Optimus Prime

Think it might be best to not bother with this thread tonight and leave the knee-jerk reactionaries to burn themselves out. Mid-Feb looks very interesting. No doubt things will start looking interesting very soon.

Doesn't always have to equate severe cold. This cold spell hasn't been extreme at all but has produced fairly widespread snow from a NW'ly airstream and very low minima. Ultimately if the models are poor mid-month (they're not poor atm btw) then we have 22nd February > to produce a change and initiate the chase again. This rule works for every 6 or 7 days up to the last week of March. Knee-jerk reactions based on hypothetical outcomes mixed with great volatility and uncertainty. I wouldn't like to be standing on either side of the fence right now. If I had to choose, would be standing on the cold side that's for sure.

Where are you hunting for cold on that chart?Scandinavia....???

Impact it still very much on the table. Remember the SSW in 2013 didn't really impact things until 1-2 months later, Late Feb/March. In the same situation, we'd be feeling the effects middle Feb.

So you're throwing in the towel based on what? ...day 7 when a Scandinavian high pressure systems looks set to develop, still at low resolution. That could prove interesting. Oh and there are musings on the grapevine (twitter) from forecasters that the down welling from SSW and a favorable MJO phase bonding may well impact Europe as we head on through February. I'd be very cautious about cementing the idea that winter is over yet.

Lol, not sure psychology does very much to the weather. Just having a quick look. Nice to see the SW/S/SE getting some significant falls of snow, and increasingly to the coast line. Lots more to come this evening and into early/mid-morning. Having moved from SE to Manchester 2 years ago I would be quite excited but humble about tonight. Looking quite possible Hants/Berks area are going to get perhaps 5-10cm. North Manchester has had a fair bit (~4cm) but the cold has been really punishing in the wind this evening (~ -3c)

Lets get this winter over and done with. 6.9°C. 2018/2019 - The Winter of the Bucked Toothed Donkey, Cart, Carrot and Fishing Rod.

Lmao. Love the graphics. Here in N.Manchester we ended up getting 4cm in the end and it snowed persistently from 12-3:00.

Absolutely. This obsession with this 850 hPa temperature grows stronger by the year and sometimes I wonder whether the majority of people really understand what they are talking about when they reference them.

What 30 year average is being used?

Been said hundreds of times, these snow depth charts are an absolute waste of time and are only really ever semi-useful when there are much more pronounced frontal features and there are no marginal factors at play. Tuesday's wintry potential is coming along as expected this morning.

Whilst I don't agree with Steve Thexton's post about needing to be 750m I do feel his general apprehension about snow prospects. The conditions are not favourable for widespread snow on Tuesday. Also evaporative cooling only really starts to become apparent when there is moderate-heavy precipitation. There might be some squalls embedded locally within the frontal band that might form some sort of evaporative cooling locally but for the majority this variable probably won't show up.

And then go down as the front retreats....

Nope. Dew points will go up as the band moves SE-wards.

Looking at the ICON charts for Tuesday. 850hPa plot looks very borderline for SE areas but probably on the right side of marginal for more northern and western areas. 2m Dewpoints reveal a similar picture. Not good for the southern and eastern areas but better for northern and western areas. Dew points do look to drop ahead of the front though, particularly for SE areas. Nothing particularly different in regards to 2m temperature either Perhaps snow for northern and western areas. Rain to sleet and maybe snow to finish of for the south and east. Not expecting much out of this anywhere away from high ground. (>150m)

Red is to orange by more than a factor of two in terms of the 3hr/mm precipitation rates. You sit more in the green - light orange zone and in this scenario would dump 5-6mm or rain or perhaps 6cm of snow every 3 hours. That's not bad.

Yeah, and I'm the son of Bruce Lee. That, my friend, is utter bullocks! Try this https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#sst

Lol think you need relax sometimes.

And the best post of the winter goes to...

My calculator still disagrees. Does Sheffield currently have a forest fire burning under its shield? lol

Tumbleweed.

What are the verification stats for the Chinese model? ...Lol

Really? Might want to try recalculating that. That surprises me because here in N.Manchester we dropped to +0.7C this morning and it only went up to about 5C. Even a daily value of 5C would have struck 0.1C of that value.

Except the change has already occured. A long period of sustained cold, frosts and wintry weather for the next 5 days and from next week onwards, there is a high risk of a cold wave breaking out bringing very cold and disruptive weather. I can't really think of a much better position to be in.

Seems to point towards the most favoured outcome. But only slightly.