The current pattern is pretty stable... a kind of dynamic equilibrium.  We need a game changer. 

Thats the Met O 30 dayer coming to fruition in that deep FI chart, with colder conditions in the north perhaps setting in ...blah blah.  Time will tell....

I'm not doubting it can, ofc all forecasts at the 10+ day range are probablistic. I wouldn't rule it out, I would just call it especially unlikely given the outputs recently. 

Yes, and apart from this one run everything seems to suggest a continuation of unsettled and fairly mild conditions with us possibly ending with blocking close to or south to the UK. With a -ve AO northern blocking is always going to be a possibility, but I can't quite believe the sudden explosive expansion of the high into siberia to occupy half of Eurasia, while simbultaniously we see signs of massive cyclosis in the atlantic. 

Has it ever gone the other way? 

18z offers an interesting new scenrio, which sees the powerful storm early next week shifting into Scandinavia a bit quicker than on previous runs. It combines with another trough further east, and then a ridge in the Atlantic is able to exploit the WAA from the powerful U.S. storm to build north and attempt to link with a ridge from the Arctic/Siberian High. It very nearly gets there, and the sudden switch to energy going NE at 192 hours is rather suspcious IMO.

I remember when we used to frequently see energy being corrected to go SE rather than NE. That was when we last had notable blocking in the Arctic, so I'm keeping my mind open at the moment 

There's a lot of cows on Guernsey - I'd check your shoes

Oh dear

LOL Love it , all the guff and gas about this being the Winter of all Winters and yet we could well beat 1988/89 for one of the mildest Winters on record , at least that Winter i saw snow on the ground , so far this Spring zilch , zero , feck all .  Karma has certainly come back to haunt all those that were dissing me last Spring/Summer when i wanted warmth..

Lol, so true. The lead up to this winter was particularly sensational in the media. 

Indeed, GEFS has shown a switch to colder (relative to present) conditions consistently over the past 3 runs now, yesterday's 6z being the last run which just showed the status quo continuing.

The ECM ensembles from yesterday continue to show a similar cooling midmonth, coupled with somewhat less in the way of wind and rain (but less settled than the previous few runs).

I'd still say a switch away from the current deeply disturbed weather is reasonably likely by midmonth but it remains to be seen whether it's a switch to a colder pattern or just an easing up on the mild zonal mush we currently have.

Yes Darren.  The 9th is no longer a key date.  FWIW (not a lot) IMHO the GFS shows on the 0z a slow transition to blocked cold and for once the transition looks feasible.

The ECM ensembles would suggest to be picking up on the same thing - which is a "kettley" High type scenario where for the north of Britain theres a better chance (approaching 17-20th January)of getting polar air wheras if the high is too far north then southerners may have to contend with too much of warmer stuff being dragged up from the south.

Encouraging signs this morning, though it all comes with a massive health warning as we all know the models/ ensembles will  flip and the further out in FI things are then only a fool can place much confidence in them.

Not entirely sure I'm reading it like that

I don't see anything wintry(for the south) with any consistency and the blocking I do see is somewhat tenuous and not especially strong

Aside from occasional frosts(which we have been having on occasion already) the oulook is not great......yet

What I would like to see, and there have been occasional hints in the last few days, is the slackening of the jet promoting a build of pressure to the east. 

The GEFS 0h ensembles show little supoort for sustained cold.The split zonal circulation;anticyclonic circulation is 70:30 at both 240h and 360h with pnly two or thrre menbers having HP to the north east. Both the 18h and 0h GFs run   show HP build to the north east and both seem outliers rather than a trend.!