The Enforcer

Good. Is there an earlier chart? The earlier the better.

Or as I see it, according to that chart, the Atlantic train is forecast to have lost its engine by 16 days from now.

Sixth ‘attempt’ of the week was finally a direct hit: Rain. Has been falling intermittently for the last six hours since then. Crap again.

Five times in five days now: 01/01/21 - missed:

The pattern continues: 28/12/20 - missed: 29/12/20 - missed: 29/12/20 - missed: 01/01/21 - missed:

Thanks. OK, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for many areas this week when starting upper temps and dew points were less favourable? I thought that one of the headlines from this morning’s runs was that the South Eastern Mediterranean feed responsible for the less cold easterly had been cut off in favour of South Eastern Europe or even further north than that depending on the model responsible. Also, isn’t this going to become a recurring issue when looking at charts that appear to be getting all the high bar criteria set for snow and then the precipitation arrives with its mild sector and knocks everything below the bar again?

Hold on a minute, if the air has got sufficiently cold/dry by the beginning of next week to introduce colder 850 temperatures than previously forecast and negative dew points, why is the precipitation throughout next week still mostly rain?

Isn't this another easterly sourced from south-eastern Europe? Where are those dew point charts?

If the chart above should come to pass, please don't expect to receive a card from the freshly retitled 'Man Without Beard'.

Given I can't trust a low-res precip chart within T+48, I'm not about to start doing so at T+168. This one is even worse - accumulations right on coasts and ludicrously even over the sea, but none inland even at 250 metres.

Oh dear. I'd better brace myself for a fourth episode of 'missed by 5 miles' in the space of 4 days.

In this instance 'missed by 50 miles' doesn't feel so bad as it will be breaking the current run of x3 'missed by 5 miles' in 2 days.

Temperature still not below freezing. In spite of being about as far as you can possibly get from any coast in the UK, setting aside the total aversion to any kind of snowfall this place now seems to have developed some sort of maritime climate. Definitely some sort of snow repulsion going on according to 24 hour accumulation:

I can't help thinking that the DP charts should come out first and, after a cursory glance, if they aren't 0 or below then I can skip the rest and move on until the next run.

The pattern continues: 29/12/29 - missed:

Reports of snow falling from the easternmost blob of precipitation as far south as Banbury.

I am expecting that if and when that mass of snow to the north gets here, as by then it wouldbe the warmest possible part of the day.

There’s a pattern developing here: 28/12/20 - missed: 29/12/20 - missed: n.b. Actual location is a few miles further east than plotted on the radar.

Here’s one from yesterday commenting on a precipitation chart at T+204: “Nationwide snow event. Even though it shows rain I think it will be 100% snow.”

Again, in a more localised view it just looks weird. And on top of that this precipitation should be immediately to my north, but it actually looks darker to the south. Bone dry too, so nothing has passed through here.

Definitely something up with the NW radar this morning. Check what the feed does over southern UK at 7:55am.

Am I right in thinking you are around 90-100metres ASL there?

The short-range models are highly likely to keep changing their forecasts for these areas of precipitation. I am expecting the 00z & 06z outputs to differ from the 12z and for each other.

This is the bottom line. However, how accurate are DP forecasts likely to be at T+192? I suspect the answer would include the words "very" and "not".

Probably the second best snow-related example of short-range change in modelling at T+12, to the extent that Rob McElwee presenting the late evening forecast actually said not to take the graphic showing northern snow limit being M4 corridor literally and that the snowfall limit the following morning would be more like the M40 corridor.