Storm Amy down to 964 hPa at 12 UTC, with the Met Office analysis adopting the Shapiro–Keyser cyclone model with a frontal fracture region. S-K cyclones are typically among the more intense. Sting jets can form on S-K cyclones but a sting jet is not necessary for severe wind gusts.

Hilariously frustrating listening to Mike Parry tell @hammondweather.bsky.social on Jeremy Vine that "we don't have storms in this country"... "the last storm was the Michael Fish storm... the only one in 25 years!" Someone might want to inform Mike that 1987 wasn't 25 years ago, among other things