snowray

A lot better this

The Atlantic simply has to go and do one, and fast! Also the endercut, when we finally get it, must head towards Northern Italy (ish) not the Azores.

Yes it does in the end of course move in, we are already a fraction further west on this run.

Pretty clear cut really, these pesky Atlantic lows are simply too strong and thats why the initial easterly fails of course. What we wanted ideally is for these areas of LP to have been toned down a bit, but if anything they are a little stronger and further east. We never really recover our easterly afterwards as the high starts to sink and the easterly is thinking ok, stuff you I'm off!

Agree with you 100%. GFS 06z ensembles. Gone is the -6/-7 upper mean, but still some very cold runs in there.

Story of recent winters that chart of course. Surely our luck is due to change, all important 12z runs today awaited with trepidation, but I am pretty sure that the rollercoaster has only just started out on this ride and there are going to be a lot of ups and downs still to come.

latest fax charts looking good to me. Notice the occlusion, D5 snow moving in as per GFS 18z.

True enough. And its notoriously difficult to forecast a Scandi high correctly, I think that we are getting there now though.

Here comes our snow...easterly.

Yes probably cold and mainly dry, some snow though moving in from the east on this run, and maybe in the far west, could be a battleground.

That is a wicked chart, brrrrrrrrr Very cold, snow showers in the east.

Lovely run, thanks 18z! Snow and freezing temps arrive early at D5.

There are some far colder runs in there though of course, just like the GFS also has its colder ensemble members.

Yes you can see the two groups around D5/6, Op not an outlier in fact but is sitting with the milder members. By D7 all are singing from the same hymn sheet...the cold one!

Just be interesting to see if the ECM operational stands out as an outlier or not within its ensemble suite. It may not be of course but there should a split, some going for more undercut, and some showing the Atlantic going over the top, I'm interested in seeing in which group the operational sits.

Please, please don't say anything to anyone......Kiss of death!!

GFS ensembles for Holland, some members going -15, -17 uppers there, and that is the air that on a direct easterly would be heading straight for us, so you never know, GEM might be onto something after all. I would be interested to see exactly how these ensembles sit as compared to the ECM suite, in fact I suspect the ECM operational to be a big mild outlier.

Yes, go, go GEM!

Yes its become a bit of a joke really, 18z very poor, more downgrades tomorrow I wonder? In fact its as bad as it can get now, so surely the only way is up. All eyes on the 00z then.

Is that what an east easterly flow looks like then? All these technical terms, I give up!

And the failed easterly is followed by a......hold on what do we have here.......ahhh false alarm its a failed northerly.

Yes where can I view that forecast?

Indeed blizzard, time to start following the ensemble mean and not pay too much attention to the operationals, who quite frankly seem to have been on a P. Take!

Erm, if it has not been a particularly high likelihood, well let me think, why on earth have most of the operational runs been showing an easterly over the last couple of days then? And then the ECM 12z turns up. Should we be looking at the control runs then instead of the operationals now then going forwards, after all they have not been showing an easterly? In fact the operational has been an outlier most of the time. So its maybe an easterly at the end of Feb sometime then, at T 650 or something. ok.

Depends when in Feb, early Feb is still deep winter, mid Feb and the sun starts to feel warmer, last week of Feb and agree 100% that the sun melts laying snow more quickly. Although If we have a big freeze going on and ice days, then the snow will hang around into March quite readily. As ever at altitude and shaded areas will keep hold of their snow the longest.