METO dont seem to have updated their 16-30 day forecast yet.Is it just normal to be a bit late  or are they rethinking yesterdays increased emphasis on likelihood of colder weather later in January?

The 'writing off' of january for cold weather by some could well have been a tad premature

Michael thanks yesterdays wording is below.the mention of wintry conditionns has  gone so a slight downgrade?

On 2 January 2014 17:58, Roger Heape <[email protected]> wrote:

UK Outlook for Friday 17 Jan 2014 to Friday 31 Jan 2014:

Current indications point towards unsettled conditions persisting through mid-January. Some signals are emerging suggesting that the weather may undergo a change later this month allowing colder conditions to then become increasingly likely. This would increase the risk of some wintry conditions developing during the second half of January. A change to a colder weather type would also increase the potential for more settled conditions leaving a lower risk of wet and windy spells than has recently been the case.

Updated: 1202 on Thu 2 Jan 2014

I think you're hanging too much onto particular words....  The best that the Met Office can do at this range is to give an indication of the most likely weather type.   The phrase "change to colder weather types" means the same as "wintry conditions developing" to most!  We tend to equate "wintry" with "snowy" when frost, ice and generally cold temperatures are fall under the wintry adjective.

Andrew

It's because they don't look higher than about 5kms up. The currently occuring and modelled strat warming/ displacement has been a feature on GFS for nearly a month and looks reasonably stable. I don't think the vortex needs to be smashed to make cold more likely - the strat has been well below average temps this winter so far, so even smaller warmings could shake things up dramatically.

The op runs of the big models have given us a few cold solutions in the last couple of days.

I can't see any very cold solutions on the ensembles yet, but I only get 30 secs to steal a glance here and there....

The 'writing off' of january for cold weather by some could well have been a tad premature

who said that then? any one who was interested in the weather would realise any forecast beyond 5 days gets increasinglly less accurate or is it just trolling,  the winters over , likewise last june there were comments the summers over

Perhaps I said that? Idk, I did think colder weather was possible at the end of the month

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/default.aspx?g=posts&t=12244

but before then it always seemed unlikely. I don't think the slightly more optimistic runs today change much, still looks mild and wet until mid month, and not cold thereafter. Having said that, I might have to eat these words because there is some blocking being shown on the models today which started with the 18z (in terms of the 500NH pattern was an outlier though). But really it is only a very slight upgrade to yesterdays runs which the ensemble means all firmly and consistantly not interested for at least 2 weeks (say until the 17th).  

I think there is an attitude atm of long range forecasting being totally useless. I don't think this is true, although it is impossible to predict specifics more than a week or so in advance. Having said that general patterns and trends are the way to go. The CFS has positive anomoly verification stats out to 9 months, so even then it performs better than chance (abeilt only minutely so at our lattitude, though the verification stats are very dam impressive for the tropics and equatorial regions) so if you look at a whole batch of runs and just look at general patterns you are likely to do better than chance which is all you are really aiming for as long range forecasting is proablistic and the metoffice certainly acknoleges this. 

MO warning for snow for some parts tomorrow

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/warnings/#?tab=warnings&map=Warnings&zoom=5&lon=-3.50&lat=55.50&fcTime=1388793600&regionName=ta

With the storms, floods etc it may not be the Nov/Dec 2010 type weather everyone seems to want but it s headline making and very interesting synoptically 

Hi all,

Here's the January month ahead forecast video;

http://www.gavsweathervids.com

Have gone for a stormy/mild first ten days, then a chnge to drier, colder conditions, meaning the month ends up near normal.

We'll see how it goes.

Agreed, one of the more interesting Decembers of recent years. There's a lot more to weather than snow snow snow.

Amen to that, although you wouldnt always know it reading UK weather forums this time of year

Is there

This is for your mouth

Read through the posts my friend , yesterday it was a zonal January according to a few  ..........still might be, but some charts aren't showing that now

Worth noting that the air currently is not mild. If anything its RPM having originated in the Canadian Arctic and thanks to a combination of rapid jet and deep convection, surface temps have been around 6'C which is defo not mild.

I can certainly see why snow is mentioned as a wave pushing into the colder air tomorrow

Yes the great thing about the almost neglible verification rates of FI charts on all models is that it means todays wintry runs from the GFS have just as much chance of being right as any model showing mild in the longer range.

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=168&mode=0

12z will end up very different to the 0z and 6z methinks, hints of Bartletisation in a week from GFS

but Met O holds more interest at 144:

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ukmo2.php?nh=0&ech=144&carte=1021