snowray

All upgrades in the last 24hrs, trend?

Here comes our Scandi high again.

I know that these charts are right out in FI but if something favourable shows up for a couple of days on the GFS there is a chance that it could be brought forward a bit and other models might come on board. After all this SSW must be having some effect on the PV by the 2nd/3rd week of Feb, anyway we don't need the full split vortex to get some cold our way, just some northern block that sets up in a favourable place.

Well at least we are seeing improvements on each run from what we had a couple of days ago.

Certainly an improvement there out in FI.

Best chart in some time though, could be more eye candy to come now that the SSW is starting to get into full swing.

Yes at last some snow for NW Italy.

6.2c please

Really horrible ECM this evening. 2nd Feb chart there, much milder air covering the whole of Europe from Iberia to Russia, even Greece has warmed up on this run!

Yes I have had as much as I can take with letdowns this Winter thanks very much, and cold with no snow just means one thing to me, high heating bills. Anyway, all of the models now show the last of the very cold upper air that has been just to the East and South of our shores virtually all Winter, in fact since approximately mid Autumn to be finally moving way, way out East so even if some nice charts do get to the reliable there simply won't be any cold air around to latch onto. Greece though seems to want to stay cold as we go into Feb! March could in fact turn out to be a nice start to spring this year if hp hangs around long enough bringing up mild air from the South, but I bet that start to see Northern blocking in March and April this year.

Agreed fs, am really fed up with looking at charts now and seeing this ever omnipotent Euro slug and the PV going over the top, its actually quite nauseating. Anyway after mid February I personally start to lose interest in looking for snow events, the sun is much stronger by the third week of what is a short month, and it is a short month don't care what anyone has to say. Yes it can snow in March and April, blah, blah...But Winter proper is coming to an end when you see them crocuses and daffs coming up. If a freeze like we have now was say followed by some snow before mid February and some sort of Northern blocking turned up, this could create a memorable spell of Winters weather right through into early March as if it was still mid Winter. Although I think that we would have to go back to the 60's to find the last time we had one of these long lasting February cold and snowy spells of weather.

Not seen a single grain here that I have seen anyway.

Yes it did, there was a fair bit of snow around in North Africa, not just on the Atlas mountains. I really thought that we surely could not go three snowless years but had a feeling that we might get the cold but not the snow. I guess the wet snow event the other week was better than nothing but but it was very much the scraps from the Winter table, to have missed out on the Easterlies that ended up effecting the Med was the most annoying part of this Winter.

should get more wintry later on, euro4 sticking to its guns re flurries.

Just drizzle here, damp. Anyone seen any ice pelets/flakes yet this evening? Tonight will probably be our last chance for a sprinkle of white to show up for some time I would think, models looking very poor again

And the control at t144 a lot better.

Yes ideally we would want more upgrades from ECM and the other models playing catch up, then even if a new middle ground scenario is negotiated it could in fact still be a favourable outcome. Some sort of shift to the ECM on tonights 18z run would be a nice place to start.

Interesting, some quite high upper temps there, and yet the continental airflow is producing 2m temps and dew points below freezing. I take it that the snow grains and flurries that might turn up tomorrow night are of the faux snow variety?

Ahhh right you are there Blizzard, well this has all come out of the blue of course and with the current SSW event going on we could be onto something. Can the GFS come on board though in the next couple of runs I wonder, as has been said many times this winter, all the big 3 have to agree, middle ground compromises are simply not good enough.

Great looking ECM there, was not expecting this sort of turnaround. Didn't someone on here say the other day that an Easterly that verifies is not picked up out in FI lala land for the UK but usually starts to show up in the charts sort of out of the blue at around day 7/8? Is there any truth to this or is this just another myth?

Yes milder here too, frost disappeared at about 12 noon today, never came back.

Thats it then, kiss of death!

Your quite right its all very strange, the sun today in London felt very strong and it occurred to me that we have moved on exactly a month since the Winter equinox on Dec 21st, so slowly but surely the days will be getting longer now as we go into February. Traditionally the last week of January and the first in February have marked the coldest time of the year, but I can't see it being anything much this year, have we had any decent late Jan/early Feb snowfalls in recent years? I suppose it is a little bit annoying that much of Europe, including Spain, Italy, the Balkans, and parts of North Africa including the Sahara desert can get decent snowfall, but we have to wait for SSW's and things being just right to get anything more than an inch of wet sloppy snow thats gone within 24hrs..

Might be just as well not to look too far ahead, we have a very cold weekend coming up with some colder uppers and snow flurries around, and its not going to warm up early next week. I am no fan of this Euro Slug to be honest, it seems to have been there forever, but with the SSW coming up and the AO/NAO potentially starting to go negative it would only take an undercut of some sorts to shift everything North. This could produce a very memorable longer lasting cold spell as the cold builds as we go into Feb and with the effects of the SSW potentially starting to show up as early as the second week of Feb.

Problem is that in spite of having LP over the Med and Italy in particular, we simply have not seen an undercut. You can see the low move up through Morocco, Spain, and almost becomes a classic Genoa Low, but then moved back SE in the end and HP builds over central Europe. It seems to me that the spoiler as usual in our Winters is the Azores High.