2023-04-18 19:18:00
All forecast models announced up to 20 degrees for this Thursday, April 20. After a dark winter, the Belgians were delighted to see the good weather slowly returning. However, the forecasts suddenly changed, plunging below the bar of 10 degrees Celsius, more than 10 degrees less than announced. “A tiny probability which was finally confirmed”, explains our weather consultant Farid El Mokaddem.
It’s a cold drop of barely 200 kilometers that thwarted the forecasts of all meteorologists. The phenomenon will pass right over Belgium whereas with a slightly different trajectory, we would have passed right next to it. But what is a cold drop phenomenon and how did it appear?
An unpredictable small volume of cold air
Initially, an anticyclone developed over Scandinavia, carrying an easterly flow. This continental and dry flow from central Europe should have brought us some mildness, but that was without counting on the cold drop phenomenon. Clumps of cold air remaining from the winter have come to infiltrate this anticyclone and will arrive in Belgium by Thursday. “It’s a very small volume of cold air that moves outside of the major currents, which makes it unpredictable,” says Farid. Difficult to locate, these engulfed cold clusters inside Europe will cause temperatures to plunge aloft in their paths and right above our heads.
In summer, this kind of phenomenon would bring big storms but in April, the cold drop will only grace us with a few showers in the Ardennes and a few showers in the plains. Nothing dramatic according to our consultant: “A little melting snow is possible on the Ardennes peaks but nothing exceptional at this time”.
Today, the forecasts make it possible to sufficiently specify the phenomenon next to which all the weather models had passed until now. Thus, 9 to 10 degrees are expected this Thursday in Brussels, while much milder temperatures will be observed in Scandinavia (17 to 18 degrees in Oslo) and in the South of France (up to 25 degrees in Nice). “We will really be stuck between two much milder areas, it’s the Lotto of the weather!” quips Farid. Temperatures will then warm up on Friday, once the cold drop has passed.
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