ESRL composites for Europe for the first 4 pentads of December 2021 (early winter)

In this and the next Mkweather articles, we will look at early winter conditions in Europe and North America in the first 4 pentads of Winter 2021/2022.

While winter especially in northern Europe has brought legendary early coldwaves, in the USA, heatwaves with tornado outbreaks were observed (composites in the next article).

The first December 2021 decade was in Europe colder than the second, with a very cold anomaly above Scandinavia and the Baltic region, with historic minimum temperature -43,8°C in Sweden /https://mkweather.com/the-worst-predictions-came-true-sweden-427c-the-lowest-temperature-in-naimakka-in-december-in-all-time-history// and Estonia /https://mkweather.com/the-strongest-early-frosts-in-the-baltic-region-in-62-years-since-1959-tartu-estonia-276c-zoseni-latvia-264c//.

Winter in mid-latitudes and the Mediterranean weren´t so extreme, with frosts up to -22,0°C in the Alpine region, France /https://mkweather.com/220c-in-pontets-france//.

Such we should notice on outputs below, polar vortex and Mediterranean lows were gradually shifting from western Europe and western half of the Mediterranean above Balkan, Eastern Mediterranean and the northern Middle East.

High geopotential with Azores origin brought in the last pentad anomalously warm weather into northwestern Europe, up to +16,1°C in Iceland /https://mkweather.com/dalatangi-iceland-161c-only-around-05c-below-all-time-december-record-scotland-142c-norway-121c-sweden-105c//.

In the last Mkweather articles for Europe, we have investigated long-term temperature and snowfall outlooks until the end of January 2022 /https://mkweather.com/the-long-term-forecast-for-europe-until-30-january-2022/; https://mkweather.com/the-long-term-snow-forecast-for-europe-until-30-january-2022//, a blizzard conditions /https://mkweather.com/gfs-expects-extreme-blizzards-in-europe-regionally-20-70-cm-locally-up-to-1-meter-of-snow-possible/; https://mkweather.com/white-christmas-2021-and-even-whiter-new-year-2022-for-europe//, and extreme Siberian coldwaves /https://mkweather.com/europe-before-an-aggressive-siberian-blast-european-russia-50c-scandinavia-45c-central-europe-france-eastern-europe-baltic-region-turkey-30c-balkan-and-italy-25c-b/; https://mkweather.com/40-45c-frosts-in-scandinavia-after-christmas/; https://mkweather.com/20c-in-england-and-benelux-around-sylvester-31-12-2021/; https://mkweather.com/chances-for-30c-around-sylvester-2021-31-12-in-central-europe-are-still-alive/; https://mkweather.com/italy-and-balkan-with-siberian-frosts-20-25c-on-new-year-turkey-30c-around-christmas//, expected in the next period – it appears such an extremely cold weather for mid-altitudes and the Mediterranean, with lower temperatures as the previous early-winter coldwaves. It´s not clear if December temperature anomalies will be strongly affected because a peak of coldwaves is forecasted in early January 2022.

Source: https://psl.noaa.gov/data/composites/day/

Source: https://psl.noaa.gov/data/composites/day/