Yes, though we could see a flip back to northern blocking for the end of the month. 

Yes, I doubt winter is over yet, I think the high will push back west and probably the Eastern side of the UK will get some more winter weather before February is out. We will see how this pans out, but  a week or two of mild weather seems nailed on.

There's only just over two weeks left of this winter though so if the next couple of weeks does end up being mild, any return to colder weather would be unlikely to occur until the start of the meteorological spring and therefore, too late for that to be occurring within the actual winter.

From that context, we may as say that winter will be over, once the milder weather arrives.

Still some strong signs in the ECM ensembles for another cool down post day 10, but who knows at those timescales!

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/charts/web/classical_meteogram?facets=undefined&time=2021021300,0,2021021300&epsgram=classical_15d&lat=53.2&lon=-2.91667&station_name=Chester,%20United%20Kingdom&altitude=12
Martin

Meteorological winter ends on the 20th of March, winter has still time to return.

No, that is astronomical winter. Meteorological winter finishes at the end of February. Although both may finish tomorrow based on current output.

Yes going by the Fax this morning we go from, cold windy and dry to mild windy and wet.... great.

That is, of course, assuming that the current output for the end of February (only the GFS goes this far ahead to my knowledge) verifies as presently shown.

The one constant theme throughout this winter, from all I have seen, is that FI for much of the time has commenced at a fairly early stage. Last winter it was easier to have greater confidence in the model output for more than 10 days ahead verifying as shown as the models were dealing with a pattern they seem to find much easier to handle. This winter has been a different ball game entirely, and I too am getting something of a feeling that we may not have seen the last of the cold yet, even if there is no more before the end of February.

And the hopefully to drier, milder and less windy. However yes there is a more unsettled transition coming up.

I very much doubt that it will stay mild all the way to March, I think we will see winter making a return, especially to the East and North before the end of February. The models have flipped and flipped so many times this winter, I'm not sure why people suddenly trust this output anymore than before. It only needs tiny tweaks to swing back to cold. Let's just wait and see how it pans out.

Very sound advice, IMO.

It's worth remembering too that there were a number of people here who a fortnight or so ago were close to writing off the cold spell we have just had when it seemed, at one stage, that the models were starting to back away from it. Remember the problems the LP that sat in place over the UK during the first few days of February caused the models until they worked out how it would move away from the UK

I agree it could flip back to cold but there is very little current evidence for that scenario. I’m not sure the models have flipped any more this winter than any recent one.

There were wobbles in the run up to the current cold spell however the general overall consensus was pretty consistent, just as it has been in recent days for a more unsettled period with milder conditions and then milder anticyclonic conditions.

I very much doubt that it will stay mild all the way to March, I think we will see winter making a return, especially to the East and North before the end of February. The models have flipped and flipped so many times this winter, I'm not sure why people suddenly trust this output anymore than before. It only needs tiny tweaks to swing back to cold. Let's just wait and see how it pans out. Only a week ago the met were saying that the cold would hang on but the models flipped to mild the following day, another example.

Oops repeat post??

I guess my memory may not be the best there is Michael, but I don't recall a great many, if indeed any at all, notable flips in the models one way or the other during the whole of last winter..

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the models seemed to find last winter's pattern (a strong and dominant atlantic jet stream) rather easier to handle, and as a consequence I think it was easier for us to have greater confidence in model output for 10+ days ahead. This winter has been another matter, certainly in the weeks since Christmas.

That’s fair enough, I just don’t think they flipped very much this winter either. A few random op runs did but overall things have been well modelled IMO.

:-) Just watching the BBC breakfast weather, and bent my head to focus on my cornflakes when I was sure I heard her say about the snow in Northern Ireland this morning.."there could be 225 centimeters before its over"  Took me a moment for my brain to process that she actually meant two to five centimetres..... I hate getting old...LOL

It has done very well

Has it been upgraded recently?

Have to confess to Sunday blues - ref cold spell ending, as it has been brilliant...real old throwback - love to have one more ride before spring springs....

ECMWF 14-day ensemble weather forecast for Tunbridge Wells District | Meteologix.com

All looking a bit ho-hum if it's cold you're after this morning, with a somewhat more pronounced Atlantic interlude and a slightly less strong HP rebuild. 

ECM ens still have some colder options with the final third of the month in particular having possibilities for cold but at present it's very definitely not anything other than a low percentage risk. 

I still wouldn't be remotely surprised to see the models tweak the Atlantic influence so that HP builds further North and we see some colder ens sets again but it also wouldn't surprise me to see winter going out without so much of a whimper with a broadly SW flow taking us through to mid March.

On the GEM front it's done well in patches IMO but still had it's moments (op wise anyway) in the run up to the cold spell and as the stats show it still generally performs worse than ECM and GFS at the 10 day range. Definitely worth paying attention to but statistically if it disagrees with either ECM or GFS at 7 day plus then you'd be better putting your money on GEM not being as close to correct as the other 2. 

I agree with this. The models may have shortened and then extended the cold spell to an extent, but the broad scale predictions have been pretty decent in the short to medium term. As always there is a good deal more uncertainty beyond 7 to 10 days.

One thing that has surprised me this winter is people not making more use of GEFS35 either on TWO or other sites / apps. My view is it is far better than CFSv2 and probably as good as the extended ECM.   

It wouldn't surprise me if that's it for our winter. Spring seems to kick in earlier and earlier with every passing year due to global warming, so mid February seems a good bet.

I think the models have done well this season? A lot more consistent at showing the trend than 10 years ago

People say they flip but I think they are pretty good at providing the overall trend. Yes details always change but if anyone thinks the models are for finer detail 3-10 days out then they need to reconsider their opinion.

It’s rare to get trend changes flipping inside 72 hours from the models

72 - 144 they are pretty consistent at the pattern, the severity of cold and heat will always fluctuate. Some runs it’s colder than others but ultimately the pattern is relatively well modelled

Like we see now...pattern is clear for a HP dominated periods with HPs to the East / SE / UK high. That’s been the trend for several days as was the cold spell which showed HP to the North well in advance

If anything the ECM and GEM have done very well. GFS sways more but I still think like I’ve said before that’s because it updates every 6 hours vs 12 hours from the rest

i don’t know what I’ll be having for dinner in 7 days time, or what clothes I’ll be wearing. The only thing I could know if that I’ll probably have odd socks on. So if the models can forecast 100% 7 days out, I need to seriously reconsider my life 

Not according to the latest update from the Met.

I could not disagree more, the models beyond 5 days have generally been poor from my perspective.