What will the coming winter be like? Frosty as opposed to a hot summer? Or very snowy? Nature is now generous for precipitation, remember the abnormal showers on the Black Sea, and in Moscow too.
There are no unambiguous patterns, says Roman Vilfand, scientific director of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia: after a hot summer, winter can be both fierce and thaw, here the law of equilibrium does not work.
– In fact, there is no connection, – Vilfand disappoints.
Meteorologists of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia have just made a weather forecast for the entire cold half of the year, from October 2021 to March 2022. Specialists from the North Eurasian Climate Center, the Main Geophysical Observatory named after V.I. A.I. Voeikov, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Far Eastern Regional Research Hydrometeorological Institute.
Such forecasts – for six months ahead – are not at all like the weather forecast for tomorrow. They show only a deviation from the climatic norm: it will be warmer or colder every month in a particular region. But, alas, there are no specific numbers and dates – they say, January 1 in Moscow will be -10. It would be convenient, but science is not yet capable of this. And forecasts for such a long period come true with a probability of about 70%.
Let us also recall that climatic norms are different for each region. A typical December in Sochi and Murmansk is two big differences. And we are talking about comparison with the norm for each region.
NOVEMBER
Our country is northern, in many regions winter weather sets in November. This year, the last month of the calendar autumn will be warmer than the climatic norm in the Urals and most of Siberia. In November, such an anomaly will most likely please, and forecasters promise it to residents of Chelyabinsk and Tyumen, Omsk and Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk and Barnaul, Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude, Chita and Yakutsk.
East of Yakutsk – normal November, as expected by climatic norms. In the south of Russia, in the Volga region, in many Ural regions (including Yekaterinburg and Perm), late autumn will also be standard, within the normal range. But in the west and northwest – in St. Petersburg, Tver, Smolensk, Bryansk, Karelia, on the Kola Peninsula – November can be even colder than usual. But no serious negative anomalies are foreseen.
DECEMBER
In our time of global warming, you rarely see this on forecast maps – almost half of Russia is painted over in blue and light blue! Cold shades meteorologists designate areas where the temperature will be below the climatic norm. The map with the forecast for December 2021 looks exactly like this.
An intense blue zone, where December can be really frosty than usual, stretches from Kazan, Samara and Perm through Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Omsk and Novosibirsk to Tomsk and Kemerovo.
A not so chilling forecast, but nevertheless also promising cold weather at the beginning of winter – for the center of Russia, including Moscow, Tula, Ryazan, Yaroslavl, Tver, many regions of the northwest (Veliky Novgorod, Vologda, the Komi Republic), the Volga region ( Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Volgograd), and beyond the Urals – Altai, Irkutsk, Khanty-Mansiysk, as well as Chukotka.
In the rest of Russia, December weather is within normal limits.
“Maybe it’s good if the beginning of winter is frosty,” says Tatyana Pozdnyakova, chief specialist of the Moskokovsky meteorological office. – Muscovites are already used to guessing: will there be New Year with snow or with puddles? And this year, apparently, will not have to, there will be normal winter weather. But in general, in Moscow and the region, winter is expected to be warm, if we take the average temperature of three months.
JANUARY
But the year 2022 will start softly almost everywhere, the temperature will be within the climatic norm or slightly higher. The exception is the Far East, from Chukotka to Khabarovsk. There is a chance that you will have to freeze more than usual there.
FEBRUARY
Forecasters promise a very warm end of winter to the inhabitants of the western regions of the country – Kaliningrad, Smolensk and Bryansk. In the rest of the European part of Russia, as well as in Siberia, east of Chita, and the Far East, February will be as expected by climatic norms, or slightly warmer.
But from Tyumen and Salekhard to Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude, February frosts are expected either within normal limits, or slightly stronger.
WILL LA NINA REACH RUSSIA?
Forecasts for the winter are shared not only by domestic forecasters. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), in its Global Seasonal Climate Bulletins, analyzes the processes that affect the weather on virtually the entire planet. These are the El Niño / Southern Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation, and the Indian Ocean Dipole.
The main intrigue now is in the Southern Oscillation. Its essence is that the water in the tropical zone of the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Peru, temporarily becomes warmer (this is El Niño), then colder (La Niña). The phenomenon is not yet fully understood, but El Niño and La Niña clearly affect the climate of the entire Earth. Both temperature and precipitation. By the way, all the hottest years in the history of meteorological observations were recorded during El Niño. La Niña, on the other hand, cools the planet slightly. This is the most general effect; there are also more “point” effects, such as droughts and rainstorms on different continents.
“Anthropogenic climate change is exacerbating the impact of natural phenomena such as La Niña,” warns WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas.
Now the oscillation in the neutral phase is an ocean of normal temperature. But soon there is a possibility of the appearance of La Niña, in October-December or November-January. Does it all fit together, the cold is coming?
However, WMO climatologists doubt that the cold “girl” (as the name of La Niña is translated) has enough strength to overcome the warm influence of the rest of the World Ocean (and it has a powerful effect on the weather, even in far from seaside places).
Almost everywhere, both in the Atlantic, and in the Pacific Ocean, and in the Indian Ocean, the water temperature will be normal or slightly warmer until the end of 2021. In the North Atlantic, between 30 and 60 degrees north latitude and at the same latitudes in the Pacific Ocean, it is noticeably warmer. And for Russia, this is just important. Atlantic cyclones bring us thaws and snowfalls in winter. And if the Atlantic is overheated, there could be a lot of them.
Warm anomalies in the ocean are likely to lead to warm anomalies on land in October-December, according to WMO experts. And in the entire Northern Hemisphere. And they will be most noticeable in the Arctic, in the north of Asia (in other words, in Siberia and in the north of the Far East), in eastern and northern Europe (and here it is already not far from the European part of Russia.
It turns out that the forecasts contradict each other? At first glance, yes. But still we are talking about a different scale. In the forecast of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia, temperatures below normal were promised only in December. And for the entire Northern Hemisphere, a part of our country, albeit huge, may not make the weather.
