weatherguy

The good: Lots of northern blocking going on, throughout the entire run! The bad: A sickeningly strong euro high would ensure any troughs get dropped nowhere near to us. Overall: Plenty to be optimistic about if you're looking for cold, but it really is a wait and see right now. In the short-term, the mildies can enjoy a SW flow of tropical air Would certainly like to think that GP's thoughts from earlier on do ensure the "euro superhigh" (dare I mention the dreaded b word, that rhymes with tartlett?) does not materialise as FI seems to enjoy the idea of!

Just wondering, what's people's favourite snow event in this region? We seem to be in the worst place for snow, always being far away from the source of cold/snow whatever the direction it's coming from! But for me, the Feb 2009 easterly really delivered...A good foot and a half fell here (a bit deeper in drifts) and it was glorious

Ahhh shame, I know it's not much but it's nice to see the first snowfall of the winter (well, autumn technically but still) Nope, but it is a handy site to have bookmarked haha

Daventry, so we're quite high up compared to surrounding areas It's turned back to more sleety stuff now, but for a moment it started to show signs of settling on the grass

Wow, it's snowing quite heavily here :o

If it prevents the PV from setting up camp over Newfoundland/Greenland, I'm a happy man

Ah, it's good to be back Would very much appreciate a repeat of the 2010/11 winter please! And just to add a bit of content...good to see lots of forecasts going for the northerly blocking signal (looking at the trends, not the day-day swings I might add) which certainly increases our chance of having a severe cold spell. Too early to tell what the strat might be up to yet though. Just to have an interesting discussion though, which would you lot prefer; "stick" with a less risky and still potentially brutal greenland high, or "twist" with a more risky but potentially more rewarding Scandi high delivering the beast from the east? For me, I'd stick with the Greenland high, simply because it reached -16C here a couple of winters ago from that scenario...That said, I've never experienced a "proper" easterly however, apart from the Feb 09 event

Just had a dusting here so far...Daventry snow shield holding its own unfortunately, not rating my chances of having a snow day tomorrow

Hate to be one of those people who basically say "Will I get snow here?", but I'm sort of asking that...To me it looks like the snow has moved east of my location over the past couple of days? (wrt this weekend's snow event)

Haha yeah I remember that too; always seems to be the way with snow here I'll certainly not be getting too excited until maybe mid day on saturday...

So the fax has the front stalling over us? I'm sure the great Daventry snowshield will still find a way to hold out strong and prevent much snowfall here though :lol:

haha you have a point there my friend! i'm snow deprived though this winter and i can't control my excitement at seeing snow (however light it may be) incoming

So, who's hoping this incoming streamer might possibly (by some sort of miracle) reach us here?

Personally I see the models beginning to converge on a solution now, the ECM is not quite as amplified as previously shown; we still get the north easterly, but it would not be sustainable for long without further building of heights to the NW, while the GFS has moved more towards the ECM in terms of building some temporary heights around Greenland. The positive however, is that the ECM hasn't backtracked as much as the GFS has taken steps forward, so for that we can be happy...Lets just hope he stratosphere plays ball and we can get some further weakening of the PV, and maybe push it west of Greenland to allow for a more prolonged cold spell. On the whole though, we can be quite happy with the current output - A cold spell does look likely now in my opinion, it is just the longevity which is under question; with the winter we've had so far I'd take that!

It's not FI that's the problem though, the events that lead to the FI scenario occur in the very short term. If those synoptics occur, there's simply nowhere else for all that cold to go We do of course need some cross model agreement, but that's a different issue from it being "too far out".

Oh I was here during 2010, so probably an overreaction from me, just such a stark contrast from what we've had I almost had a heart attack! Plus, it's the first tangible easterly I've been able to experience modelled on here (as I wasn't on here during Feb 2009 unfortunately)...

If there was ever a perfect chart, the 18z GFS is it! :o We're still too far out though as the synoptics required are on a knife-edge, impossible to predict with confidence this far out.

Lovely OP run on the GFS 12z; I think we all know that it's what is shown in the short-medium term that is the important stuff - How many times did FI show the block breaking down into raging zonality last year? Main thing is that there are promising signs of an easterly of some kind (definitely a pattern change at least) creeping into the reliable time frame*...Unfortunately they are quite hard to achieve and may implode before our eyes as we approach it, but for now I'm optimistic As to snowfall potential, would we not get a fair amount of convection coming off the North Sea? *With the stratospheric warming continuing, and a weakening of the PV ongoing, its my personal view that if a block is established strongly (is not blown away by the jet shortly after being established), it may be around for a while. That's just my opinion though!

Yum.

Ah okay thanks, appreciate it I'm still learning... :blush:

@Cloud10, does a negative value zonal wind mean a jet travelling east to west I take it?

Three years ago? Based on what we've had so far, I'd do the same this year :lol:

Wow, due to new year shenanigans I haven't managed to look at the models for a couple of days and wow is all I can say...What a different picture in such a small space of time :blink:

Rather terrible showing on the models this morning with a very zonal (albeit cool-cold at times) outlook ahead for the next week or two at least, the only positive I can possibly see is the ECM continuing to raise heights out of Russia and into the arctic; it's been keeping this in far FI for many runs now though and I doubt the credibility of this occurring and, even if it does, cold for us would not be guaranteed as it would only be one piece of the puzzle (especially as an intensely strong PV is maintained over Greenland over this time period). To keep myself sane/maintain hope I'm having to utter this phrase to myself over an over again; "In GP we trust"...Patience may be needed.

Interesting GFS 18z, moving more towards the ECM solution. The main difference however is the heights in Europe remain higher for longer, meaning a second bite of the cherry is required before the PV drops nicely down over us as shown in Craigers' post (deep in FI however). I feel that it's a massive step forward that the GFS seems to be reaching an agreement in splitting (partially or fully) the PV in the medium term (although the beginnings of this are now being modelled to start in the short term), as this then means we have a much greater chance of developing synoptics more condusive to cold. Lets hope that the agreement continues through tomorrow's runs, but for the time being I'm a very happy man