https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?model=gfs&var=2&geoid=28552&lid=ENS&bw=1

Staying very cold and one go far as -10C uppers last reached in 1950 when it was 2C maxiumum daytime.  

Imagine if was here we would be looking at -10 to -15C uppers.  

I agree it currently looks poor for Feb. My view (and I know many either won't like this and / or think I'm over simplifying ) is that recent climatology is as good a guide as anything. When month after month is  coming in above CET you're on the back foot to begin with. 

It's tempting to start copy and pasting earlier comments on the various GFS ops to save time

Minor wobbles around where the HP sits and how much influence it'll have as a result aside, the 6z op is generally very similar to the 00z etc.

The op picks back up on another temporary colder shot around 28th Jan which has been signalled in the ens on and off for a while and shows in the ECM ens to varying degrees. 

As other's have mentioned there's no signs of a cold spell on the horizon and all the while there's a never ending conveyor of strong jet streaks heading just to the North of the UK I doubt there will be either. Whether the jet will relent in February and something more interesting will pop up is TBC - given the tendency for HP to slink a bit further south with time there's probably more chance of some unusually warm weather in  early Feb than there is anything cold. (Not something that's been shown generally as the HP is a bit too far West most of the time so whilst we get some mild air it's somewhat modified by the time it rolls around the flanks of the high. Sink the high a little further south east though and we could get some very mild stuff).

All in all, disappointing from a snow POV but at least the outlook is generally dry.

Yes and the frustrating thing is that many other parts of Europe and the world can get and or experience extreme cold and snow but it always appears to be the case that the UK misses the cold and snow. This year is another example - today the cold air and snow is 100 miles east and over Scandinavia and in the north sea. Despite 850hpa uppers in the south east of -7.0c at 850hpa the daytime temperature is still +7c in central London at 12pm which is average and even though we may have got a few frosty nights under weeks of Anti-cyclonic weather we saw no freezing fog or ice days and every few places saw much if any frost due to cloud and it has actually been feeling rather pleasant during the daytime in the light winds. If the cause of our milder weather is due to this Mid Atlantic ridge - then what is the cause of that ridge to stick around there and for weeks and weeks?

Anyway, I digress - but after a mild December and exceptionally mild end to the month and start to January - it now appears that it will be a mild end to January and start to February: - This winter is a write off WIO. Sorry someone had to say it! So disappointed I really am - after last years teaser and all the background signals for cold -more notably the La Nina and Eastern QBO etc we could have a snowless winter and as much as I despised the winter of 2019/20 as the PV of doom at least there were colder incursions and Scotland saw snow if transient snow and there was weather to talk about. So far we have had nothing of interest to talk about in terms of cold and snow. We have to look back to Autumn at Storm Arwen which occurred at the end of November for any interest.

Furthermore, the PV is strengthening and not weakening and temperatures are cooling at 10 and 30hpa not rising!

AS you rightly mentioned Brian we had such a warm Autumn with well above average CET's throughout September, October and November etc. Perhaps this could be the new norm of warmer Autumns and Winters but colder Spring and Summers!? I would dread to think that but I do recall April and May last year and it was cold - not to mention snowy early April.

Meanwhile back OT - look's like January will end just how it started -(On a milder note).

I do wonder if this could turn out to be the mildest winter on record?

I'm pretty sure there's not much chance of this being the mildest winter on record as January will come out not that much above average.

But agree with Brian that we seem to be in a warm/mild pattern since about last June. In my experience these warm/ cold runs tend to last around 6 months. For example the first 5 months of last year were generally cold, now we have had around 6 months of warmer than average. I remember the first 6 months of 2013 were very cold and the last 6 months being warm as another example.

So we must be due to come out of this pattern at some point maybe it will be March.

I think as recently as a couple of years ago you would have been pilloried for making that statement in the middle of January but most dissenters have now realised that sadly it is pretty much a statement of fact.

Not so many years ago I would be one to criticise such a statement, but there's no denying the climate is changing and the old rule of thumb that over a year the means normalize out is sadly no longer true and you can't say 'next month will be cold because the last three have been warm' anymore. The evidence is there to see.
I wonder if and when the next cold winter will come.

Still, stranger things have happened (March 2018 for instance)

I think it is fair to say that that record will not be challenged anytime soon! 

Agree with this totally, though I think any cooling won't occur until at least the 2nd half of this year. The last warm phase peaked in summer 2018* and after that, there was a very gradual cool down that eventually bottomed out in early Summer 2021. Only going by stats for over here, but would imagine it would be a similar story in the UK. 

* that should read early Summer 2019

I can remember during the winter of 2006/07, which was a very poor one for coldies and was also my first winter as a member of TWO, that many people were asking on these threads if we were ever likely to get a reasonably long-lasting spell of notable winter cold in this country again, let alone a notably cold winter season. Given what that winter was like and the one after that, many would have been forgiven at that time for thinking the answer to that was a pretty definite 'no'. Little did any of us think then that only 3-4 years later, we would see two winters on the bounce with major month-long cold spells and a sub-zero CET month in the second of those winters.

I agree that recent climatology is generally a good guide, but at the same time it should never be taken to mean that a notable cold spell of sustained length can't or won't happen again. Some of us thought that in the mid-noughties as noted above, but we had something of a rude awakening for a time at the end of the 2000s/ start of the 2010s.