Paul_1978

The only thing I would say to that (presume you were looking at Michael Ventrice's tweet), is that the chart posted is way out at T+360. So far too far away to be taken seriously IMHO.

It is also worth remembering that today is 3rd Jan. We have only just reached 1/3rd of the way through meteorological winter. T+384 is only 18th Jan, and don't forget some classic dates such as 6th Feb (1991) and 14th Feb (1979) are not even in the longest range model suites at the moment (barring CFS). Plenty more to go at yet!!

Great point. Take a look at the BBC forecast from Feb 1991 presented by Ian McCaskill (on You Tube) - talks about the very mild situation in America (New York, Washington etc) prior to discussing the freezing cold UK. If only it was as simple as that though!

What is "Conus"?

Those AO forecasts don't half flip though. Might be all tanking now, but tomorrow may well show something less appealing. However, thanks for the heads up :-) Going to keep my eye on it!!

Just when I was going to give model watching a break for a couple of days, and now I'm eagerly anticipating (as I'm sure a lot of us will be) viewing runs to see if this trend is maintained..... arghhh!!

Has anyone posted this over the last few pages? AO runs look great to me unless I'm missing something?

That's good news - 6th Jan is only T+159 so I'm ignoring the 12z op output after that. Might be best if many of us do for our own sanity!

I've been looking at the GFS archive for past wintry periods, eg Feb 1981, Jan 1987, Feb 1991 - and one thing is for sure, as long as we can keep low heights in Europe then for me that's a big step in the right direction. The 06z keeps low heights there during the run, resulting in the easterly, albeit a long way off. So for me, I'll certainly be keeping a close eye on what's going on in Europe and the Med, as well as to the North West (Greenland/Iceland).

One of the main differences I can see so far is that by T+195, the Azores low is a lot further south than on the 00z, and as the run progresses to T+252 it still remains a lot further south than on the previous run. By T+264 (10th Jan), the 06z is completely different to the 00z but somehow we manage to still salvage an easterly right at the end.

At T+336 I'm not surprised ;-) (Only teasing).

So only the GFS 6z has the Azores low going into Iberia - that's definitely the thing to keep an eye on for me in the next runs.

Agreed not in the truest sense of the word, but in my view totally relevant to the thread. Anyway no worries I will say no more. As for the 06z output, it is interesting that the Azores low develops more significantly than on the 00z run in that it pushes east into Portugal/Spain by T+153, whereas on the previous run it was prevented from migrating eastwards. By T+213 it appears that the Atlantic high is not able to push eastwards as easily and thus not centred over the UK, leaving us in a better northerly flow for longer.

It's a shame - but I wonder if anyone has had a word with the said plonker, as they might not realise what they did was wrong, and then @Ian Fergussoncan return and give us the much needed updates.

Stop it Steve! On another note, someone said we're chasing Day 10 charts again. 192/216 are not Day 10 and for me that's where the interest is ECM wise.

Yes, the 06z and 12z pretty much the same until T+168, then from T+171 onwards they are poles apart. FI clearly T+168 if not sooner. Anything modelled after that, in my opinion, is "just for fun".

I had a look at the 00z GFS postage stamps at T+192. The majority (over half) show a NW'ly. A quarter show W'ly. None show anything from the S/SW. By T+240, W and NW'lys are evenly spread, along with the rest of the members showing anything from SW'lys to N'lys. One or two members showing NE/E'ly but they are in the minority.

Just quoting what Matt said - and he seems to be referring to warm anomalies in the NE, not cold anomalies in the NW.

So despite a touch of negativity in the last couple of pages, @MattHugo reports on Twitter that "00z EC by 216/240hr is general representative of the bulk of the EC ENS members with some sort of block to the W and NW". And also that "the temp anomalies are off the scale NE Canada - interesting times ahead if you're after cold weather". So, I'm sure it's probably not just me but we seem to have differing levels of positivity and negativity on here this morning - glass half full and glass half empty if you like. It's very confusing.

No not you, the poster you originally quoted.

You appear to be concentrating solely on one output and not considering the overall bigger picture that lots of people have been telling us about. I think there's an awful lot to be positive about.

Hmmm it's strange isn't it. Only a few hours ago we had "Boom" and "Get set its coming", but people should be tempering their expectations I reckon. It's far from nailed. Ill be the first to jump up and down if we get great charts within T+144 or less!

At T+300 not a lot!

Are you feeling alright IDO?

Indeed. That's what you call a downward trend.