Good evening. Here is tonight's report on the midday outputs supplied by the NWP for today Monday February 10th 2014 and lifted from my website at http://www.norton-radstockweather.co.uk/Model-Analysis(2859336).htm
All models show a disturbing period of weather coming up over the remainder of this week and the weekend. Today's benign conditions will be replaced overnight by an active squally trough moving East over the UK later tonight and tomorrow followed by a fresh to strong Westerly flow. Heavy rain and hills now over the North will be replaced tomorrow by wintry showers and sunny intervals with the North and West seeing the most showers with some drier periods developing across the South and East. through Wednesday another major storm system propels it's way across England deepening explosively as it goes with severe gales and very heavy rain will sweep through all areas followed by squally wintry showers with hail and thunder on Thursday. A repeat performance of the storm will likely occur later on Friday with a colder and showery period over the weekend with strong West then NW winds with showers, wintry and heavy with snow on hills.
GFS then shows next week with very little change I'm afraid as further Low pressure areas move across the UK with further bands of rain followed by showers wintry on hills in the North. It will also be windy at times but maybe without the risk of damaging winds possible this week. The very end of the run still shows a drier phase as something of a ridge crosses East but with Low pressure out to the west and NW it all looks very tentative.
UKMO tonight shows the UK lying in a void between two low pressure systems. The one to the East taking it's showery weather away with it while the second approaches the West of the UK later in the day with further rain, strong winds and hill snow in rather chilly weather.
GEM looks similar to UKMO at Day 6 moving forward to maintain unsettled and sometimes windy weather with rain at times as Low pressure areas are never far away from the UK to the North.
NAVGEM closes it's run tonight with a Westerly flow backing SW slowly as we go through the start of next week. With pressure relatively low and winds brisk in strength troughs will continue to deliver rain at times in temperatures slowly recovering from the chilly weekend.
ECM tonight is the joker of the pack and would if verified bring immediate relief from the wet and wild weather of late. It shows High pressure developing across the UK by midweek next week and towards Scandinavia with fine, very cold and very frosty weather developing with any rain restricted to the far SW then NW and sharp frost and fog night and morning very likely.
The ECM 9 and 10 Day Mean Charts don't support the operational tonight with the same consensus more likely than has been shown for some time meaning the likelihood is that Low pressure will continue to dominate th weather over the UK with a most likely Low pressure area to the NW with SW or West winds and rain at times still for all areas.
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Reem2161.gif
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Reem2401.gif
The GFS Ensembles show fairly average uppers across the UK through tonight's output rising somewhat towards the end of the run. There is still quite a lot of rain shown at times with this week in particular showing some uncomfortably high rainfall amounts.
The GFS Jet Stream forecast shows the flow carrying on unabated in it's current form so changes in the weather pattern remain unlikely. What's more concerning tonight is the trend to ridge the flow North is less apparent tonight as well as the weakening of the flow with a strong flow now shown, still troughing to the South of the UK in two weeks time.
In Summary tonight with the exception of the ECM operational it looks more of the same tonight with much of the output showing less in the way of improvements than in recent runs. However, the ECM operational has thrown a lifeline tonight and I hope it manifests and spreads between the other outputs soon to buy some much needed time to enable flooding relief work to take place without it battling against further rainfall. In the mean time it's batten down the hatches for the next 5-6 days as a couple of very disruptive periods of weather look like affecting the areas who least need it as very heavy rainfall and damaging gales look possible.
Martin G
Kilmersdon Radstock Bath Somerset