Daniel*

Wow the extended….. that is Goldilocks zone. I’m seeing connections recall met office and their extended written outlook: “While there is a chance of brief, unsettled spells, which would bring milder air for a time, it would likely also be accompanied by a period of sleet or snow.”

The uppers don’t tell the whole story if you look at 2m temperatures you will see there is no real recovery still below average. Colder than average dominates but of course increasing scatter as it goes on. No real mild runs really or very slim pickings which is unusual.

I’d say now we’re looking at now more a Scotland based high than a UK high of course it is still generally dry but the trend definitely has been to move that further north. Will be interesting if these corrections continue… especially for southeast.

The means are posted

EPS 168hrs… clearly the op is further north with ridge and less supported. it’s an improvement on 00z gained more height so we can work on this…

This is why you need to give more faith to background signals. Things are looking rather promising tonight, possibly a step change afoot. Of course UKMO 12z backed down but we know this model is more inconsistent at its later stages, recent runs prior were much closer this cut off high lat block, GFS continues to play catch up albeit very slowly….

00z EPS even more keen on pulling mid lat block near UK closer to Greenland albeit it is not happening soon. Still very interesting signal.

I suspect Canada is having a big role there.. things look to normalise eventually.

This saga is really not over with yet… mainland Europe is bitterly cold and high is not sinking.

The outlook is certainly colder than average by about 3C which is chilly in January, there is very little interest in mild weather returning after it turns colder, no big freeze in offing but it’s a start maybe better luck further into January. Happy New Year all, signing off see you next year. Heathrow, London Coventry Glasgow

Retrogression anyone… what I’m seeing there might be a brief window for wintriness further SE next weekend the high becoming more influential over UK a mid latitude block, but not sinking into Europe, the appetite for prolonged -NAO is strong as Tamara has reflected on.

Yes, you are correct the high moves a fraction north between 168-216hrs. Ultimately no real difference but it’s important we are dealing with accurate information.

At 216 hours you’re comparing apples with oranges ECMWF holds the block.

Block gained some latitude 168 > 192hrs, it would definitely be cold on surface.

3.8C and 70mm thanks

The ECMWF ens guidance in extreme FI was first to identify a change towards -NAO towards the end of week 1 of Jan, not the GFS. Don’t also forget it was GFS/GEFS that overselled the cold potential over Xmas. Lowest maxes forecast by EPS mean in London was 7C. 22nd Dec 12z EPS for 6th Jan

In my years on here it has always been about the ‘big 3’ not sure where the 5 has come from, the ECM, UKMO & GFS from best to least performing in more recent times GEM has been performing better, and has become more interchangeable in third place with GFS.

It’s almost as if ECM 00z never happened which clearly has much stronger parallels with latest UKMO. Tonight’s ECM 12z imo will be very decisive. Instead GFS and cannon folder models are taken as superior guidance. Bizzare.

Worth stressing how badly GFS is performing some of worst scores of year. The issue with this model it runs four times a day and goes out to day 16, people naturally assume it is most likely to catch up on something.

t144 from main three the ECMWF of course being the 00z but as it stands GFS is the odd one out.

ECM 18z mean was also an improvement on 12z, greater amplification in Atlantic even an easterly flow into northern half of country by 5th. This suggests to me this will likely carry through to 00z the onset of cold speeding up a tad.

There’s been a big drop off in performance at day 5 in recent days GFS seeing greater lows but ECMWF not far behind, how some are then expecting things to be resolved closer to day 10 I have no idea. Let’s reach B before getting to C!

Surprising just how mild it has been, if we remove 2015 it would be a record!

+NAO seems a little while off yet. Clearly the first half of January will be defined with -NAO it is not transient. AO also if interested the spread at the end is interesting….

I honestly don’t know what people are talking about saying ‘delayed’ and using ECM 00z as an earlier guide which was on extreme end is not the way to go. This is most positive day so far, growing agreement of amplification towards our west pushing north with pressure lowering in Europe, how this amplification behaves is quite uncertain, but the direction is certainly cold if much colder to now. We will need to give it a few days but these colder synoptics are getting closer. Original post: https://community.netweather.tv/topic/99584-model-output-discussion-into-winter/?do=findComment&comment=4988436