I must say that model watching, generally an enjoyable experience, has had me at my wits end over the last week or so! It is still enjoyable but often the tension or expectation is beyond endurance, particularly when I have had it in my head that we have probably only one more shot this winter at something very cold.

At the start of the winter I, like many others, had high hopes for a cold one, particularly after the cold end to November. Now while this winter has been interesting with a lot of frosts and some snowfall, overall it has been a catalogue of near misses and not quites. Over the coming week or so the teleconnections MAY fall into line, and the cold pool over Europe MAY expand and move closer and the block MAY start to move into the correct position for some Siberian air to head our way and the Greenland high MAY form....but then again, these things might not happen.

There can be no argument that the potential for a very cold spell, perhaps the coldest since 1991, is there, but at the moment that's all it is; potential.

And therein lies the frustration in model watching. Just like last year the GFS is showing us some really juicy set ups, always just out of the reliable timescale, and as soon as it gets within 5 or 6 days it disappears.

This current set up has all the right ingredients and taking things to an entirely non-scientific level we are LONG overdue for a good cold shot, but that theory counts for nothing. I do believe that we will get something cold later in the month and into February but that could be hope talking, especially as the last month of winter is just around the corner.

If, as most people on here fear, it doesn't happen, I feel that I shall remember this winter as 'the Big Disappointment', so near and yet.......