Upper cold pool. May be an area of slight instability promoting the small risk of a wintry shower.

Thanks for that. I'm glad me eyes are still OK! With respect to the movement of the occlusion, it does appear to move north westward by 120 hours. That being the case, with some convergence over the hillier areas, I think we might see a bit of convection that might have a bit of beef to it. Its a way out in time, but it has been appearing consistently. As always, time will tell and could well end up with egg on my face. (look, Ive got carnivore and veggie options in there without realising :-))

So colder upper airmass approaching from Europe?

A bite sized breakaway chunk 

Potent, perhaps very potent northerly flow gaining more and more traction going forward I fear with maybe 2 to 3 day winter blast 10 plus days time. SSW with 10mb zonal wind reversal at 60 degrees north. All the criteria there for an official SSW but this may very well be classed as a final warming for it does not look like the vortex will recover.

wx summary charts not loading this morning - last night they were showing the continuing retreat of cold air from mainland Europe with a couple of interesting developments (1) a sudden increase in temps in the Danube basin from week 1 near 0C to week 2 near 15C (2) an area of cold establishing itself in northern latitudes from N Russia to Iceland. Rain becoming quite widespread in week 2 after a dry week across Europe week 1

Jet - action currently well N and S of Uk and becoming quite weak generally w/c Mon 28th, reviving across S England at the end of that week

GFS - HP dominating reaching 1050mb Norway Sun 20th (Chris Fawkes on BBC last night said to expect 1050mb over UK too) with S/SE-lies, perhaps some embedded troughs in the flow on Mon. HP ambles around, shows as more of a ridge Iceland to Italy Thu 24th, declining S-wards but still near UK Tue 29th after which it gets squeezed out by LP to Sw and LP over Poland, the latter threatening cold NE-lies at least to the east coast Fri 1st

GEFS - apart from a mild Sun 20th and a dip Mon 21st, temps remarkably level and in good agreement a little above norm until Mon 28th; the mean still near norm after that but few v cold outliers appearing. Rain also beginning to show from 28th, but not a lot, v dry until then

ECM - similar to GFS but shallow  LP over Iberia and N from there is enough to push the axis of the ridge of HP somewhat further east

WX maps still having problems - does anyone know of a similar site with a quick overview of temp & pptn?

However, not much action in the near future:

GFS: HP over UK moving a little E-wards allowing a mini-cold pool o run N on Monday before the HP re-settles itself over Britain to Mon 28th. It then moves to the NW allowing the LP over Russia with some very cold entrained to move to the Baltic Wed 1st with a brief spell of N/NE-ly winds to affect mainly the E coast until zonal W-lies resume Sat 2nd. The area around Ukraine then picks up the N-lies and remains cold

GEFS: a dip in temp mon 21st but then a period of mild weather with level temps and good ens agreement until Mon 28th. The mean drops to a little below norm but there are an increasing number of very cold runs esp in E including op & control 8 or 9 C below norm in many places around Fri 1st. Rain appearing in some runs from 28th, increasingly present (but not heavy) towards end of run Sat 4th

ECM: like GFS until Mon 28th but HP then collapses leaving Britain in a col between Atlantic LP to the SW and a much deeper LP Bothnia 985mb Tue 29th

Models slowly getting to grips with pattern change around 10 days time ( end of March ). Could be potent enough and wintry enough to be news worthy although probably getting a little ahead of myself here.

Looking at the latest EC model: - Cold air still is still in the same areas - i.e S and SE Europe and this has been the case throughout the whole winter and now into spring so for those wanting cold and maybe spring snow South and south east Europe is the place esp Greece, Cyprus and Turkey as well as middle east. 

PS - Still snowing in Istanbul. - Will this pattern ever change??????

Temperature anomaly's from 21st - 28th March: 

Not that I want cold air this time of year, but in terms of your core point about the cold going into SE Europe (as well as western Asia, NE Africa, etc) and missing NW Europe with way more regularity than in recorded history during winter, you're bang on.

It's a p*ss-take. 

And of course, we all know what will happen come the summer. The UK will be stuck under a persistent trough due to northern blocking, and Eastern Europe will roast...

Problems with Wx summaries have gone away so for those offended by Istanbul snowfall there is consolation: the cold area over Turkey and Ukraine shrinking rapidly though temps there still below norm for time of year. New development of focus for cold from Iceland to Scandinavia to northern Russia by week 2; and a very warm week 2 in the Danube basin. UK just average. A large area of very dry weather across all of Europe incl UK week 1, wet in N Africa and Med - these two area swapping places week 2.

Jet very quiet for the equinox, 2 branches running weakly well N and S of UK until Sat 2nd when it revives across England

FAX shows the cold pool embedded in the current S-ly flow previously, now almost making it to a closed-circulation LP in the N Sea on Mon.

GFS: current HP 1045 mb Norway with S-lies (but see FAX above) moving to Poland then back to UK Fri 25th then being dispersed by deep LP 975mb Tue 29th mid-Norway with N-lies for UK. This extends into the Atlantic Thu 31st with a brief flood of cold air before a SW-ly zonal pattern establishes from Sun 3rd controlled by LP mid-Atlantic.

GEFS: becoming mild with good confidence until Tue 29th when most ens members show a dip in varying degrees until Sun 3rd - op and control among the most extreme dropping to  ca 10C below before switching to 7C above. Rain showing up from 29th (earlier in NW), quite a lot around Sun 3rd.

ECM: differs from GFS after Fri 25th, keeping the HP close to UK though it does move to the NW Tue 29th allowing a weak NE-ly in

Its that time of year again for nonsensically record breakingly cold ensembles!

One to bookmark. Not quite my all time favourite which happened about a year ago when we saw the -25C isotherm in shetland. In that case the cold spell did verify though obviously not as extreme it gave the snowiest april I had ever seen.

With snow accompanying the severe cold. Now that would be (unlikely) news worthy.

It is a curious trend with many recent summers to get three to four weeks of fairly typical weather, followed by 1-2 days of exceptional heat. Even after just a day or so, we have broken or come very close to records in recent years - July 2015, July 2019, late July and mid-August 2020 are notable examples. It makes me wonder what kind of temperatures we could see if another August 2003-type pattern develops over the next few years? High heat that is given a good week to properly build and I suspect we will see our first 40°C...

looks like UKMO t168 plus charts would give the gfs 06z p26 ensemble member a good run for its money lol, very amplified pattern setting up over Greenland. Lets see what the ecmwf model has to say.

Wasn’t there a red weather warning for extreme heat last summer, or was that the one before?

Summary charts show a definite shift in week 2 to a 'layered' situation with cold (sub zero) temps stretched across the north from Iceland to N Russia and pleasantly warm across the Med from S Spain to Syria (just a last little blob of blue in E Turkey with an interesting temp gradient locally). Very dry for all of Europe week 1, but rain appearing almost everywhere in week 2 - and unlike yesterday plenty of rain in the northern Med too, the dryness has retreated to Africa.

Jet - not much action until Thu 31st then (unlike yesterday) starting up through the Med and wriggling N-wards to reach UK Mon 4th.

GFS op - HP over Europe and later the UK until Mon 28th with source of air dry and from the south; then withdrawing to the NW and switching to N-ly winds briefly before a series of not-too-deep LPs move across N Britain from Fri 1st tending to produce cold E-lies for the N but still mild in the S, markedly so by Wed 6th

GEFS - temps staying mild to Tue 29th, then dipping sharply in most ens members but especially op and control mostly recovering to mild from Sun 3rd in the S but considerable divergence in the N. Rain appearing in ever-greater number of runs after Tue 29th, notably in the SW.

ECM - similar to GFS but less emphasis on a N-ly spell

I think it was last year and the year before but failed to happen as the cloud say No and refused to go away during the hot spells it was mostly cloudy warm spell instead.   I have much more hatred toward clouds after what they done last year summer so very wary about this summer even today is very not forecasted polluted clouds when we supposed to be crystal clear sunny and warming up.  2 days ago was very clear a rare sight sadly for the UK nowadays.

It was for Northern Ireland and parts of the South West around mid July last year if I remember correctly.

Not sure about the SW UK, but parts of NI and Ireland had their longest consecutive run of 28c+ temps on record last July, and this coupled with excessively high (18c-22c) dew points as well and zero wind. Never want to go through that again!