Model discussion: Hunt for cold - into mid-January

[Peter H]

The interesting thing with persistent high pressure areas is they can suddenly shift position all of a sudden and without warning, which I think is what happened during the winters of 1946/47, 1962/63, and 1985/86 ( which had a really cold but largely snowless February here ). 

A shame this one isn’t over Greenland/Iceland or Scandinavia. We’d be getting a record breaking cold winter if that was the case. 

Every now and again the runs tease us with a cold scenario so you never know, but this is a very odd set up for January. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Peter H

[Staffmoorlands]

2 minutes ago, Northern Sky said:

GFS ends up cool/cold pretty much throughout the run. Little snow but plenty of frosts. 

It's (or it would be if it actually happened) much better than mild dross but I'm starting to miss a bit of wind and rain, never mind snow!

GFS operational run is quite mild throughout especially for Scotland. A couple of cooler blips but nothing of note

[johncam]

2 minutes ago, Staffmoorlands said:

GFS operational run is quite mild throughout especially for Scotland. A couple of cooler blips but nothing of note

Terrible for us mate , don't see anything  in the models going into February showing much promise either 

[frosty ground]

26 minutes ago, Staffmoorlands said:

GFS operational run is quite mild throughout especially for Scotland. A couple of cooler blips but nothing of note

Could one of you post a chart so everyone else can judge?

 

[Tim Bland]

7 minutes ago, frosty ground said:

Could one of you post a chart so everyone else can judge?

 

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?ech=384&code=0&mode=16

Here is a link if you would like to view or post charts … 

[Chesil View]

1 hour ago, northwestsnow said:

GFS setting up an FI special..?

Nope

[swfc]

After many a year on here I'm struggling to remember the MO thread  being so quiet mid winter. Obviously the charts and output indicate why and show how poor things have been for those of a cold/snowy persuasion. For me I think come next autumn /winter I won't be buying into any long range arammageddon type winter forecasts. All  said if the weather turns I'd be looking pretty stupid but I suspect not imo 

Edited January 17, 2022 by swfc

[Cambrian]

12z GFS operational run for 96h - 500 hPa chart and mean wind speeds…

  

Aye me hearties! ‘Tis mid winter but ‘twill be a wretched sailin’ for all, from Connecticut to Cornwall or from the Caribees to Casablanca, ‘ardly a puff of wind to waft me gallows and ‘tis all blowin’ the wrong way. Har! 

[frosty ground]

24 minutes ago, Tim Bland said:

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?ech=384&code=0&mode=16

Here is a link if you would like to view or post charts … 

Thanks Tim I have access to the charts I just wanted a bit more information to back up two opposing claims 

[feb1991blizzard]

You know you're in trouble when you're well into Jan and you're still leaving the meteociel charts on the GEFS until they're finished after 1830 rather than flipping to ECM op and have been doing so most of the winter!

[Staffmoorlands]

18 minutes ago, frosty ground said:

Thanks Tim I have access to the charts I just wanted a bit more information to back up two opposing claims 

[feb1991blizzard]

Anyone else think the ECM has rediscovered its form lately instead of throwing out those ridiculous T240 phantom Easterlies it used to throughout the 1'ties after its 'upgrade' in 2010, when was its last upgrade?, seems to be much less prone now to the garden path, if anything its the GFS that does that now more.

Edited January 17, 2022 by feb1991blizzard

[booferking]

High pressure doesn't move much in 10 days think we might suffer dearly for this come the summer #washout 

[sebastiaan1973]

Extreme high pressure (1048 hPa!) at day 10.

[Battleground Snow]

21 minutes ago, feb1991blizzard said:

You know you're in trouble when you're well into Jan and you're still leaving the meteociel charts on the GEFS until they're finished after 1830 rather than flipping to ECM op and have been doing so most of the winter!

Haha yes, I've been doing that the last few days too.

Best you can say atm is the high doesn't need to move too far to get cold, other than that it's such a boring dull outlook.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Battleground Snow

[blizzard81]

The 12z GFS ens have returned to quite a solid cold extended after the 06z suite which bucked the trend and showed many more milder members. The ecm ext ens from this morning also showed many more cold members than previous suites. Looking for more of the same on the update shortly. 

[Ali1977]

Definitely missing the excitement in here when we are in thecreoiabke of a good freeze/snow event - sadly lacking for most this year. I only hope that Feb and March smash us, we haven’t had a warm winter with an El Niño in the state it’s in, so let’s get that CET down to 0 in Feb, which will no doubt get a slow start

[Gowon]

The ECM has moved towards the GFS. It's better than it's mornings run where it was flat.

[blizzard81]

1 minute ago, D.V.R said:

The ECM has moved towards the GFS. It's better than it's mornings run where it was flat.

Yep, the 12z is appreciably more amplified compared to previous runs. 

[Bricriu]

This high may as well be a Bartlett for the persistence it has shown. We have been under constant cloud cover for days. Well, today we did get clear skies, but starting to get cloudy again. No doubt the high will eventually slink away South east in late January, but will it be groundhog day shortly afterwards or a pattern reset? Without a ssw it's hard to see the TPV  relenting to allow height rises in the right place before March. Still February is our optimum month for snow, so maybe we'll get brief topplers from the north at some point.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Bricriu

[Anthony Burden]

ECM follows GFS/ICON to some extent with a colder outlook,high pressure bringing more of a cold continental 

air stream.This continuation of high pressure looks like it could run through the rest of January and a strong

possibility of the central England temperatures dropping to below average.

[minus10]

Higher!

Higher!

Higher!

[Froze were the Days]

19 minutes ago, D.V.R said:

The ECM has moved towards the GFS. It's better than it's mornings run where it was flat.

Yeah but it's waxing and waning between a slightly more amplified high pressure and a flatter one from run to run...latest 12z looks okay if you like dry fairly chilly conditions with some frost particularly by Thursday/Friday - not the worst of conditions at this time of the year. Last January was dreadful here with lots of rain and minor flooding so...just lacking any real exciting cold synoptics for a number of weeks now, something will change by months end, whether it's good or bad we'll have to wait and see.

 

[E17boy]

Evening peeps,

My thoughts today

hope you are all well. Since my post yesterday I can’t see anything dramatic has changed. The models still indicating us being under the influence  of some sort of high pressure for quite a few many days yet. It’s no point looking at day 10 charts for a breakthrough as they I think give false hopes and knock the uptick when it comes nearer the time for them to verefy.

A couple of posts ago I did a little calculation iof how much time realistically we still had on our side to get at least a weeks proper cold spell or even 3 or 4 days worth of snow which I said will be appreciated by most of us considering the dos we have had so far.

So where do we stand today in terms of timescale. I had hoped that by the end of January we would see some kind of change we still may do, but from the way I see it I think I will have to add 1 more week on to that taking us to 6th Feb.so now I am setting 6th of Feb as a target by which I expect a change to this rut we are stuck in with the high pressure. This change may be for the better or worse I don’t know and  it would not be desirable to make any assumptions.

Taking into consideration that we do see a change by 6th Feb  I am adding 4 weeks on to this to make it a realistic probability of getting a nation wide cold spell within this period. This takes us to 6th March and I am not guaranteeing something will happen in this period. As I said in my previous posts cold can still come after 6th March all the way to April, but I have discounted this period because the sun starts getting stronger and the chances of snow sticking around decrease., unless in extreme circumstances (ie beast from the east 2018 comes in mind).

Anyway that gives us 4 weeks assuming all the above play correctly, gives us 4 weeks to get our 4 day or weeks snow fest. Time is going to be running out soon. The waiting goes on something has to tuck in our favour soon to shift this crap high.

Regards 

[chris55]

High pressure dominance isn’t all bad. 
 

Many will see plenty of sunshine, cold frosty nights and some freezing fog this week. 
 

Personally I much prefer this weather type to a zonal pattern, be that cold or mild. Cold zonality doesn’t favour most of the population if snow is your preference. Cold rain and sleet can be rather grotty. Nothing worse than ice cold rain! 
 

We’ll just have to sit tight and wait for the snowfall in Feb eh