Good morning. Here is the reports on the midnight outputs from GFS, UKMO, GEM, NAVGEM and ECM for today Friday December 27th 2013.
All models show a deep depression to the NW of Britain today moving slowly away North over the next few days but maintaining a showery Westerly flow over the UK with some of these falling wintry in the North. Strong winds will slowly moderate. By Sunday a new Low brings further fronts NE with rain in tow for all areas and further strong winds. The pattern then continues up to the New Year with all models showing rain bands mixed with showery interludes in basically quite strong SW winds and average temperatures.
GFS then shows New Year celebrations taking place under windy and often wet conditions with SW winds continuing to blow and maintaining average temperatures. Then as we move through Week 1 of 2014 and into Week 2 little change is shown with Low pressure continuing to race over the Atlantic over or to the North of the UK with spells of rain alternating with brighter and clearer spells with showers, wintry on hills in the North.
UKMO ends it's run with the chart for next Thursday showing Low pressure over the entire North Atlantic with one small and vigorous centre moving NE then North up the spine of Britain bringing more wet and windy conditions well into the New Year.
GEM today shows very unsettled weather under deep and complex Low pressure to the North then over the UK before sliding it SE late in the run towards NW Europe. There would be spells of wet and windy weather with showery spells intermixed. With time the air would turn colder with wintry showers for many by Day 9 before a toppling ridge from the Azores High gives a quieter interlude before new Low pressure steams across the Atlantic towards Britain soon after the end of Day 10.
NAVGEM shows Low pressure out to the NW in the first few days of 2014 with a strong WSW flow bringing spells of rain and strong winds across the UK throughout.
ECM today shows a wet and often windy start to 2014 too with just relatively short drier spells as ridges attached to an Azores High cross the UK for a day or two in the first week before by Day 10 the chart looks like the UK could be staring down the barrel of another very wet and windy period with Westerly gales.
The GFS Ensembles show very stubborn resilience to any form of change from an Unsettled Atlantic based pattern with rain at times and temperatures close to the long term mean for areas North and South of the British Isles.
The Jet Stream continues to trek across the Atlantic Ocean in the general direction of the British Isles for the foreseeable future. It does shift briefly South at times allowing trough to dig deeper down over the UK but not sufficiently so on this morning's output to offer any form of pattern change by encouraging any meaningful High Level blocking to the East and NE to affect the UK anytime soon.
In Summary the current pattern is maintained this morning with spells of wet and windy weather alternating with spells of slightly colder weather with sunshine and showers. Temperatures look like staying largely close to average over the next two weeks but that doesn't exclude the odd colder interlude from polar maritime incursions giving some snow on Northern hills at times. Overall the prospect of any cessation of this powerful Atlantic train anytime soon remains low with an unsupportive Jet flow orientation and strength coupled with the resulting ever present High pressure belt well to the South keeping a strong Westerly flow over the Atlantic towards the UK.
Martin G
Kilmersdon Radstock Bath Somerset