Is Climate Change Linked to The Lack of Winter Storms in The UK This Year?

The United Kingdom should have had around three storms by February, but no single one was reported. Weather patterns have changed, and a number of factors are at play.

Lack of Winter Storms in the UK

In previous years, Met Office would name its first storm by early December or the end of January. By February, they should have had already named three storms just like Arwen, Barra and Callum, BBC reported.

This year's lack of storms in the UK could be due to December's cold snap, partly due to what is known as a "blocking weather pattern." The pattern was over Western Europe and prevented weather systems from reaching the UK.

According to Met Office, weather fronts (which bring rain) normally move from west to east across the UK. However, they sometimes stay where they are or go in the opposite direction - from east to west - which is what they call "blocked weather."

A big area of high pressure remains stationary over the same location for a long time. In terms of the weather, under high pressure, the weather remains mainly dry and settled for a few days or perhaps weeks. However, those under weather fronds will experience wet and windy weather for a long time.

It is also likely to be due to the position of the Polar jet stream, a belt of powerful upper-level winds atop the polar front. They are the strongest at the tropopause, the upper boundary of the troposphere and move in a westerly direction in mid-latitudes.

UK's cold snap could also be due to a naturally occurring climate pattern called La Nina, a large-scale cooling in the Pacific, which is already in its third consecutive year.

High pressure is expected to keep things relatively calm across most of the UK for the first week of February, according to the recent forecast.

The northern regions of the UK will be the only ones to experience wet and windy weather should it occur.

Weather forecasts beyond a week are typically unreliable, but there are indications that it may become windier and rainier across a wider area beginning around the middle of the month.

ALSO READ: Climate Change May be Responsible for the Increase of Shark Attacks in Australia

Climate Change and Storms

According to the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), it is currently unclear whether or not there is a connection between climate change and extra-tropical cyclones, which are storms that typically affect northwest Europe.

However, they have observed fewer European windstorms in the past few decades.

On the other hand, it is a widely held belief that if we experience storms in the future, climate change will almost certainly make them more severe, with higher rainfall totals and possibly more severe impacts.

Climate scientist Deepti Singh also observed cold snaps in the Northeastern United States in late December and early January 2018. It was a similar case in Europe.

According to her, it was normal to have snaps of cold weather because it was wintertime. However, what wasn't normal was the cold weather covering a vast part of the country that persisted for a couple of weeks, according to Columbia Climate School Lamond-Doherty Earth Observatory.

She believed climate change played a role in extreme weather and powerful snowstorms. However, according to her, the global warming people are experiencing is only a fraction of what's ahead.

She added that human-induced climate change may have driven the process producing the brutal cold snap. Additionally, weather changes are linked to climate change, and the contrasting temperatures have increased in the last four decades, according to Singh.

According to the climate expert, they observed more concurrent warm conditions in the west and cool conditions in the east, and it's more likely due to human-caused climate change.