If i'm honest, my intuition says until that cold air clears from canada; I really think we will struggle to setup any kind of block. 

Yeh but conditions have been favourible over the arctic for a while, the falling AO now is no different. Personally I think that a block may start to setup, but will topple very easily to the storms coming in from canada. That seems more of a natural solution at the moment, then the storms being deflected to the north or the south. Having said that, if we can get a big LP delayed by a greenland high, then that may start to introduce some much needed WAA, and may in the long run cause a transition to colder weather after another attempt or so. My guess is we will have to wait until mid january, or at least the 2nd week. 

I certainly recall that in December 2009, the GFS runs first began to pick up on the development of blocking over Greenland in the early days of that month, and by the end of the first week/start of the second week the ECM runs were starting to come on board as well. The thing that was notable about the model runs prior to that spell was that once they had begun to pick up the first signals of the beginning of the cold spell, they stuck pretty solidly to it, and it was much the same in mid-late November 2010 also when the first indications began to appear of the severe cold that was to dominate that December.

To be fair 9th of january is the 2nd week 

But I don't share your confidence, we have such an unusually cold pool over canada; wanting to keep the natural order of things going verses tenous attempts at northern blocking. Actually the GFS and ECM cool things down, rather than the converse. Also while Canada has a cold pool, Europe and scandanavia don't so even if a block does setup; it will not instantly produce cold weather, and a transition period of days may be expected. 

If I had to be specific (which is probably a bad idea)

I would say that there will be a notherly toppler sometime around the 9th of january mark, proceeded by a mild spell and then perhaps a more sustained cold spell provided things continue to look favourible which may not be the case. It might just be a mild snowless winter this year. 

ECM pushes the storm even further south.

Could be a good FI

quantum, you spent weeks touting the height rises the other side of the pole and now we have winter on our 'doorstep' you dont want to believe it !

too much energy going over the top unfortunately. But the building blocks are coming

gets there at second attempt. Perhaps we may not need to wait until mid month

Indeed

Good evening folks. Here is this evening's look at the midday outputs of the NWP output for Christmas Day December 25th 2013.

All models continue to model very changeable conditions from now all the way up to the New Year with spells of rain and very windy weather with severe gales on Friday. There will be plenty of rain on Friday and again later on Sunday and also at various other stops on the way up to the New Year. At other times there will be sunshine and showers, wintry on hills in the North. Temperatures will remain close to average and rather colder in the North at times and rather mild at times in the South especially early next week.

GFS shows the New Year period windy and wet with Low pressure crossing the UK on New Years Day with a showery NW flow following with snow showers on Northern hills. Through the first week of the year the weather remains very changeable and often wet with sunshine and wintry showers alternating with heavier and more persistent rain. Temperatures will gradually turn rather colder with time extending the wintry risk to lower levels later.

UKMO closes tonight's run with a mild and windy SW flow carrying rain at times across the UK in the continuing unsettled mood.

GEM continues wet and unsettled all the way up to Day 10 which of course includes the New Year.There will be ample spells of rain and showers for all with Low pressure always close to Northern Britain in a broad Westerly flow.

NAVGEM too shows unsettled weather persisting over the UK with rain or showers at times, the showers heavy and wintry on northern hills at times.

ECM tonight also shows unsettled weather continuing up to the New Year with rain and showers at times with brief drier spells in between and temperatures close to average. Later there are signs of a change to rather colder NW winds and wintry showers in 10 days time.

The GFS Ensembles show the changeable and average temperature type weather conditions going throughout the run with little sign of any pattern change away from the general idea and bias towards Low pressure remaining close to the North of the UK with wind and rain at times.

The Jet Stream forecast remains unchanged from this morning with an incessant flow from the West over or just to the South of the UK.

In Summary the weather will continue changeable and unsettled over the next couple of weeks. Events for the period up to the New Year are quite agreed upon between the models but changes thereafter are more varied but quite modest with little concrete evidence of any shift towards anything colder and more traditionally wintry in the near future.

He gets upset with his self because like a true coldie he wants it badly nothing wrong with that really

The models are mixed tonight but all spell a similar theme and that is the Atlantic storms will reduce in intensity and it will become colder.

The Bartlett conditions threatening for New Year have receeded and even the MetO have picked up on this cooling tend in its updated MRF.

No big freeze is expected but temperatures below average combined with low pressure in January must mean several opportunities for lowland snow.

Andy

A decent summary at this range.

Thanks Martin so full I can hardly move!!

worry that seems to be quite a lot of rain still on offer if this is right

http://wxmaps.org/pix/prec4.html

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=180&mode=0

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/geme_cartes.php?&ech=216&mode=0&carte=0

Not clever either for anything to dry up for long

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~fxg1/ECMWF_0z/hgtcomp.html

btw, today is a perfect illustration of why i place little value in these charts.  mean charts for a 4 day period should not chop and change within 12 hours. because these are based on ops, they can do so and todays are a case in point. why have a mean chart based on ops at a 6/10 day range when the ops have a verification between 40 and 60% ? surely better to have it based on the mean output.  anyway, thats a pet hate of mine so xmas day is a perfect time for me to spout it again.  bah, humbug!

Certainly cold enough on that chart - 850hPa temperatures across the south -5 to -6C, 500-1,000hPa thickness values around low to mid 520s.  My reservation would be the weak ridge and westerly flow shown on that chart.  Cold but most likely clear and dry for many away from western coastal areas.

If that LP just SE of Iceland moves east - or better still south-east - then the potential increases a little.  Otherwise we're looking for disturbances and small scale features in the flow, which don't get modelled until very near the time (inside T+24).

Had a good day Nick?