Unusual synoptics being shown with the jet plunging South but with nothing in the way of Northern blocking - treat with extreme caution.

stop ramping

I think many on here have been let down enough over the years to treat the current cold output with caution. I think this forum is pretty good for not going OTT with ramping up a cold spell that hasn't materialised yet.

We have two of the 'big three' singing from the same hymn sheet with the jet diving south allowing sliding lows to delver increasingly wintry outbreaks from the north. UKMO flatter but not a million miles away.

I'm sure you can see why some are getting excited about the prospects of cold and snow, though. These aren't outliers after all - the trend whichever way you look at it is increasingly cold as next week progresses. Perhaps the phrase 'cautious optimism' is about right? 

I wonder how many LRF are going to change pretty soon,if the current output continues.

I admire your optimism given your location. :)

Yes; understand why thoughts might go that way. but best wait a while for the longer call, given the MetO longer view.

No, that is actually incorrect. It (the 18z GFS operational run) is a very similar pattern to other output so far. The details, as expected at the time of interest day 9 or so, will change with each run.

Here is Election Day:

History dictates this is the likely outcome.

It should really be engrained into the ‘pyschi’ of even the most fervent model fanatic that taking a couple of OP runs in isolation of its ensemble is often bad for your health.

Widespread snow is so flipping rare before Christmas. We were utterly spoiled 9 and 10 years ago I fear those memories will remain never equalled.

I’m taking the current output as entertainment and nothing more. As long as it’s dry for a while longer I’ll be happier.

edit: this pub run is an absolute sh** show. Look at the difference between 252 and 264

Quite. Even the stellar runs looks marginal for southerners. 

Maybe, although I imagine that those people who were here to experience December 1981 said broadly the same thing for years afterwards.

Back in the autumn of 2010 I for one didn't envisage that heavy & widespread snow would strike again before Xmas virtually nationwide and at an even earlier time than it did in 2009, but that's exactly what happened. Before 2009 the odds on a lengthy cold and snowy spell commencing just before and then lasting right through the festive season must have been pretty long; the odds on a month-long freeze happening for a second year in succession must have been even greater.

If we had believed what a certain individual who posts on this forum was trying to tell us a decade or so ago about such severe and long-lasting cold spells being a thing of a past and that, in his view, they couldn't happen again under any circumstances, this thread would be like a ghost town in the winter months.

Yup, not even enough to raise an eyebrow for me!

I look for several indicators, bearing in mind I'm looking for proper snow down here, rather than a sleety shower for a few minutes:

• Ice days


• -10C at 850 (which gives wriggle room for the inevitable downgrade)


• A 50th percentile chance of snow on the ground on EPS

Taking the latest EPS, 1 of 52 members shows an ice day for London, none show -10C 850s and the 50th percentile is for no snow. Figures from weather.us.

GEFS, on the other hand, has a few ice days in the last 4 runs, one member (out of 88) getting to -10C at 850 and snow chance wise (as opposed to snow on the ground wise), averaged across the 4 runs, no higher than 15%. Figures from Meteociel, which allows you to superimpose the last 4 GEFS runs.

Not impressed this morning , GFS backing down from its recent extremes - very early days of Winter though

Based on the overnight GEFS I'll stick to what I said the other day. Flooding could be the main weather concern in the approach to Chrimbo.

Reading the comments in this thread in the run up to winter is like having food poisoning.

Every time you think it's safe to get up out of bed it starts all over again.  Up and down up and down.  Four months or more  of it so.

There is a huge difference in'really really' wanting something so badly, and reality.

I do not have the Model reading skills and expertise of most of the guys in here, but what is the point if they are treated like antibiotics in the far east ? 

Seasons greetings.

It is completely my fault Rob - I was foolish enough to tell my wife that it was going to turn wintry next week based on the MO from yesterday - naturally, it jinxed it completely. Should have enough model output scars on my back to avoid that by now - so sorry.

Yes, and that’s been the underlying theme for about a week now: cool to cold zonality with no reliable sign of blocking.

As for the Express, perhaps they were lining up “Johnson landslide thwarted by blizzards”.