Jason M

Default pattern of recent winters unfortunately. Going to be very hard to shift them I suspect.

It will be a highly modified maritime airmass though. Great if you live at 450m ASL (or maybe 200m ASL) but for most on here a complete non event. Cold enough to put the heating on I suppose.

Your opinion is as valid as mine . Lets see what happens.

Run the sequences though and you will see they are mobile set ups. You can see it in the spaghetti graphs of the GEFS. Its basically zonal. Not what we want but its what we get every year at this time nowadays.

Hmm, that's a grim set of GEFS on the 06Z. The dreaded 'B' word was coming to mind. GEFS 30 teases with a blink and you it easterly miss easterly deep in FI but other than that it looks like a zonal Bartlett set up with a series of high pressure cells to our south and SW with mobile weather running across the top of them. Most of the GEFS manage to pull in a brief 24 PM blast at some point which makes the spaghetti graph look better than it really is. Basically, its very hard to see any meaningful cold before end of the month (I don't include 1 day northerlies in that category). Just my take on things and I'm sure others have different views which I completely respect as always . As the saying goes, more runs needed

Just had a quick whizz through the GEFS. We might scrape a 24 / 36 hour PM plunge at some point between the 20th & 24th but that's about it. Over recent days the trend has been a bad one. More and more GEFS are putting heights to our south. As we all know Dear Uncle Bartlett often spends Xmas with us and once he's rocked up he likes to hang around into January as well . I don't pretend to be any kind of expert in 'background signals' but just looking at the trends in the NWP in recent days and based on years of experience, it looks to me like were facing into what has become a very typical Xmas period weather wise. I'm not seeing any route whatsoever to deep cold over the coming few weeks other than maybe at a push a very brief blink and you miss it arctic northerly snap! More likely it will be a less cold PM northwesterly though. As the saying goes 'more runs needed' and now I've pinned my colours to the mast expect to see raging easterly's in the morning runs

Exactly. Even if the low drops down over us it would be rain because there would be a great big warm sector involved. They just look like bog standard winter charts to me A very brief northerly, a ton of cold rain and likely rinse and repeat. So far away that it got almost zero chance of verifying anyway.

Now, I know were in trouble.

We could see a short lived PM or even arctic outbreak, but its a longshot. Its one of those set ups that will tease in FI but not amount to much. We have been in far worse positions to be honest though.

GEFS out to 186 hours. Basically, all 30 GEFS plus the control have a high sat right on top of us. Absolutely nothing of interest whatsoever! More runs needed

With that big 'bowling ball' shaped high in the Atlantic the most we will get is a few short lived PM outbreaks. Often see this in Feb in recent years, rather than Dec.

Well, at day 10 the ECM, GFS and GDS control all look pretty much the same. In fact I thought for a moment that someone had cut and paste the ECM day 10 and labelled it as GFS Control. Not often I've see such identical charts 10 days away. You can tell its nearly Christmas! Same old, same old

Well, taking a snapshot of the GEFS at day 8, there is a possibility of a short northerly before the Atlantic air move quickly in. Other than that its really just a case of 'more runs needed'. Nothing overly warm, but nothing overly cold either.

Ooh, Spanish plume!!!! Does that mean i can turn my meeting off Looking through the GEFS earlier there was a an increasing number of runs building pressure over Iberia, so something like this isn't completely out of the question IMHO.

Notice how control and opp run together though. Expect the GEFS to start dropping the cold runs over the next couple of suites. We see this so many times every winter.

Complex question unfortunately. It depends on the airmass and also differs according to sun strength. In late Nov / December and most of Jan -6c/-7 uppers would suffice if airmass is continental in nature (easterly) and hangs around for a couple of days. In a maritime north westerly you might struggle to get ice days with -8/-9c uppers. As we go into Feb the depth of cold needed becomes greater due to the sun gaining power.

Very little in the way of snow from that. Look at the air pressure associated which is over 1035 even in the South. Maybe a few 'grains' on the coast but basically bone dry albeit freezing cold!

SE will do poorly from this set up. We will be too near the warm core of any low. Rain over Kent / Essex/ EA but maybe snow West of London?? In recent years far SE has missed out a lot in similar circumstances.

In respect of second spike late on I'd agree, but notice with the earlier spike in temps that control and main run go together. I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that at that range my money is on the GEFS being wrong. I'm backing the main run / Control here.

Interesting set up but it all looks a bit messy, uppers look a fraction high given some maritime air being mixed in. At present it looks mostly like cold rain / sleet. Could upgrade but early in the season though I suppose so it really has to land perfectly to be noteworthy..

At this time of year its just about getting the airmass in. -5c is plenty as long as it hangs around. Cold air in situ tends to intensify with the sun so weak. So, -5c is likely not cold enough for snow on day one but if it sticks around for a couple of days its a different ball game. An easterly sourced -5 airmass can give ice days at this time of year given time.

Had a power cut here last night and was outside chatting to one of the NP workman. It was absolutely tropical at 1.30am. More like late evening in the Canary Islands than the UK and even more extreme considering it was a clear night. Our climate is changing very rapidly now!!

To illustrate your point we have seen very high night time temperatures in mid winter in recent years. Double figures or even teens are nothing noteworthy anymore.

UKMO has always been good at day 5. Equally its always been poor at day 7 IMHO. I expect there are stats around the place to prove me wrong but personally I still hold to that view. In winter, unless day 5 METO is on board it isn't happening

Don't worry, the Azures high will reassert its dominance over our weather. I predict this will occur in late October, just in time for Winter . Looking through the current output it does look poor. I think for the NW of the country its going to be business as usual well into August. Hopefully further SE things will improve a little with time.