Jason M

Well it is literally centered on Birmingham in fairness. As usual though, we struggle to get the heights centered far enough north.

Nice big UK high. Things will chop and change but discount this option at your peril. It will be cold though.

I think this is far more likely than West based set up. In fact I still think this or something not dissimilar will be the final destination.

So, after a couple of days where the signal for a cold spell weakened IMHO, we have gone the other way this morning. Both set of GEFS are good, ECM is good. Next test is whether we can move things forward. Can we get any of these charts to day 8?? Were currently looking at days 9/10 but for me its when the opps look good at day 8 that I start to show interest. At the moment its all so far out in la la land that its not worth getting excited about. I do think the UK high remains a real possibility. Yesterday I was thinking 80% UK high 20% Easterly. Now? maybe 60/40?

GEFS out to 300 hours. Still a few good ones but we are losing the colder runs now and nothing is moving forward through the timelines.

Have a feeling your going to struggle to 'paint' over that particular typo!

GEFS no 17 is our lucky number tonight. Brings -12c uppers over us with lots of snow! As they say though 'just for fun'

GEFS out to 216. So, still lots of cold options on the table amongst them. Indeed a couple of corkers in there. The bad news though is that at 216 both Opp Run and Control have the renewed heights over Iberia. As a rule, when you get that, its game over (at least in my mind). If I'm guessing,, I think we will see a reduction in colder GEFS from tomorrow as I'd be surprised if the Opp & Control are trumped by the rest of the suite. Does happen, but when these two run together I sit up and take notice.

I hope I'm wrong (and probably will be ), but this run matches my expectations. I think we will get a UK high once the models sort themselves out. In recent years we have increasingly struggled to get HLB and whilst there were a lot of easterly options in the 12z suite, many (not all though!!) were more mid lat highs that had just about got far enough north to bring in an easterly for a short period.

Lots of easterly options around day 10 in the GEFS. Height rises now focused more on Scandi. I'm not buying at this stage though. We see this every year without fail. Deep in FI charts start picking up loads of Greenland Highs. These don't come forward over a period of several days and then quickly get dropped in favor of Scandi Heights. These also fail to come forward through the days and after several days sitting at days 9/10 they get dropped for a UK High or similar. I'd be treating any blockbuster runs with extreme skepticism right now as the garden path is long but usually winds its way past Greenland, then Scandinavia before ending right back at Blighty. I'm still putting my bet on a UK high (cool uppers).

Oh no, now we are really in trouble. Once the 1947 comments come out my immediate thoughts turn to spring . Lots of uncertainty looking through models and ensembles today. If I had to hazard a guess as to what comes next around 7-10th Jan, I reckon we will end up with a UK high rather than any big cold spell.

In fairness he said 'low' not non existent chance.

Too early to write off winter clearly, but looking through the output today its starting to feel a bit like a Bartlett set up. Could go on for a considerable period of time!

You are making a different point. Yes, the old averages show the degree of change but they no longer show our climatic average.

Looking through GEFS out at 192 hours and 240 for a quick snapshot, opp is not without some support. Main feature of output though is still high pressure to our south, so I'd treat any cold charts with a very high degree of skepticism.

We are now using the wrong averages. World is so much warmer now and rate of increase is accelerating. Every temperature chart we see is now 90% colored in dark red and getting a below average month is becoming very difficult.

The fact that most winter months (indeed months) exceed the 'average' suggests that we are not using the correct 'average'. Amazing how much our climate has shifted and the pace is accelerating. Anyway, not surprised to see ICON this afternoon. Once you get heights over Iberia its pretty much game over for cold weather away from the far north.

I generally run through the charts at 192 hours (including a quick run through the GEFS) to take a snapshot of the set up. If there is some trend I start to take notice at that point. Anything further out than that is not even worth thinking about. To your point, its around day 7 that I get properly interested in a cold spell as long as their is decent agreement. So, just note the potential at day 8/9 but not really interested until about day 7. Based on my way of doing things looking at the charts across this mornings runs (including GFS 06 suite) I note that of the GEFS about 90% of them have strong heights over Iberia for Xmas day / boxing day. Based on that I feel that away from Scotland any notable cold over Xmas is very unlikely and I'll be treating any opps that say different with extreme skepticism. Come Xmas I think pattern will be flatter and any northerly / north westerly will have little impact away from the far north. Just my opinion and as always I'm happy to be proved wrong or for others to disagree.

Always right out at the end though. Get it to day 8-9 then its worth thinking about.

When Bartlett comes for Christmas he generally doesn't leave until well into the new year. Its amazing how in recent years we are always in exactly the same position running into the holiday period.

Agree with this. You see over amplification modelled in set ups like this. As the day approaches the pattern gets modelled as flatter and flatter until by day 1 its as flat as a hedgehog in the fast lane of the M25 These heights to our south will be tough to shift and I'd be very wary of any charts showing a potent northerly. Scotland and the NW might just about scrape some interest but for most of us, highly unlikely IMHO.

See plenty of them 15 days away in the models, but they are rare beasts indeed at day 1

No need for that, was just an observation on my part that I happened to notice

Not massively wet down south I'd have thought. Pressure is actually quite high across south of UK.

Hmm, not sure that's strictly true regarding the 'sniff of colder weather'. Charts have been showing a NW plunge for sometime between 20th and 25th for several days. The issue is that its going to be a very short and not very potent. Kazim will do well from it sat in the Peak District but most other people won't be impacted much. Xmas could well still be very mild, it just depends on the timing of this 24/36 hour plunge of coldish air. Things can change though and we are still 10 / 11 days away. Most charts agree on heights to our south or south west so unless the whole pattern changes its very difficult to see any route to meaningful cold. Only possibility I can see is that the cold plunge turns out as more of a straight northerly. Would still be very short lived though. Just based on years of seeing similar charts I suspect the opposite will happen and the nearer we get the flatter the pattern will be shown.