GFS shows the Atlantic as a source for our weather over the next two weeks, calmer with a ridge of HP around Wed 5th (1030 mb Ireland - France) and then stormy in the second week (especially at the start, unremitting gales from Mon 10th SW ly becoming NWly by Wed 12th, the latter driven by 950mb Shetland). 

http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/prec4 showing a deluge in that second week; its companion http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/temp4 showing some really cold air being held back over Europe and heading down to Turkey instead.

ECM similar but keeps next week's HP hanging around longer.

GEFS temps up and down, no one run consistently low and the mean of the whole ens a little above normal. Rainfall significant at first and building up again from Tue 11th (some regional variation - drier in the E as usual; Scotland is drier at first but doesn't see as much of the drier period around Sat 8th as in the south)

TBH I think the Met Office long range forecasts have consistently underestimated the mildness this winter. January looks like coming in over 2.5C above CET and IMHO Feb is also shaping up to be another mild or very mild month. I'll stick with this winter making it into the top 10 mildies. 

How do you find Arpege for precipitation amounts and/or type? (Available on TWO here https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/arpege.aspx and other sites)

Wrt the spot forecasts I could tell you in-depth how the TWO ones are created using Arpege and GFS data at the moment. However, I've never heard anyone talking about how the Met Office produce their own and as such things are quite opaque. I would assume they (like everyone else) are using grib data sets and then extracting point forecast data and mapping to locations. It's less clear to me what those data sets are. Are they from the op run of the global model, ensemble data (MOGREPS) or a higher resolution local model?  

The pattern in those ensembles paint a very depressing picture. They have that classic sine wave look.

The funny thing is that this comes after they, as far as I recall, somewhat overestimated the amount of warmth they were expecting to see during the autumn just passed. October and November, as far as I'm aware, both returned CET figures which were either at or slightly below average which was somewhat contrary to what the MetO had been expecting beforehand.

The only difference now though is that there will be some colder European weather and before now this winter there hasn't really been a High Pressure sitting near to the right position. If the HP, which is starting to shape up on the 4th and is currently programmed to sink, were to reposition more favourably it would become cold. The building blocks are better but the outcome for them to collapse is the same.

Jetstream continuing to run across the UK, weaker with a bit of looping at first but really strong week beginning Monday 10th. Ties in with this pptn forecast http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/prec4

GFS generally westerly; brief ridge of high pressure Wed 5th/Thu 6th, stormy with cold NW Mon 10th/Wed 12th, consistent with above

ECM similar

GEFS not showing on TWO chart viewer this morning

the Euroslug is even more prominent in this mornings GFS. The brief high next week got drastically downgraded from the Louise Lear deep freeze snap, such that the cold will be 1000 miles east of us briefly skirting Poland before settling for a day in Azerbajan 

It is the definition of a poor winter for coldies when Poland only gets a old snap of 1 day. 

Just hoping the slug will get salt on it by the 20th, if that jet forecast verifies, but since the jet is as predictable as a willothewisp - I'm not betting so much as my packed lunch on it.

No need to worry Brian - weather related activity on your site must be at an all time low given the borefest weather for the time of year.

Things will hot up in the spring when winter belatedly arrives

Well if this is the ghost of winter future I'm glad I was born when I was.

So Brian your forecast for cold post mid February - "something wintry to offer for all areas" etc i doubt you agree with it now?

So snowless across Europe that Scotland is the snowiest bit of Europe, outside Scandinavia, on this run! (Iceland getting absolutely buried, too)

A long way out this one and will no doubt change/modify.

Yes true - Iceland, along with many parts of the Arctic, Including Northern Canada, Greenland and Alaska, perhaps far north of Russia have been exceptionally cold - indicative of a strong PV.

I recall similar dire predictions 20-odd years ago when the term ‘Bartlett’ first came to prominence.

Sadly the trend is clear but there’s still lots of potential for severe cold, maybe just not as intense or long-lasting.

I would be surprised if we get through to April without the weather doing a bit of evening out.  That’s just me thinking the pattern can’t run on continuously for 4 months.