Happy to be corrected but not too sure the De Bilt ens are massively useful in a situation where the UK is on the borderline between cold enough for snow and warm enough for rain - it may well be cold over there but considerably warmer over here. I haven't looked at the ECM ens for Reading so feel free to shoot this comment down
That aside LPs wandering South East and potentially pulling in low dew points from the continent with 850's sat a little bit below freezing is an intriguing mix (if it happens) and a classic forecasting nightmare. A tweak one way and there's a big, if temporary and slushy snow fall somewhere unexpected, a tweak the other way and it's drab, wet and miserable with no end in sight.
Whilst I'm heartily sick of getting cold and/or wet (mostly the latter this winter) on the cycle in to work I'd put up with more unsettled weather if I managed at least a little bit of snow
Being a coldie biased optimist I'm still not convinced about the FI output showing a declining HP to the East and more of an Atlantic influence - imo we're going to be teased by the Scandi HP for a while yet with a low chance of a decent cold spell setting in if the Atlantic does decide to wind down towards the middle of February.
Or if you're a mildie then the FI output isn't a million miles away from a declining Scandi block and strong jet helping the Azores HP to push over Southern Britain at least, with some nice quiet mild and dryish stuff. (other than Scotland and Northern England in that Scenario where it'd probably be wet and fairly windy. But it is supposed to be grim up North
)
Middle ground would of course be chilly and wet for the forseeable
Originally Posted by: Hippydave