Met Office warns over 'once in 250-year' weather event

Many across the UK have been enjoying the recent spells of sunshine that have been occurring after a cold and wet British winter.

But if you thought spring had arrived, think again as the Met Office has just issued a warning in the UK over a "once in 250-year" event set to happen.

A Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) event, which brought the Beast from the East in 2018, usually hits the UK every other year.

Technically, the winter period occurred from 23 December 2023 and will stay until 20 March. The Met Office recently warned that this winter period is the first in its observational records to see three SSW events.

The likelihood of this happening three times in one winter period according to research suggests it has a "one in 250-year chance."

What increases the likelihood of multiple SSW events happening within the same winter is if it is an El Niño winter - which this one is.

El Niño describes the warming of the sea surface temperature, which happens every few years, usually peaking during December. These types of winters lead to a colder and drier end to the season.

An SSW disrupts the normal westerly airflow 10 to 50km above the Earth. This can lead to the development of a large area of high pressure over Northern Europe at the Earth's surface, due to the strong winds meandering more.

The Met Office explains that this can block "mild, wet and wind weather" increasing the chance of "cold, dry weather."

However, the event does not always lead to a drop in temperature, with 70 per cent of SSW occurrences resulting in a cold snap. The two earlier this winter only led to "intermittent drops in temperature."

Professor Adam Scaife, Head of Long-Range Forecasting at the Met Office, said: “Although we have not seen it before, we recently documented the chances of an unprecedented three SSW events happening in one winter.

"Our research work, using multiple computer simulations, showed that this could occur about once in every 250 winters.”

He added: “Although this is very rare, we also found that the chance of multiple SSW events is increased during El Niño and so the chance of multiple events this winter is raised.”

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