Duane S.

The high pressure being pumped up is incredible A whole world of cold possibilities if we can get this one over the line It’s got a look of longevity about it as well. No topplers in sight here.

Anyone finding fault with the current output is very much missing the point and will just lurch all over the place with the models. As always, forget the detail, see the bigger picture and potential. We will never get a cold spell without going through having potential initially . And this is the first opportunity of the season so far, so I'd say not bad a start. Warm air advection, backed up by background signals / jet profile, leading to blocking in and around the right sort of area is all we can ask for really? Of course, what can go wrong probably will go wrong... but as always, I'm coming along on the crazy train for the bumpy ride.

Great set of 00z charts. Oozing with potential. Great GFS, Parallel and Control and nothing wrong with how the ECM evolves, just another variation within the envelope. There are far worse possibilities from this set up, from which a cold spell is far from nailed on unfortunately. This is the area I’m focusing on as a catalyst, seems to be reasonably good model consensus on it, fine details to follow…

Whilst the chart output may not look the prettiest right now, I’d say there is plenty enough promise in there for a cool end of November / start to December in there. Im not really buying any sort of exciting undercut happening near term (as we’ve been teased with at times). The energy and thermal gradient over the other side of the Atlantic is particularly potent. Throw in the odd hurricane interacting with the flow over the ESB and we introduce even more fuel to the fire! but also a wildcard element as well... So for me it’s probably stormy over blocked for now (a no man’s land scenario also a reasonable possibility) but I can envisage the jet potentially slipping south over the next month, bringing a diving jet and colder possibilities into play later. And for now, having the Scandi block sat where it is is no bad thing at all, it ought to help drive wave events into the stratosphere as time goes on and disrupt a growing SPV.

Sorry if it’s been asked / answered elsewhere but what’s happened to the Berlin site this year? The ECM strat data is normally well up and going by this time of the year.

My first post of the water. I’m looking forward to a bit of a wildcard winter Expecting the usual late November tease over the next 2 weeks. Maybe, for once, we get an early cold snap? Anyway, UKMO looks half decent at D6…

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a storm with potential for so much damage in the south. This looks particularly nasty. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Denmark / the Low Countries making the headlines though.

JFF, I’m not sure I’ve seen many like this ever. It’s not so much the depth of the cold, it’s from where it’s sourced Like I say, JFF this one… Potential to be a January’84 ??

I’m not sure where any forcing is right now to pull our high westwards. Personally, I’d happily take these charts in January. It we aren’t going to get snow chances then let it be dry. And it’s always less steps to a snowy outlook from this sort of set up than from a raging zonal one.

The forecast wave 2 has actually upped in intensity This is one of the strongest I can remember. The effect of the SPV appears to be negligible. This is right at the top, but the same story down to mid level… I wonder if the fact we have a clear disconnect between the SPV and TPV helps in that respect. If I’m holding a 1 metre piece of thick rope from the top and create circular movements, it takes a lot less effort than if it was a 2 metre piece of rope. If my hand holding the rope got nudged hard sideways, I would be able to get that circular motion through the rope going much more quickly with the short piece, than with the long piece. The longer the rope, the more circular motions within the rope, more susceptible to outside interference than a tighter shorter overall vortex? The analogy sort of works in my head anyway

That long shot Scandi heights build has continued to gain support…

Control hinting towards that Scandi high option… ?

Having delved through this morning’s output, I do see potential (that dreaded word ). Some form of Cold zonality is probably the form horse for at least the first half of Jan! i.e. us sat on the cold side of the jet, with interspersed westerlies and North Westerly periods. Possibly quite disturbed at times as well. But.. a window of opportunity around the 9th / 10th January, still remains IMO. Whilst still a long shot, there is definitely an opportunity for a Scandi high to form, as the signal for more of a diving jet and ridging in behind secondary lows is stronger. Maybe 2 or 3 bites required?

Seem like the direction of travel may be slowly heading towards a period of ‘cold zonalty’?

GFS and UKMO seemingly squeezing the max out of the Synoptics for next week. I’m looking at that Atlantic ridge and trying to see if there is any realistic way we avoid it ‘closing up’. It’s very difficult to see it occurring looking at the Northern hemispheric profile. That said, it has net improved today. I suppose it’s not completely impossible as new initialisation data gets added over the next 2-3 days of model suites. We could see it continue to improve and hit a tipping point. if we want longevity following the polar incursion, I think it would need to look more GFS esque than UKMO for starters. Very unlikely I’d say but not totally beyond the realms of possibilities .

It’s true, it’s becoming more difficult to remain optimistic (although, I always will ). It is obvious we are polishing a bit of a turd right now. Other than topplers, it’s difficult to see what else to chase at the moment. Next week yes we could pull out a potent, but very short lived, Northerly. Week 2, well that window of opportunity is closing fast but still remains slightly ajar I’d say. Basically, we could do with something that we are not being offered up by any of the charts right now, a new direction of travel (in a positive sense). For a winter harbouring so many promising background signals, it would be surprising to see it go out with a whimper. Fortunately we are not even a month into winter yet, so that one can be put on ice for many more weeks. Anybody that posts otherwise is talking utter nonsense and backing it up only with a combination of their own glass half empty negativity and probably the fact (subliminal or consciously) that they know they will probably end up being right. As it’s a uk winter after all, and that’s just what often happens most of the time (AGW or no AGW). But that’s not for this thread though is it folks. Anyway, looking at the forecast imprint of both the top of the TPV from the large Pacific ridge and the imprint at the top of the strat from the wave 2 attack. I see very little. In fact, certainly as far as the TPV is concerned, it seems to have angered the beast if anything! The projected residual but influential Arctic high looks all wrong for us, as often occurs without reciprocal and favourable ridging from our side of the NH. Whilst having a clear disconnection between the the troposphere and stratosphere into the start of January would normally be met with rapturous joy, it seems to actually be doing us no favours at all! Question is… which direction do we even look to see if the cavalry is coming!?

To retort to your later comment to someone that you were applying ‘simple math’, well no you are applying over-simplified math. The OP is running at a higher resolution at the stage, you can’t just apply a standard deviation from the mean without factoring that context. And Lo and behold, the 06z mean has dropped accordingly towards the op at the same stage…

Indeed. Pacific ridging better aligned.

That is most definitely not an example of an outlier OP. Not even close. I’m struggling to see why / how anyone could interpret this as such, even mistakenly.

Interest has certainly risen a tad this morning. As expected the anomalous very mild spell doesn’t last any time at all, as before the word ‘Bartlett’ has even had time to get uttered, so heights are pulled westwards. Thereafter a lot of the models hinting at more seasonal N / NW sourced weather. From topplers to maybe a bit more?… UKMO giving us probably best case scenario at a very early stage> It does however seem anything at that relatively early stage pulling out a semblance of cross polar flow will be quickly over-ridden with the likely jet stream positioning and strength. That said, too early to be set in stone, a few GEFS do continue show it quite differently. I think more realistic (compared to the UKMO) evolution is what the GFS is showing, ridging in behind a few days later. This I’d say would have more chance of sustaining and building into something much (much?) better> 2nd week of January will probably be our next decent window of opportunity. Be prepared for a few surprises, this is not your standard nailed on default back to a few weeks of zonal and then let’s see scenario.

Here’s an idea, I am going to “hunt for cold”, being the name of the thread and all that… It’s very difficult to get a handle on where we travel next in the mid-term (after the nailed on mild / very mild spell). I think it’s a reasonable bet the first week of January will be fairly uneventful cold weather wise, so we are probably looking second week onwards. A couple of observations. I am perhaps a little surprised that we are not seeing more eye candy far FI charts than we are getting right now. The vortex is going to get a bit of a kicking from below. Signs of a upper tropospheric / lower stratospheric vortex pressure, maybe even a split, early Jan. Throw in an extremely potent wave 2 attack from the top of the strat and I’d have thought this is a case of shake things up and see where things land later in January scenario. I’d throw in that the vortex in E-QBO winters often tends to be more susceptible and fragile than it may appear, at face value, on the charts. It seems a cut-off Arctic meandering high, born from a strong Pacific ridge looks a fair shot into the New Year. Never overly keen on these in isolation though, hopefully we can get a bit of ridging our side to help out. But I’d say, the best mid-term cold shot (still very much an outside shot at this stage) probably comes from a Scandi wedge.

Chin up all, it’s still Christmas time I hope you all had a great day yesterday With Christmas UK wide cold weather hopes now all but a distant memory, we now look for the next opportunity. Sod pragmatism and all the fun sponges on here, I’m still glass half full and here for the chase(s) . And I don’t believe we won’t have to wait long. The obvious downer to focus on are the Iberian height rises. People are right to point out this yes, we need them removed. I think we are seeing that now. Not a lot of appetite currently to ridge northwards through the uk and allow the jet to cut SE’wards. That could change (we wouldn’t need much forcing to establish a Scandinavian wedge and advect cold continental air towards us). Perhaps more likely, a pull back westwards and ridging mid Atlantic in the New Year. Yes, there is an awful lot of energy just where we don’t want it right now and for the foreseeable but it is far from zonal out there (hasn’t truly been in a long long time) and the jet appears to continue to be predisposed to waviness. One for the strat thread really but worth pointing out here that a big wave 2 forecast continues to count down reliably. If it transpires, which is likely to a degree, it ought to upset the SPV and set a few dominoes falling. This really is a very strong one… The Pacific ridge being shown in the trop forecasts, looks more and more like a bit of a monster… Often Pacific ridging has no effect on us downstream or can sometimes even be detrimental but combined with ridging, even relatively minor, on our side, the rewards can be immense. And when you factor in an E-QBO, plus one or two other aspects, we have very good reason to remain optimistic. Because I get the feeling a cold spell could pop up fairly quickly, I’ve seen it before in these set ups. Whether we also get lucky when it does, is of course another matter altogether!

Whilst I might sneak a peek at the 18z later, that’s me done for before Christmas. Have a great Christmas time all and may the charts be full of emerging cross polar flows and Icelandic wedges

Hang on to your hats, the turkey hadn’t even made the oven and a GFS OP is showing the sort of potential that genuinely exists in the not too long term. Here we go again…

As a weather nut, even as a teenager, your forecasts on TV were by far the ones I’d look forward to most. It was then great to see you back on NW. Be in absolutely no doubt Michael that you are, and will forever remain, an absolute legend. All the best and take care.