Even for picking trends?

The weather for the 18th has been consistently shown for HP to the South? obviously that’s a current example but generally I can’t recall a complete pattern change within 5 days 

Earlier? Seems to be we often get northern blocking hanging on into March, although I agree we often do get a warm spell early on as well. 

The models generally have performed well. Well enough in fact to call the current easterly spell from more than 10 days out!

The mistake many make is not looking at a selection of models and not looking at the ensemble suites, in particular the ECM and GEFS suites, with the GEM ensembles being worth a look too. Get all three of those on board for a pattern and it's pretty much going to happen.

Incidentally the birds seem to think spring has arrived today! All sorts of chirping and so on this afternoon, a proper racket outside (but a much nicer one than traffic, screaming kids etc).

Agree completely. I monitored the GFS ensemble mean closely and it was very consistent in  the 7 day range. As ever snow amounts, when and where were as poor as ever but we knew they would be.

What an utter nonsense post. I'm not disputing global warming and I'd say it is having an impact on our winters, however i think the seasons have also slightly shifted. Winter seems to take longer to get started and goes well on into March. March has often been one of the more wintry months in recent years, and of course the 2018 BftE was in March....which rather makes a mockery of your post.

Not forgetting either that March 2013 ended up being the coldest March for CET since the early 1960s. That was only a year after we had one of the warmest on record.

Sometimes one can never tell what happens next with the British climate.

I agree. GW has impacted the world greater with its extremes. Cold and Hot

We have definitely seen a shift in our seasons... spring and autumn are much shorter now and summer / winter are longer. Obviously there’s an element of IMO as well. But the facts would show Summer starts as early as April and can last until October. In some years we’ve moved from winter to summer almost instantly. 

Winter in the UK does start later, December CETs would support this with March yielding colder months than previous winter months. 

I often see our winter weather at it’s coldest January - March but I’m not sure that’s ever been different? CET shows December has the highest average 

Brian made a very valid point a few days ago... our weather has bigger extremes. This is very true, none more than this week. -23 being the UKs lowest temperatures since 95 and next week potentially 21 degrees. 

March 2013 coldest for over 50 years 

Summer months ... well plenty of large 30+ weeks 

Rainfall floods extreme most years in at least 1 season

Our chances of cold extreme are as high as Heat extreme

Onto the models....

GFS remains consistent with HP to be S of the UK. This will most definitely lead to high temperatures vs average 

It's reaching the stage where you can safely take a punt on 33C or 34C being reached in the summer even if you've not given the matter much consideration.

Next Saturday looks a decent first spring day

if it pans out like that I think I’ll give the grass its first cut it certainly needs it

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gefs_table.php?x=0&y=0&lat=51.5085&lon=-0.12574&run=12&ext=1&mode=7&sort=0

Yes Brian interesting what will it max out for uk this summer?.

ps

when you consider we can get 17 +ve in southern Spain in February 

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php?ech=72&mode=0&map=4&type=0&archive=0

I'm not sure that's ever been unusual.  It's more the count that has increased.

While I certainly wouldn't like to call Briggsy's post nonsense(a bit harsh), I would agree that it's way too early to write off winter. Regardless of recent years, March has traditionally been known in Ireland(possibly in the UK too)as "March many weathers". With the seas around us remaining cold, you can never write off cold in March.

Yes it has. Between 1977 and 1988 34C wasn't even reached once in the UK.

I might be wrong here, but I think during that period, only the summers of 1983 & 1984 saw numerous days throughout the season in which somewhere in the UK reached/surpassed 30C

I am fairly sure that 30C was reached/beaten in parts of Scotland at least once in each of those summers, and the all-time record for Scotland is (someone please correct me if I am wrong) 32.8C. Not even the likes of August 2003 or June/July 2018 managed to surpass this record.

It will largely depend upon where the HP goes, assuming it develops as GFS shows. If it stays to the south/south-east of the UK and does not retrogress northwards in time, then it is game over for another cold spell in the near future. However, if it does move north at a later time and if the upstream pattern becomes favourable, then who knows.

If this winter had had a pattern that was the same or broadly very similar to last winter, i.e total atlantic domination with very little or no divergence away from this, I would be more likely to agree that it was pretty well game over for cold anytime soon. However, the recurring theme of this winter (certainly in the post-Christmas/New Year period) seems to have been that whenever the cold weather has relinquished its grip for a while, it has never gone far away and always seems to have been fairly nearby waiting to strike again.

GFS and ECM end in FI with many cold perts, Energy heading north to Svalbard on a stalling Atlantic front (ECM), likely to precipitate increasing heights over Scandinavia. Many perts (9 - GFS) place the heights towards the Greenland side, and unleash an Arctic blast to herald the beginning of March. This all looks plausible, and I would expect this sort of scenario to manifest for the 1st week of March. Usually more convective and snowier then too. 

Jetstream in charge of the UK for the time being, though with plenty of waving about and a reluctance to run on strongly into Europe. Hints of a pattern change from Fri 26th when a larger loop than usual develops and to the souh of the UK

GFS - the previous pattern of S-ly flow between Atlantic LP/Scandia HP somewhat modified this morning, with the HP much weaker and deeper troughs in the S-ly flow Tue 16th - Fri 19th. (FAX has a good collection of fronts on display - watch those river levels!) . Drying out for a while with HP centred over S England Mon 22nd - Thu 25th then trough of LP moving across to link up with more LP centres developing from Scandia to Iberia with winds from N at first round to E by Tue 2nd.

GEFS - in the S temps near or a little above norm this week and wet; then well above average (with one brief hiccup) and dry to Fri 26th after which trend to cooler and a bit of rain re-appearing. Much the same in the N though not quite as dry and much more uncertainty towards end of run.

ECM - Similar to GFS at first but HP never really develops Mon 2nd  and the chart has a zonal feel to it instead

ECM 144

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php?ech=144&mode=1&map=0&type=0&archive=0

The return of mild wet windy gunk.  That chart has a long fetch southwesterly look for the western upslopes, I suspect flooding will return to the agenda in the N and W now that normal service is resumed.

Ive said this a few times on here - in fact the flaming I got last time I posited this is the main reason I rarely post any more