I would suggest we're well over a thousand miles the wrong side, wouldn't you?   For most of the run the jet is between Scotland and Iceland when you want it running nearer Biscay.

That will require a lot more than a little shift in the pattern, it requires a radical switch around.

Status Quo this morning in summary

12 Gold Isobars?

I can't live without the rain...

Good morning. Here is the report on the midnight outputs from GFS, UKMO, GEM, NAVGEM and ECM for today Wednesday November 20th 2013.

All models show a deep Low pressure moving South down the North Sea on it's journey towards Southern Europe and the Mediteranean tomorrow. As a result today will be an unsettled and rather cold day with showers and outbreaks of rain, wintry on hills affecting many parts, some of it heavy and squally with hail a possibility. Later today, tonight and tomorrow improvements will sequentially move down from the NW as pressure builds strongly. By Friday the improvements to dry, cold and settled conditions look complete with a fine but chilly weekend with frost and freezing fog patches night and morning looking likely but with pleasant daytime weather where fog clears.

GFS keeps High pressure over the UK for much of next week with the continuing likelihood of overnight frost and freezing fog to keep temperatures rather lower than they otherwise would be. Some bright or sunny spells are expected though. Later in the period pressure falls as the Atlantic breaks through with wind and rain for a time before things become more settled again at the end of the run with Northerly winds and strong High pressure over the Eastern Atlantic.

UKMO closes it's run with High pressure over Ireland with fine and settled weather for all but with a lot of night frost and freezing fog in the very light winds. This would become hard to shift through the daytime's making it feel very cold where that occurs.

GEM keeps High pressure locked in over the UK with varying positions determining the amount of cloud gets carried within the flow. As a result frost and fog amounts would be tricky to predict but there most certainly would be some perhaps biased more towards the South without the Atlantic drift.

NAVGEM today has played catch up at last joining the other models in a Southern UK based High with cloud cover spilling across Northern areas and down over the South too later restricting the amounts of fog and frost late in the run with benign conditions developing and temperatures slowly recovering somewhat towards near average.

ECM shows High pressure in control over the UK but the position has slipped further west and SW this morning allowing the Atlantic to pull cloud cover around the top of the High and down over the UK gradually replacing the overnight fog and frosts with cloudy skies and lifting temperatures slowly towards the average. A little rain could move SE on a weak trough towards the end of the run followed by a pressure rebuild across the South.

The GFS Ensembles are not exciting for anyone with a long period of normality with regard to uppers and with little rain shown High pressure will remain close by. Frost and fog will be the main issues and this can make fundamental differences to temperatures experienced at the surface with the likelihood of conditions ending up rather cold especially at first before Atlantic cloud cover gradually erodes the risk of both of these perils to help aid temperatures back to average at the surface too.

The Jet Stream is forced to High latitudes after this week and beyond as a UK or East Atlantic based high pressure area develops soon.

In Summary there is little to be said about the prospects from the models that hasn't been said on previous runs. In essence all areas look like becoming dry and settled soon with light winds. With clear skies frost and fog will make for difficult driving conditions at times and this may prove stubborn to shift through the mornings. However, as time progresses it looks like our High will infill with cloud cover from off the Atlantic to allow temperatures at the surface to modify to nearer the average with less in the way of frost and fog. As usual the further out one goes into the output the chances of a breakdown look feasible and on this morning's evidence it looks like any such breakdown would look to be likely from the NW as the High declines.

Following on from some posts above - Steve M has now given up the ghost...

"Morning All
A decidedly poor outlook from the models overnight with a tight circulation building up over the pole signalling the end to any thoughts of polar blocking -
Looks like on this occasion the ECMs long term vision was wrong and the MOGREPS / DECIDER models were correct-
You win some. You lose some. The ensemble Mean is going to look horrid today and wont msje comfortable viewing if its cold your looking for ....
S"      

As Brucie might say of he was a weather model watcher - "Keeeeeeep watching......"

Just to bring a little perspective, "average" in December DOESN'T mean mild

If you look at the Met Office average for London, you will see is around 8C (I read 7C elsewhere)

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate/city-of-london-greater-london#?tab=climateTables

Either way, it means that temperatures won't necessarily climb from this week, they may just remain the same, but as we head into December that means the 'average' will fall to meet us where we are, rather than our temp climbing up.... Worth bearing in mind for those of us who are feeling down about the prospects of a 'mild' December...

We will still be in single figures and it wouldn't take much of a drop to bring frostier or snowier conditions....!

come on, reality is no one has a clue beyond 24hrs apart from the met, winter in winter out (yes I know its still autumn officially) we get posts here which  gives  the impression of of pending northern canadian weather, reality is often closer to the faily benign and stable flow of our weather across lowland UK. The MO is fun to read and entertains during the darker months but fact is this si not cold spell, a bit of frost, then dry then average weather, far from what some "pundits" were throwing out a few days ago.

weather is weather , life is life.

http://www.knmi.nl/exp/pluim/vijftiendaagse/index.php

Still quite a few runs build northern blocking but the reality is we can probably write off the next 3 weeks. Hopefully the run up to Xmas will give us something to smile about but maybe we will have to wait till March again!

It's interesting because of the longer range evidence has been for a cold first half to December and a milder second half. If we are indeed setting up a strong westerly start to December perhaps we'll have a better chance at a colder second half, I.E. Christmas.

ECM heads towards cold zonality this morning as the PV focuses more to our NE, while GFS prefers to keep more energy to our NW with milder air at times until later on in the run when it starts to follow the ECM idea.

In both versions of events, the PV is elongated in such a way that it doesn't fire much energy right at the UK, with high pressure tending to dominate.

I can take 4 to 5 weeks of this before I start to get concerned... may the long period of finger-tapping begin 

I think most of us would accept the GFS 06 run. Chilly and frosty, and then this later on!

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn3721.png

similarities to 2010 there.

Nice. If only that was at 96hours...

I have a hunch the Xmas guest will not be Uncle B. sailing in from the west, rather Aunty ADA, travelling by train from the NE.

I had a Great Aunt Ada who lived in Scarborough. Coincidence?

On a 'nudge nudge' scale of 1 to 10, the very end of the last two GFS runs is at about a 2.
Whilst we sit out the mid-latitude UK slug, it might generate some interest if the appearences persist and move closer.

You know winter is over when the 372h and 384h start to appear 

While I was wrong to interpret a return to zonality yesterday, what is pretty clear is that we are set for a benign spell over the coming weeks. Cool, yes, festive, at times with overnight frost and frog, but certainly nothing out of the ordinary.

I think we are "overdue" a cold Christmas. The last 2 were hideously mild down here

Any Bartholomews in the pedigree?   Ada was a common name many years ago, might be a resurgence in popularity soon. Has a slug ever been known to metamorphose into a sausage?

Beautiful eye candy though, so why not look at it? Weather porn!

Well, the outer reaches of GFS are interesting and makes me wonder whether our upcoming high pressure ridge that is predicted to settle to the west and southwest of the UK next week will link up with the high pressure area that is shown (on both GFS and the latter stages of ECM) to be extending out into the N Atlantic from Canada.  If this is the case, there is a chance of a resulting N Atlantic/Greenland high pressure block.  Hopefully, the projected low pressure over Europe next week will aid this process.

Anyway, I cannot grumble about this seasonal weather we are having currently... colder than average in a colder than average month. What more could you ask for?

David

Northallerton