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Good afternoon, Even though cold is far away, another post from me before my break untill next winter. What strikes me lately with EC (I dont pay attention to GFS atm) is that the evening runs seem more settled/colder than the morning runs. It shows to me that forecast reliability is very low. Of course it's the season of transition where weather types can follow eachother quickly, but it wasn't that "unreliable" in the past. Anyone the same impression?

Good Morning, EC the complete opposite of yesterdays 12z. The operational is an outlier in the EPS. A cold couple of days possibly from next weekend onwards. Nice weather if you ask me. The bad thing is that nature is already ahead and "winter" would mean a destruction of everything just in bloom.

Dennis I wouldn't be too excited about a blocking scenario as it is too far east. In fact it is a block, but in the wrong place with the wrong history. Even with a retrogression scenario of the Russian/European hp it will not deliver. If we want anything close to substantial cold, we need a pressure rise West of Norway followed by tilting to the East. Of course in March a northerly can deliver plenty of snow showers, but we (I) need more than that. The tpv is just too strong and that makes it an odd winter which was forecasted to have the highest possibility of cold weather/a blocked pattern in February. Well, the opposite is true with the warmest February on record (also in Holland). Plenty of lights are/were green but the cold in Western Europe and Britain were hard to find. The winter of missed opportunities.

minus10 EC00 and GFS06 not so different at day ten. Shape of the through is better on GFS than on EC, but those are details at that time frame. If it is to be a trend, then later in March an interesting pattern can come to existence. Maybe the Polar high is coming into play this time. Two months late, but I like Polar air flow any time of year.

Good Morning, Could be interesting for England if EC verifies. EC as a whole quite interesting with a meridional pattern setting up at the end. Euro block with a slight possibility of expansion towards Svalbard. Far FI of course, but a huge difference between EC and GFS at day 10.

Dennis It will be hard I guess, but not impossible as the uppers at 1,5 km are "only" -4. In intense showers it should be possible. But the wind direction is Southwest. What is the sst near the coast?

Good morning, Nothing wintry or springlike in either EC or GFS. After a few days of a chillier wind direction then a number of days with Southwesterlies follow under the influence of the pv expanding South (note the certainty). After that there is a lot of scatter in the wind direction. But there is a great possibility of a flow between north and east, albeit that the chance has decreased since last night.

LRD Still quite a strong tp vortex over Canada/Greenland given the forecast that it was a backloaded winter. GFS is more reliable atm than EC, I suppose.

LRD I think that is congruent with the season. Small changes in course van have an immense effect. If you take March 2013 as an example 6 and 7 March were warmest in records whereas the 11th saw snow and an ice day. I think the volatility of the atmosphere increases and therefore the reliability is louter than average. So I agree with you, but it is to soon to draw a conclusion.

daz_4 True, but what may be more important is the disappearing of the Iberian high and the rain that finally hits Spain. Over 100 mm in the next two weeks according to GFS. It is not the first run with this amount of precipitation.

LRD Good afternoon, What looks unconvincing? Please tell, because the season approaches in which changes appear quickly from one day to the next. The GFS is not a very odd calculation. I suppose the scatter becomes greater as the chaos of the atmosphere is increasing.

Dennis Good Morning, Isn't that the sign of the final warming Dennis? It often occurs in March/april. Meanwhile EC is not very interested in a blocking scenario (EPS nothing more than average after week 1). GFS much better and seems spot on lately when it comes to the synoptic pattern (change). Hopefully the blocked pattern leads to sunny conditions regardless if it's cold or not. I prefer dry conditions.

northwestsnow Good Morning, lol, Scandinavia somehow hit the jackpot this winter (sort if). The Netherlands is a whole different story Edit: to illustrate with the sea ice extent of the Baltic sea compared to previous years.

Good evening. Looks like the continents (far east) are rather cold(ish) and inbetween it is a nightmare. Wrong side of the ocean, that's for sure. Wonder what the weather is like in Vancouver atm. This winter van be written of. Days are getting longer, so a dry period would be nice. But the latest runs are getting wetter. I'm not sure what the reliable forecast horizon is at the moment, but models have swapped a lot the past few days with GFS seemingly top of the bunch. Not a good sign as it was the worst synoptically.

Good Morning, A quick glance at the charts shows that we can almost write this winter off. Despite all the potential, the delivery failed really. I would like to give credit to the posters that put their heads out in discussing the background drivers. It is really informative even though perhaps not always spot on. Thank you for that. Here is the EPS of this morning. Not really promising I suppose. Above average, but fortunately not very wet. A serious downgrade since two days ago.

Good Morning, I would like to show how the operationals perform in terms of numbers and there seems to be a matter of an outlier when looking at EC. Nevertheless has the EPS downgraded a lot. It is not just miserable in England when it comes to winter, but in a large part of Europe I would say. Despite the promising signals, this is the current reality where the colder temperatures for next week have been replaced by mild ones. The average of colder temperatures seem to be slipping through our fingers like sand. Comparing EC and GFS it looks like there is a lot of agreement, but also a lot of uncertainty. This is also illustrated by the wind probability. There is no dominant direction of flow after day 5. It just really is a complex situation and the fact that there is no cold in store anywhere in Europe (except for Scandinavia which is getting more and more curious) doesn't really help. The fastest track to cold is a northerly followed by a blocking scenario.

Mike Poole Good afternoon, That chart does look promising. However the shape of the low in the west bothers me. We never will know how the 192h would look like, but I would expect the hp over Scotland to be overrun by the through. There is though a possibility that with help of the background drivers (MJO phase 7) that it will not get overrun. But none of the models are very useful beyond day 4-5 at the moment, so what is the value to be attached to it atm? Edit: after having seen the WZ version of the 144 and comparing it to the GFS they are pretty similar and I could be wrong. The jet looks to be heading pretty South and the through is not really progressing, but rather shaping up to create WAA. (I'm having more difficulty interpreting the MC charts)

MJB March 11th 2013. Snow cover plus one of the latest ice days ever recorded. I suggest under the right circumstances this is possible in England as well. This was the chart a few days earlier

Dennis That is really a lot and I tend to disagree a little as many examples have shown that this time lag is not always the case. I recall the SSW happening at the 21st of december 2012, which played out in the second week of January 2013 (or was that dumb luck?). The spell in March 2013 was definitely the consequence of that SSW. Of the SSW in 2009 I'm not so sure and neither am I of the Canadian warming in 2010. Other examples happened before my interest in model watching. Edit: the SSW of February 2018 had a lag time of about 2-3 weeks I guess.

The 12h runs are better but not great. At least the output makes more sense so that's a start. Now the only problem is to get the cold in and the only way to that is a northerly into Scandinavia followed by a Northeasterly.

Good afternoon, After recovering from watching the woeful output this morning, I would like to add a positive note. Taking the EC at 168h of this morning, there is not a lot of "effort" needed to get a Scandiblock. A bit of proper WAA and the block should be there. The models are stalling a bit in getting the cold where we want it. It doesn't mean it won't get there, but every day the chance of a serious cold spell is decreasing. At day 10 a Block is present. But in the wrong place. A bit more West would be nice.

Let's see where EC leeft ús with the 2m temperature for next week. A simple conclusion can be drawn and that is that the cold had been postponed by two days more again. Well, cold, more like average for the time of year. Despite the biggest chance of a Northeasterly apparently it is not very cold up north.

Does anybody know if this has anything to do with downwelling and the SSW? In that case the battle is on and I know where to put my money.

EC following the rest tonight with dreadful output and a battle in the end between the Beast from the East and the Atlantic. I wonder where the fire up of the Atlantic suddenly comes from. It is the most curious case of model watching I have seen. Not quite easy to predict what is going to happen with the weather systems as it is against all odds what the output shows. We could be seeing something quite different tomorrow by this time.

Daniel* I was wondering about the performance of this winter in terms of statistics Daniel. Do you have any idea?