Buzzit

My Mr Fish pop quiz answer is no chance of anything exciting overnight. Is a big fail over most of France as well. Models struggling in the near term as expected.

Npthing wrong with having a meeting to better understand the weather - they should have more of them ! Just do not like the choice of language used on the press release thats all. I also hope they will actually look at comparable times where weather was similar to what we have experienced lately and see if any of the similarities / differences need to be investigated further. At leats that is what I would start from - no point looking at anything in isolation as it will tell you nothing.

No you are spot on. Almost sounds like an emergency meeting to be able to work out why climate change is not equaling more warmth for the UK at the moment.

Never would have guessed that... However, I for one am quietly confident that GFS is on to something and see no reason why it will not be onwards and upwards after the low pressure brings all the moaners out this weekend. The other reality is that there is a lot of spread in the ensemble members throughout the next 16 day period so I dont see any point in trumpeting any certainties be it good, bad, or indifferent.

NAE / Met seems to be undercooking actual temps as at 12pm vs their latest output...

Nothing like turning the wheel in a full circle - take the horse back to the trough.... 30 day forecast is based on ensemble output from the Met forecasting systems We cannot forecast with any certainty at the 30 day range Why bother expecting said outlook to materalise or get upset at the Met outlook My case has always being why bother or get upset with it. But I also dislike the idea being made that somehow some amazing human insight is added into the 30 day outlook when it certainly is not.

Following on from Mushy's comment related to the Jetstream - the weekend seems to be the point in the balance at the moment. Personally i do not want to see the jet reaching more southerly in this manner but if there is so much slack pressure about it does have every chance of doing so. Ensembles over the next couple of days will be interesting 6pm Sat 6z 12z 9pm Sun 6z 12z

That is probably true but the long range 30 day outlook seems to be no more than a composite of the Mets long range ensemble suite with pattern matching via probabilistic outcomes. In other words my understanding on the 30 day outlook is that anyone trained in the process could do it, and it is only as good as the ensemble output itself is. Which is again why I hold no stock in the output. It was not too many years ago that the Met stated that a monthly outlook was useful as it updated every day people would forget when it was wrong. (unless they are weather freaks )

If you actually review the met Office 'services' available for purchase almost none of them have anything to do with forecasting past 10 days at the most. This particular long range forecast is just a throw away product and should be treated as such as it has no bearing on reality and awful accuracy - people need to give up assigning meaning to this output. (Especially as we have no information given to us to understand the probability of x occurring in relation to the forecast given as the data is withheld from us)

With greatest respect to the GFS 12z OP run in my opinion I would absolutely discount anything showing past +144 due to the significant presuure changes shown post this time.

Personally I think there is zero point being bothered what the Met have to say about anything long range considering the difficulty being had at short range. In addition that outlook is pointless as it would not apply to all of the UK in such a regime, I really do not know why they bother with this - i guess trying to justify their salary by writing pointless waffle - yup go on and move this to another thread why dont ya

That is very true John, It is also very difficult for us to judge what the Met office is looking at due to not having the relevant charts available due to the Met being run as a business rather than as a public service. So it may just be a case that the Met has been extremely cautious to date, the Countryfile forecast on Sunday seemed a lot to me like they really were not interested in talking past this Thursday so my feeling is that the Met output has been hinting some sort of average weather from end of this week for a few days now. Model Related : It is going to be very interesting once the GFS gets its next upgrade as to whether the Met (and to a lesser extent ECM) can continue to justfiy their financial model and inaccessibility to charts when the GFS will have similar accuracy and makes all of its charts available to us.

Agreed

My understanding is that the accuracy issue between ECM and GFS is largely limited to the fact that the ECM has better initialisation data so is generally more accurate by day 5. However, in the current scenario which shows broad model agreement for first few days there is actually no reason why the GFS may not be correct for later next week. I base the above on some reading of 2008-9 where GFS was a lot worse than it currently is, and at that time the ECM provided its initialisation data to GFS for testing purposes and the result was almost an exact match between models... Obviously both models have had updates since then but I think initialisation data plays a big part - especially as the 6z & 18z GFS does not have the same volume of initialisation data as the 0z & 12z runs.

Not the best ever...

One thing I spotted comparing the latest GFS and ECM 0z : From the 22nd May : The GFS Control run aproximately matches to the ECM Operation run for a few days.

This NOAA link is good for verification stats http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/ And this says a lot : Interesting how verification drops around the middle of the year (I think something that JH was alluding to the other day)

A useful read http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf I am thinking we are going to be heading towards El Nino rather than La Nina (while staying in neutral range during summer)

Correct JH - my issue with Mr Hugos piece is that he should do a logic check before posting because he obfuscates his thoughts throughout the post, and I also think he is wrong

A big coincidence for thought regarding the 2006 analogue. 1st January 2006 ; Sydney Australia hit 45c 8th January 2013 : Sydney hit 43c 18th January 2013 : Sydney hit 47c And just another statistical coincidence I saw.. based on data from Auckland NZ February 1977 : Least month of precipitation with 75% time precipitation free February 1978 : Least month of precipitation with 82% time precipitation free February 1980 : Least month of precipitation with 59% time precipitation free February 1984 : Least month of precipitation with 66% time precipitation free February 1989 : Least month of precipitation with 64% time precipitation free February 1990 : Least month of precipitation with 90% time precipitation free February 1999 : Least month of precipitation with 93% time precipitation free February 2000 : Least month of precipitation with 83% time precipitation free February 2006 : Least month of precipitation with 71% time precipitation free February 2007 : Least month of precipitation with 75% time precipitation free February 2011 : Least month of precipitation with 71% time precipitation free February 2013 : Least month of precipitation with 79% time precipitation free This is based on data since 1st January 1975 (with February 2013 being based on period 1st January 2012 to end April 2013)

Good burst of rain in the City just now.. glad not in the North West - this is shaping up to be a very nasty comma

?? Not sure I follow you on that one. The second chart has the low pressure over the UK - but is that not the result of the high pressure at high latitudes (shown on your first chart) causing the mid Atlantic low to have to go straight over the UK... Showing the exact opposite of your own thoughts / argument ?

I believe this summer will have above average temperatures and below average precipitation. All in all an excellent summer but not sure if it will reach 2003 levels... (my mother re-married on the hottest day of the year in 2003 - needless to say a lot of beverages needed to be consumed ) My biggest concern is that we may not revert to a traditional autumnal pattern this year. No entrenched northern blocking this summer. (no I am not Ken Ring)

Should of gone to Specsavers Backtrack

Tell me about it inner SW London has been rubbish for snow this year.. Easterlies no good without convection where I am - still think I will get a sprinkle later