kev238

The theme is quite clear now although the detail is not Hot and sunny in the south, cloudy through northern england, more mixed in scotland. Warmth waning by friday.. Likelihood of rain or showers by the weekend with much cooler temperatures. The message is make the most of the next four days if you are south of the Humber. If you are further north the days will probably be useable; however not enough to make up for a long period of poor weather ( outside NW scotlnd)

A pretty dire ste of outputs taking us beyond MId July, with barely a sniff of summer to be had for most of the country. The weather for the week ahead looks cool and showery before a new low pressure heads in later in the week. Whilst this unsettled regime remains, further bouts of extremely wet weather look likely especially if we tap into warmer plumes from the continent. It does seem nailed on now, that the first half of summer will go down as one of the worst of the past twenty or thirty years. The models have shown small signs of improvement but these seem to have disappeared, and the Greenland high looks stubborn as ever.

The winter as a whole looks like falling into the mild category overall now. Not exceptionally so, but compared to the past three winters it has felt that way especially as the cold weather this winter was really concentrated into a two week period. The real story is going to be lack of rain for the season though, a traditional north west, south east split looks like setting up and time is ticking now to get the rain needed to avert major water shortages!

On the nottingham city transport website it says most roads in city are at a standstill... And buses are stuck all over place. This is even before the big orange blob hits. Strange as loads of salt has been spread

About 2cm where I am in Nottingham at the moment .some bus cancellations and diversions beginning in the more hilly parts of the city.

If you look at the nae accumulated precipitation it really is for period from 6pm onwards that totals ESP from brum eastwards. Therefore intensity should increase fairly soon. It certainly is getting heavier in Nottingham now. I have a feeling the Nottingham area could be one of the best places for this event!

Very fine snow faliing still in nottiingham. Still waiting for some bigger flakes!!

Fine light snow in Nottingham.... Giving a icy coating to surfaces now. It seems to be gradually closing in though and def looking good within an hour or so here I think!

The view from my city centre apartment suggests snow is about to start in Nottingham city ( had a few flurries but nothing of note as yet) as visibility has dropped out to the west and south west.

The nae has been hugely consistent with this. There is no doubt precipitation will hit the midlands and it will be cold enough for snow for all at some point.. Though lasting longer in the east. This is such a Different situation to the one before Christmas where there was huge uncertainty over the track of a southerly tracking low pressure

Some very strange comments in here. To be blunt, saturday has the potential to be a very good snow event across the whole region. For once, the midlands might be the best place to be. More margin for error towards east midlands, but generally quite hopeful all areas will see some snowfall which will be better than what most have seen in past year!

The runs this evening are very hopeful for the midlands with regards to snowfall over the weekend. Our best snowfalls are often battlegrounds, and this has the potential to be a battle rather than simply transitional. The trend night be for things to move further west so I shall be keeping a close eye on that.. Could the east midlands end up with little precipitation? At the moment the answer is no, but things are going to move over the next few days one way or another. I would say the midlands looks a good place to be at moment for snow this weekend, and there is the potential for a good fall of upwards of 8 to 10cm if things come off for us.

I think the cold option is only due around twenty ninth of this month, so any impact would be minimal on this months cet, if it did occur.. Feb is looking a very difficult month to predict.. It hasn't delivered much in recent years, although memory suggests feb 2009 had a pretty snowy week for the east midlands area!

I don't think there is going to be too much damage to the cet over next five or so days so around six degrees as we enter final week of the month. From that point on, very difficult to call although I favour a reasonably chilly final week so closer to five than six degrees at the moment. It seems like the month will be falling into the mild category again, even if there is a colder end! This could end up being a pretty mild and non descript winter if things continue in a similar vein for a few more weeks. I wonder whether it could be completely snowless like some of the bad old winters from the past twenty years or so!?

I predict a cet in the mid 5s to around 6 at this stage No clear signal for anything especially cold in any timeframe after a couple more frosty days. Indeed falls should stabilize from Wednesday onwards. If the cet remains around 6ish we will have had two mild to very mild winter months in the cet region..

Well you did use the word currently so agreed it is fourth. However, look back through the graph for the northern hemisphere and it is not simply a case of the gfs being fourth. Sometimes it is neck and neck with other models, sometime almost ahead, but at times prone to getting it badly wrong as evidenced by the obvious dips!

It will be crucial to see the way the ukmo model handles things over the weekend. The nineteenth seems to be the key day so will Be well within the range of that model by Sunday! For me, getting a cold chart on the ukmo is key before I think about getting my sledge out. However, ECM looks great, though it is difficult to pick out snow opportunties from the charts as they are quite flabby!

The runs tonight act as a reality check to some posters (really respected posters) who last night were mentioning feb86 and jan87 on the basis of one or two runs Back in reality, a mildish week this week.. A cool down by the weekend. After that, anything is possible though a full blown outbreak from the north east is a long shot at this stage.

Yes- i precict the CET will be around 6.9 to 7 degrees by mid month considering daytime temperatures in the CET zone are likely to be around ten degrees for much of the next week and night time temperatures not dropping much below 3 or 4 degrees. That would mean a very impressive positive anomaly for the first half of January which would require a very cold second half to get us down to average. I would also be interested to know what the mildest 16th Dec- 15th Jan period ever is when you consider the 2nd half of December was 6.8 and we are running at arounf 7.2 for the first 7 days of January, with little downward correction likely in the next five days or so.....

Clearly there is more potential than there has been for weeks just looking at the charts in the range 144- 216 hrs. However, there is far from cross model agreement and I always think that there is a need to see the great charts on the ukmo 144 and lower in order to start to believe it! The gfs 6z shows a near miss but the gfs often overdoes the jet at that sort of range so there is still a trend of blocking to the North East. However any mentions of Jan 87 or feb 86 (which were mentioned yesterday by some respected posters) look very premature at this stage!

To be fair to IB his analysis this winter has been spot on so far; it has been zonal, mild stuff so far. It irks me a little that he is criticised for what he says whilst others who produce posts based on a chart 240 hours out, or constantly calling cold or signs cold could emerge, are lauded.

Well, I think there are definite signs of a change in pattern, but whether it will produce cold for the uk is another matter. We could end up with cold zonal weather like at the start of December. However, if the cold doesn't arrive we could end up with a very westerly and mild January. Incidentally on accuweather they were saying snow cover in the states is the lowest since 2007, which is an interesting point, when that was also a pretty mild winter in this neck of the woods.

A positive is that at least there are a few more interesting charts being produced in the outer reaches of ecm and gfs runs! However, the form horse is for a quiet spell next week, quite mild and benign, and then a move towards some cool zonality ; perhaps cold in the North, average in the South. By Mid month the CET could be some 2-3 degres above average; infact the period from 15th december- 15th january could have a very large positive anomaly!

For me, they have been spot on with regards to forecasts in the medium (6-15) and long (16-30 day) forecasts. Their short forecasts are also good. The issue I have is with the inconsistency of their warnings on their website and the fact that they dont seem able to respond to an event in real time issuing red warnings for Scotland two hours after the real battering started on the West Coast. Also, not having warnings for many areas last night which took a real battering; East Anglia, West Midlands, North West Midlands, North West England were not even covered by a yellow warning for winds. Yet look at the impacts the weather had on the news today and you see that this was a severe event overnight for England; perhaps the worst wind for some of these areas in 4 or more years. Also, large areas of England were removed from warnings for Tuesday's storm on the Monday after being asked to be aware for a few days. This almost suggests there is nothing to concern with regards to wind. The results were all over the news on the day of the storm including damage across the whole country. I know they have changed their warnings system several times over past few years but this new system still seems to suffer from the same inconsistencies as past warning systems.

I guess it is more of the same in the short term with some quite mild weather showing its hand for the start of the next week with a moist cloudy flow being introduced from the West. There are some signs of a pattern change after Mid Month, but I am unsure as to whether it will be enough to bring meaningful cold to the UK during the latter third of January given the dominant pattern so far this year.