West is Best

Severe weather now into the South-west. And on cue the Met Office site crashes ... This could be a torrid 36 hours for parts of south-western Britain. It's all very well thinking it's fun, but this will quickly turn life threatening. When people will almost certainly die from this I find it remarkable how blasé the Met Office have been in issuing a Red warning for the South-west. How often do these life-threatening conditions affect these isles? Once in a decade at best. Incredible conditions imminent ...

Yep. And they should have issued this before people went to work this morning. It's not overly clever suggesting people taking immediate action after they have gone out in the morning. I think it could be severe across the south-west later :/ Fun ... providing you are not travelling.

Incredible. Do we need to pinch ourselves reading Nick's message above?!

For the sceptics ... the setup that had produced the Red for Scotland is nowhere near as severe as that for Devon, Cornwall and to which I would now add Somerset and south Wales. The ppn charts show conditions tomorrow could be horrendous. Reminds me of 1978/9 actually when Devon and Cornwall were cut off by 20 foot snowdrifts on the M5.

Because of course they always get it right Having lived in those parts I've twice seen extremely heavy falls that were entirely overlooked by the mandarins at the MetO. Anyway, this is a great forum and it's fun to outwit them. As Alan Hansen has found out, sometimes well informed punters know best

Devon and Cornwall will be in the firing line Thursday and should accordingly be under a Red warning. Whether this pushes east I'm doubtful, but the second wave on Friday might.

Devon and Cornwall are going to get hammered on Thursday into Friday. Without a shadow of doubt they should be under a Red warning.

It's looking good and you are right about it upgrading. In all fairness I think we all will acknowledge that it's still slightly precarious. If the cold pool were to shift 300 miles to the east we'd miss out. Unfortunately that has happened too often for my liking, sometimes as close as T72 or T48. But we live in hope. And the Daily Express has announced the news so it must be true

It has been said many times but we look to the west rather than east first and foremost. It used to be my mantra on here a decade back. The point was that unless there was upstream blocking nothing else would hold downstream. That's a bit simplistic, since a powerful Scandi high, for example, can lead to mid-latitude blocking upstream. However, whatever one thinks of westward facing these charts are pretty remarkable. UKMO at T144 but more particularly then ECM at T240 show deep cold pushing right across the Atlantic. I'm not sure I've ever before seen a bitterly cold westerly! The source of that is the intense deep cold pool on the eastern seaboard under the polar vortex. Can you imagine how our weather would change for our latitude if the Atlantic were a cold source ...?! UKMO at T144 Astonishing ECM at T240:

The real angst is because the wondrous synoptics were 72-96 hours away and, quote, 'a dead cert.' That's the real issue: that models of some esteem can be so massively wrong at such short range. Whilst others may pick away at the GFS on the fundamental point about the position of the Scandi high it got it right. And that's why it was on the right track when all others lost it: the difference between a split jet powering south which opened the floodgates on the alleged easterly (GEM, ECM and to an extent UKMO) and a sinking Scandi high that returned us eventually to zonal rubbish (GFS). The real lesson here is that we have to avoid wishcasting. Actually, I'd put it more simply than that. Unless the GFS comes on board any cold scenarios might as well be the product of my son's primary school drawing class.

Or just stick to GFS?

I agree Frosty. The ECM is pretty grim. Though it pains me to say so, we ignore or (worse) diss the GFS at our peril. Unless it comes on board nothing is either likely or certain. It remains the gold standard model: head and shoulders above the others imho. Dammit.

Good points above Jvenge and KTtom. A few years back we were stuck with a high that had slid from Scandinavia into north Germany / Baltic regions. It took an age to shift and was almost as bad as a Bartlett High for preventing any real cold to develop. That's probably why some of us had our hearts in our mouths when GEM and ECM suggested this one was going to retrograde to Shetland, thus unlocking a true easterly. Given that now seems unlikely we're probably better off with a reload. GFS seems to hint at something of that ilk. As an aside, it could be argued that the heaviest UK snowfall comes from the west anyway. Boundary snow events from warm and occluded westerlies abutting into a cold block have historically produced big snowfalls in Britain.

Wise words throughout your post. I guess the problem also revolves around expectations. When we see rubbish model outputs then we get justifiably excited about changes ahead. When, on the other hand, we are offered the prospects of a mouth-watering deep freeze, only to have that cruelly dashed, we get a tad fed up. This is an exchange I had just yesterday morning, which feels like a lifetime in model watching We are going to have a bracing weekend and things may yet turn colder afterwards. I'm still encouraged, especially by the return of ensemble scatter in the GFS.

A very distinct spark of hope:

I think that's basically right. It's not a bad set up for a few days with a particularly cold weekend but the real fun being shown by ECM, GEM and briefly UKMO has yielded. The 0z UKMO is certainly not bad but you're right about the convergence, and it's exactly what GFS showed run by run, to the frustration of us oldies and coldies who wanted more snow action. A retrograding high back towards Shetland to allow the vicious easterly was bucking the form horse which is a sinker or slider. We've seen the latter all too often. My concerns were raised by the failure of almost any GFS ensembles to come on board: they didn't seem to entertain the ECM / GEM / UKMO scenario and it looks as if GFS has been proved right again. Which is irritating It will still not exactly be warm!! And there's still a chance of some cold upgrading. We await the ECM with great interest and the ensembles to see if there are any chinks.

Folks I wasn't saying it won't be interesting and that we may see some fantastic developments. Merely that the sliding high scenario looks to have been called right by the GFS with the boundary event called by it. We shall see but I don't have any enthusiasm in suggesting it may have called this right.

GFS wins again. How many times have we said it? Gold standard model.

Maybe but we don't know what UKMO is doing after T144 (or do we?) since at that stage it's identical to GEM and ECM. UKMO fax charts look tasty by the way.

I'd agree if there was any ensemble support but we've yet to see that. I do think this is going the way of the Europeans, but that could be wishcasting.

The GFS may, of course, be right but it does have a bad habit of over-developing Atlantic lows. I think by now we all know that the one showing here at T144 is ridiculous. It's not surprising the easterly block is being blown off course if the GFS is suggesting those deep mini hurricanes are hurtling our way.

It's worth bearing in mind by the way that a week ago we were apparently locked into endless Atlantic zonality. It just shows you how quickly things can change, for good or ill.

I'm not sure UKMO can be counted 'in' can it? It only goes to T144 and it's the 48 hours past that which are critical. Will the high move north as per GEM & ECM to unlock a vicious easterly or slide into Poland as per GFS?

The ECM continues the cold-fest. It feels like a long time since we've seen charts like this: However, the transition from the Scandi slipping high to the retrograding Shetland high looks a bit nail biting: Exciting times though!

Ever since John Ketley forecast an imminent beast from the east which never happened, no-one on here should repeat those words