The strong southerly winds for the 3rd week of November as I said the other day are still appearing on the GFS output. That's depressing, especially as ECM are also coming up with a similar thing. Still time to change, though.

Yes they are BUT going through the GEFS there are plenty of decent outcomes still on the table 

Agreed , PV all over the shop also 

... and the jetstream is another thing all over the place, too.

Anyway, this week's depression moves off southwards but leaving a weak trough behind which wasn't there yesterday.

Then from Tue 19th GFS shows an Atlantic depression sets up off Ireland and intensifies there, eventually retrogressing towards Iceland around Sat 23rd, and quite a strong southerly flow over the UK for most of this time. After a short slack period, more Atlantic depressions with a strong Zonal flow from the SW all the way to Norway and beyond on Thu 28th. HP develops over southern Britain at that time.

Quite similar on ECM to start with, then that depression off Ireland is weaker, a bit closer to the UK, and at the very end of its run it moves off southwards, not northwards

Ens runs generally edging above normal from the 21st; some widespread rain about then but becoming drier.

Quite different from yesterday in week 2 - if the models aren't reliable at this range, what hope for forecasting the winter at large?

The upper level warm up during the next 10 days has been amplified on the 00z GEFS (vs yesterday) because the colder runs have dropped out. The numerical models suggest winter is most likely to start with temperatures close to or above the average. However, I realise that a number of pundits are flagging up other factors and the possibility of it turning much colder. At the moment that stock is too highly priced so I'm not buying in. 

Mixed feeling this morning.

Its encouraging that temperatures are going to recover closer to normal with time after a few more cool days but any cheer gained from this is soon eliminated by the prospect of more rain and potentially very windy conditions at times. 

Down here we've had nearly 320mm of rain in the last 7 weeks.

We need a break.

The other point worth throwing into the mix is the performance of the medium range models. Despite a lot of wildcards being offered up they have been pretty solid in signalling next week's pattern shift. As is the norm there have been a few outliers but in general there has been a decent level of consistency. 

A positive NAO/AO phase remains in the latest UKMO seasonal model forecast for Dec-Feb. And what a striking contrast between the Arctic and Antarctic MSLP anomalies! pic.twitter.com/e5UetGn3FY

— World Climate Service (@WorldClimateSvc) November 11, 2019

Alot of confusion recently in the models from a previous position of consistent northern blocking.

I think the models are potentially settling on a Pressure rise to the south and dropping to our north - not what we want to see for colder weather. There had been signals that perhaps this year would be different to previous and that a zonal train wouldnt start up. But i would potentially say we are already zonal, with weather front after weather front now starting to make its presence known. and a slightly different airmass by the day ie the typical weather for tail end of Autumn

Maybe this year the zonal train was delayed a little longer than usual?

Either way - it continues to look wet with Pressure ridges of dryness seemingly at a premium.

Record breaking wet weather continues

I must admit I was quite taken by the model output yesterday, which didn't deliver any specific cold or sow for the UK, but was full of downstream potential.  Lots of Northern or North-Eastern blocking on show, and I'm hoping this is a repeating theme for the winter and not a false dawn.  

That ensemble chart doesn't shout cold or snow just yet.

Plenty of potential...    let's see what the ensemble delivers.

The model output is not without interest for cold weather fans as we head into the 2nd half of November. Very interesting to see lower heights over Europe and the displacement of the Azores High for much of the GFS 6z run. Very different from what we saw for the majority of last Winter.

Whether it is a temporary blip or not we will see as the runs roll out. November has certainly started very cold with a max temp of ~2C today in Edinburgh.

It actually ended up getting up around 4°C (I am about to go into more detail with that in today's CC thread) here in Edinburgh, but this is still quite an impressive cold snap for so early in the season and even November 2010 wasn't as cold as that at this stage of that month.

Having said that though, I mentioned just recently on this thread that it will probably no doubt, warm up again in time for the start of the actual winter as it normally does. Even at the timing of that previous post, the CFS in particular had already been consistent with a return to milder weather by the end of this month.

Now, that is starting to come to the fore with the more reliable forecasts as well which now expect it to be milder and especially in the northern half of the UK which has been relatively dry recently due to that southerly tracking jet stream, now probably likely to become wetter as a result.

I don't want this to be seen as a "winter is over" post, but it wouldn't then surprise me one single bit if that was then, "it" for our winter.

Colder trending in the 12s both UKMO & GEFS increasing pressure depths to the North creating more of a slide to the atlantic low -

Also strat forecasts at day 16 down to 5 M/S on some runs now ( operationals around 15m/s but looking good there !)

The colder signal at the end of the GEFS has gone on the 12z update. That apart there is no significant change.

The latest ECM run ramps up the southerly wind thing for around the 21st courtesy of a dartboard type low over the west of the UK.

And right now it is currently raining although we have had a fair day with some good sunshine so it hasn't been all bad. 

Only mid November and a lot more seasonal than recent ones although little sign of an early start to winter despite what you may read on other sites. Trop, strat disconnect still in evidence  probably responsible for the more seasonal weather (temp wise). jet diving south just to the west of the UK with what looks like stagnant air from Greenland round to western Russia and lows just meandering around in amongst shallow high pressure to the north.

Going on this mornings GEFS blocking looks the form horse into the last week of November