At the moment it looks like swimming through treacle to me. And I'm a very poor swimmer.

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Horror ECM this evening for coldies, must be said. 
Even the odd December frost looks tricky to come by after the initial cold moves away next week. 

It's not great, granted, but that said I've seen a lot worse at this time of year for those of the cold preference.

One thing to note is that pressure is not that high over the Mediterranean. As long as there is not a major rise in pressure in that region, there is always a chance of a return to something colder.

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🤣🤣

Never knowingly understated.

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I sense the 18z GFS is a tad further south in everything.  Not sure show it will pan  out but small margins will make a big difference to what plays out...

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The 18z is totally different from this time next week: the LP system moves across to our east and the cold air moves south again, having never been pushed completely away. The next deep LP tracks ESE and the milder air struggles again to make any progress into the country out to day 10.

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Common theme developing, cold maintaining over UK, LPs forecast to smash thru bringing milder weather, following run a snowy LP... following run, LP dives into france and UK maintains colder drier air outlook

As much as we hope we to be sitting to the south of a block, the reality might be we are sitting under one... despite all the exciting charts.

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Indeed. The GFS 18z has a procession of Atlantic lows crashing through the middle of the UK maintaining cold and snowy conditions for Scotland and Northern England out to 12 December. 

Clearly the specifics in that GFS run like any, could be miles off the mark, but an interesting trend today in the 0z to 18z runs, with the push North of pressure from Biscay in the 0z consistently being reduced. 

Very interesting to see what transpires in the next few days. 

 

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Wet, wild and mild is the name of the game this morning.  Difficult to see this pattern changing before January with the ensuing broad setup:

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?geoid=49069&model=gfs&var=202&run=0&lid=ENS&bw=1 

🤢🤢

Yep poor set of 0z this morning.  The 0s often poor for coldies compared to the 12s for some reason. 
 

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Having said that the pattern is still colder than average until the 5th or 6th then a trend towards average with a lot of uncertainty. The same trend as there has been for days.

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Still looks to me as though the stout figure is preparing to perform wrt this cold spell. What happens next is where my focus will be. 

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This  is the ECM mean t850hPa deviation chart for day 10 (240 hr). It clearly highlights the possibilities in that timescale.

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WX temp charts - the week 1 boundary between cold/freezing air lying from N Scotland down through the N Sea to W Germany, temps slightly above norm to the west and rather below to the east. In week 2 an  interesting clash as the mild/freezing boundary moves further NE-wards, to Poland at the same time as ultra-cold air moves SW-wards from Russia to Belarus to set up a gradient of 18C in a distance of perhaps 400 miles. Pptn in week 1 for the Atlantic incl Britain with some extension SE to the Alps, intensifying around Britain week 2 and heavier rain then further through Europe to Greece; very dry in W Russia.

GFS Op - weak N/NE-ly until Mon 4th under the direction of LP in Baltic. Then a sustained rise of pressure over C/E Europe (not to the S as yesterday) with Atlantic LPs coming up against but failing to break the block as follows: Tue 5th 1000mb moving SE across Brittany; Thu 7th and 3/4 days after, 970 mb Ireland to 965mb Scotland to 995mb Alps; Wed 13th  965mb W of Ireland becoming Fri 15th 965 mb Wales and thence SE-wards filling.

ECM - is slower to develop a strong continental block, not really present until Thu 7th, and LPs from the Atlantic forecast differently; Tue 5th 995mb Irish Sea, filling; brief interval of HP; Sun 10th 970mb Hebrides moving NE-wards

GEM - Again a block but LPs different Tue 5th 995mb SW Ireland deepening and moving N Thu 7th 975mb Rockall Sun 10th and thence to Iceland;  980mb Brittany moving SE-wards.

GEFS - warming up from cold now to norm Thu 7th with good agreement, mean staying there (a few degrees colder in Scotland) but with much variation either side (one wild real outlier down at -15C  but most runs within 5C of mean), rain from Tue 3rd (a couple of days later in Scotland) often heavy and persistent

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WX temp charts - the week 1 boundary between cold/freezing air lying from N Scotland down through the N Sea to W Germany, temps slightly above norm to the west and rather below to the east. In week 2 an  interesting clash as the mild/freezing boundary moves further NE-wards, to Poland at the same time as ultra-cold air moves SW-wards from Russia to Belarus to set up a gradient of 18C in a distance of perhaps 400 miles. Pptn in week 1 for the Atlantic incl Britain with some extension SE to the Alps, intensifying around Britain week 2 and heavier rain then further through Europe to Greece; very dry in W Russia.

GFS Op - weak N/NE-ly until Mon 4th under the direction of LP in Baltic. Then a sustained rise of pressure over C/E Europe (not to the S as yesterday) with Atlantic LPs coming up against but failing to break the block as follows: Tue 5th 1000mb moving SE across Brittany; Thu 7th and 3/4 days after, 970 mb Ireland to 965mb Scotland to 995mb Alps; Wed 13th  965mb W of Ireland becoming Fri 15th 965 mb Wales and thence SE-wards filling.

ECM - is slower to develop a strong continental block, not really present until Thu 7th, and LPs from the Atlantic forecast differently; Tue 5th 995mb Irish Sea, filling; brief interval of HP; Sun 10th 970mb Hebrides moving NE-wards

GEM - Again a block but LPs different Tue 5th 995mb SW Ireland deepening and moving N Thu 7th 975mb Rockall Sun 10th and thence to Iceland;  980mb Brittany moving SE-wards.

GEFS - warming up from cold now to norm Thu 7th with good agreement, mean staying there (a few degrees colder in Scotland) but with much variation either side (one wild real outlier down at -15C  but most runs within 5C of mean), rain from Tue 3rd (a couple of days later in Scotland) often heavy and persistent

PS - sorry about the duplication, not my doing

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We need a easterly sharpish. The odd one in the ensembles but not many.

 

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Fat Lady may as well declare WIO

Ensembles have been quite clear for some time. Nothing on the horizon at all for cold weather fans. deja vu of a year ago but at least we saw some snow then.

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I know medium term this is looking back to stormy and wet ( albeit with a southerly jet and interest not that far away)

But in the shorter term the Monday low is looking interesting. It keeps edging south and may provide a surprise or two

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Absolute rubbish

I’m not sure why there is this worry about the next two weeks. Looking at the PV, it’s not exactly organised. It wouldn’t surprise me to see new trends as early as Monday and Tuesday next week. While the ensembles paint a more mobile picture they are not without interest 

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Agree ...and no real cold going into the states , as we know that can be a game changer so all good there, although those reds to the south west still a worry but thats been the case for past 16 years ....

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Big dollop of snow for many this Sunday on the GFS 6z. Some sort of snow event this weekend is looking more and more likely.  Details very uncertain. 

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=20&model=gfs&var=25&run=6&time=78&lid=OP&h=0&mv=0&tr=6#mapref 
 

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Trend will hopefully be our freind. South please lol

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"deja vu of a year ago"

When the first 2 weeks of December brought one of the most prolonged early winter cold spells of recent decades ?

Sure it collapsed into mild nothingness on the 19th but still we were running close to a subzero CET at that point and still finished as one of the coldest months of the last ten years ! 
I'd say in the era of mild winters we live in anything below 4c for a month has to be considered decent 

 

In 14 days time the GFS 6z puts the south east into a "storm of the century"

I'm struck by how often there are such modelled runs of late.  And of course, some never materialise at all while those that do to some extent, do so with nowhere near the same degree of intensity as initially envisaged by the models.

Which makes me wonder....are the models programmed with climate change assumptions these days....so that instead of running with scenarios purely based on historical data, they are delivering outcomes with a big dollop of a "climate change will make our weather more extreme" assumption added in, with a greater emphasis for the runs excess of 8 days ?

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