Purga

A nascent pattern change just beginning to poke its nose into the far reaches of FI ? let's see how this develops - or not

Not for this thread, I realise - but the updated METO further outlook today makes 'interesting reading'. Monitoring the ENS will be hopefully an enjoyable pastime for coldies. Comes with a health warning of course....

1947 freeze started from a 'displaced Bartlett' whatever the term is supposed to mean???

You mean you haven't had a quick rummage around to check where you'd put that sledge wax TEITS?

Not to mention a potentially very wintry new year Frosty - LOL will be interesting to see how the ENS develop this theme.

Don't bin your white Christmas bets quite yet folks to be fair the ENS have shown a move to colder solutions this morning. Fingers crossed.

With this set-up pretty much all of us in the UK would likely benefit at some stage - and no it wouldn't be sleety marginal stuff

Well - don't despair too much folks, the GEFS 06z do show a cool down towards Christmas with some beautiful runs appearing. Notice the improvement from 00z to 06z (to add to Karlos's post above). Who wouldn't love to wake up to a 1962/63 Christmas like this? Obviously a very unlikely scenario but at least it has a few supporting runs.

Dreaming of a white Christmas? Then Nice to see - far off but a good trend we hope...

Why the Dickens couldn't we see this kind of pressure profile earlier in the year? Particularly the troughing over Europe a feature that has been singularly lacking this past winter,

Oh no - here we go again!

Interesting to see where GFS 18z is going with this run? ECM 240hrs is hinting at a possible cold shot into Europe and maybe a drift west. Could this be what METO were hinting at in their extended text forecast today? 'There is a small risk of a few sleet or snow showers in southern and eastern parts, although confidence is low.' Time will tell of course.

The verification at Day 8 is only around two-thirds and ECM is only around 5-10% better than GFS/UMKO, so I don't think one ECM Op run, when viewing very much FI charts. should cause too much angst at this stage. I wouldn't be surprised if the 12z ECM run was close to being an outlier when we see the ENS later on - that's probably blown it now!

Nice ECM run ending with an upper trough crossing the SE. Some different perspectives from WZ & Meteociel 850's could cause some snowy disruption to the Capital if that verified! A way off of course but nice to see / contemplate.

The overall evolution is still looking very positive for a cold and snowy setup but don't get too hung up on details as there will be surprises aplenty! Trough disruption is inherently very difficult to pin down when continental cold airmasses are involved; typically the trough stretches on a NW-SE axis and then the secondary circulation developing at the base of this breaks away from the parent low and heads SE or ESE. High model resolution is a great help for resolving these things but even then, the full splitting away of a secondary low seems to be something the models struggle to resolve until relatively short notice - sometimes just a day or two before the time. The pattern is looking fine and the old adage of get the cold in first and wait for snowy surprises applies in spades at the moment. Enjoy...

Just a bit of advice to watch taking chart outputs so literally and focus more on the bigger picture. Notably we have negative tilt lows, a southern jet stream and height rises over Scandanavia.whch have developed from the Siberian / Arctic High pressure which is NORTH of the jetstream rather than having evolved as a displaced Azores High having drifted somewhat NE and would be SOUTH of the jetstream. The latter scenario is what we have experienced in the recent coldish spell. The former is much, much better for proper cold evolution. Best to focus on the 500hpa heights at this range, and do not take 850hpa temperatures or SLP forecasts too seriously. 500hpa heights are a much better tool for the 'bigger picture' and actually have higher verification stats at longer range. Plenty of fun and interesting model watching folks and a huge upgrade on what we thought only last week when we were dreading the Atlantic onslaught seemingly setting in for weeks to come - enjoy whatever the outcome.

Well what do you think now BA? And for the +264hr chart this is the St Albans 'now where the hell is my car??' chart. Of course it's FI and there's 'a long way to go' etc. etc.. but by god it's fun again now...

Not a bad sasauge to cheer everyone up Although rank outsiders it has to be said, at least there are some cold runs starting to emerge again in the GEFS 06z a bit more in the nearer time frame this one Block possibly a tiny bit more resilient?

Of course we could always get this little number BA

Don't worry too much - if UKMO / ECM develops in the astonishing way it seems to be hinting this morning a strong jet can help us (coldies). It just needs to pour the energy into the southern arm and displace E / SE. A strong jet can be a formidable enemy but it can be a great friend as well.! Strong southern jet below

Forget the ENS warming trend, I'll stick with the Op run for T2M! An average of about -6C until 7th Feb will do me very nicely thank you!

Some of the extended 51 ecm ensembles suggest an easterly at T+360 and rather more (but still a minority) are showing a block to the E/NE with trough disruption close to the UK. There are some signs starting to appear in the far reaches of FI output & it will be interesting to see how or if this develops.

Still remaining mostly cold and frosty up until mid / end of next week according to the 'big 3' models. Personally I've always condidered CMA as the best. You never know though a week is a very long time in weather watching.

Now then do I spy trough disruption ? -- is there some energy trying to dive SE?