Expectations are so low for this upcoming winter period with the vast majority of long range model output suggesting a positive NAO and very mild weather.
It’s interesting to see therefore that there are some signs of Greenland blocking already as we head towards the end of November. Poetic. 🤣 Like Matty says it would be nice to see some actual brightness and sunshine. 
Anyway the trend is obvious on the GFS ensemble. 

Originally Posted by: Joe Bloggs 

IIRC that cold period was triggered by a SSW and was well signalled ahead of the event.  I’ve been looking at the 10hPa wind forecast charts and they don’t show anything particularly unusual at the moment.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

The 12z GFS today serves up a classic west-based NAO, the sort of thing that brings very unsettled weather for us, mild wet and windy.
This is, of course, a very familiar pattern in recent years. We see what looks like a northerly plunge, and one of two things happens - either the plunge passes to the east, clipping Scotland, or the plunge spins up a low to the west and bam, west-based NAO.
At least we're not in the heart of winter, so it's all academic at this time of year...

Originally Posted by: Retron 

Hi Peter,

Your memory must be better than mine in this instance, as until I read your post I had no recollection of there being a SSW ahead of the freeze that started in the last few days of November 2010. I do recall that the models picked up on this at the pretty early stage and the cross-model agreement and run-to-run consistency were very high in the lead-up to the start of that freeze.

Do you or anyone else here recall if there was also a SSW in November/December 2009 before the freeze that began shortly before Christmas that year

Originally Posted by: David M Porter