This could be good 

Nice low forming over Italy. The jet must have made its way to Morocco and east again...

18z not as good as the 12z …..….not worth worrying about , the general set up is the same 

This is still with 4 days to go until Feb , with Feb being touted as a 'good un' , we could have some interesting few weeks ……...but this is the UK ….caution required id say 

Deepest deepest FI , HP building to the NE 

Are you sure Rob very active cold front moving south

I’ve little to add other than the background signal remains for something potentially special going into end Jan/Feb.
Some frankly astonishing GEFS this evening as many predicted there would be and this theme will grow.

18z GFS(P) producing another variation on the same theme of mid-Atlantic blocking

ECM 12z ensemble for London shows a further strengthening of the signal for cold conditions from later next week. The operational was amongst the milder options.

Looks like 'Polar low' haha!

Rain to snow event or thundersnow? Cold air behind that front!

That couldn’t look less like a polar low if it tried. 

Some sort of vague consistency and agreement starting to show in the ens cross-model. Mind you, compared to the last few weeks that’s not difficult. 

Love the Parallel run:

Variation of the 12z run! A Polar Low? Polar Low?

But if this did come about this would be quite a shock a blast?

Blizzards for the south west if this verifies?

Have you a view on the Brexit situation too Matty 😉

Good to hear from you by the way 😊

Icelandic Low?

Political discussions are for people who enjoy pointless confrontation, mate 

Cheers Neil. Good to see you still prevalent on here. Your measured posts have always been one of the better reads. Gavin P, Retron, Shropshire, Gusty and a few others always stand well.

I’m as sure as I can be that Feb will at the very least provide snow potential for all. How much and how long is utter guesswork. 

Last Op run of the day always seems to be amongst the warmest in recent days...not sure why - probably just coincidence....hoping one of the eye-candy perturbations makes 2019 a year for the memory banks: it's in need of something good happening with all the Brexit bothersome-ness, warming oceans and boil-in-the-bag earth beckoning from ostrich mimicking world leaders over focussed on wall building.

Two will become too Political soon - is there a Politics thread or something Brexit related? Because I can see us and even myself talking politics at some stage with so much going on and the political events that are due to occur over the next few weeks and months that it will be hard not to mention anything political on here or is talking politics forbidden on tow? I remember Gooner mentioned one or two things at one point?

...and that applies to the ensemble suite too. There's been a gradual rise in the number of sub -10C 850s, but they're very much glancing blows rather than a deep Beast-type setup. Nonetheless, with low pressure close by that 850 level will be hundreds of feet closer to the surface than with an easterly.

At a ground temperature of 3C, 850hPa is around 4900 feet at 1025hPa sea-level pressure. At (say) 990hPa, it's 4000 feet - and that makes a hell of a difference. It's why we're seeing so many runs with snow despite what looks to be on the face of it less than exciting amounts of deep cold air around.

(Click for full size).

Further up, the SSW is of course ongoing. Last night's ECM run extended it until T+216, which is noon on the 20th. This extension, which was hinted at the day before, will just add further impetus towards the pattern change in my view. However, until it goes back to normal (and subsequently flushes down to the lower layers) it's still rather uncertain as to the longer-term effects. I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see a Scandinavian High and easterlies, though that may be a few weeks away yet.

As an aside, it's wonderful to be seeing all this with over half of the meteorological winter remaining!

One of the most noteworthy things for me is seeing the mean minima on the London GEFS going below zero consistently at the latter stages. That's very rare this far out and, as you suggest, would point to a very strong cold signal.