Hi all,

Here's today's video update -

Dry Next Week + BCC December Update;

http://www.gavsweathervids.com/

BCC continues to look interesting.

To be honest, I quite like spells of violent, stormy weather. Gets the blood pumping!

But I do also like, in the lead-up to Xmas, a period of quiet weather, with mists, occasional light frosts, and that atmospheric gloom where it never really gets fully light. Superb!

Many a true word spoken in jest

I'm making some changes to the northern hemisphere plots available on the TWO chart viewer to make better use of the new server and updated graphics library.

The changes will only run against the GFSP today but I'll apply to the GFS op and ECM in the next couple of days. GEM should also be on TWO very soon.

Here's the new 850 plot (the label is wrong as MSLP isn't plotted - it didn't look right)

The GFSP 500hPa plot for the same time:

There's also a 250mB plot available for the northern hemisphere. 

The plots now are bigger and set to the correct aspect ratio. They also make use of transparency and smoother fonts.

Its all just yuk at the moment.. however a small crumb of detail i thought i may as well raise is the Pressure difference to the north.  Vs the last few runs this i would say is a development, and wil be something to look for on the next run, aswell as the GEFS.

Yep, same here.

GFS and GFSP being persistent with two opportunities for amplification to produce a more interesting few days of weather, one 8th-10th December and the other 10th-14th December.

It also seems that only one of those opportunities can be realised, with no single run showing both of them leading to results.

The 12z runs power the jet through 8th-10th December, but make more of the second opportunity, with a brief Scandi High and cold easterly from the GFS 12z op before a deep Atlantic trough plows the road, and among the most promising (and believable) northerlies from the 12z GFSP op run:

This GFSP run has the weakest area of low heights to our NW of any run in the past few days, though it has tended to lean towards this more than GFS.

The real benefit form a setup like the above is the sledgehammer blow to the strat. vortex.

This is to my eyes a classic situation from many winters 2008-2012/13, in which GFS persistently hints at a ridge across Greenland, which eventually moves into nearer timeframes and quite often gets upgraded... or at least, that's how it worked with the old GFS. In this case we have GFSP offering the persistent signal while GFS keeps powering up Atlantic storms in the western North Atlantic.

Is it the old GFS' Atlantic jet stream positive strength bias? Maybe, but at the moment there's not enough model output to the contrary for this to be much more than hopeful speculation. After all, ECM went nuts with the storm intensity days 9-10 this morning, which lends little confidence to that model's efforts either.

Very good cold end to the GFS Para. A prolonged cold northerly. Other models are suggesting this as well so might get lucky.

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=360&mode=0&runpara=1

WOW seems like we are back on. great chart and great post there stormchaser, as always, we are heading in for some cold there, i really cant see a repeat of last year no way,...  just when we thought things were going tits up. this happens, nice,,,

ps. im still learning, give me a bit of time ill be posting like storm chaser and mr brian,

 Slim Pickings indeed when a regulation northerly toppler in deepest FI is posted.

stay optimistic guys, we not in winter yet, it cant be any worse than last year,  

 It would be better than the persistent SEly garbage of recent weeks that's for sure. To be fair though with sunshine levels looking at ending up 50% of average for the month here then even a nice mild anticylonic SWly flow would be very welcome and is probably more likely than an FI northerly.

Northerlies are rare prolonged northerlies even rarer

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=384&mode=0&runpara=1

Yes, my solar panels have not enjoyed the gloom and gunk of this month.  A change to anything is required.

We have to take what we can get. As Northerlies go its a good one though.

Looks like becoming pretty flat upstream and downstream to me if the GFS/GFSP are correct.

oh well have to wait and watch i suppose, in the mean time im loving TWO weather outlook is the bees knees mr brian stormchaser posts are just awesome, and matty H well, shape as a razor, what he say goes, a man of reason who tells you how it is,  and last winter was dire, least we saved on heating and that savings went down the PUB, more stella please,

Geez people are really getting desperate now. I haven't posted in here regularly because the outlook is just so appalling; it feels like last year again when people would grasp at even the most tenuous straws. I see no sign of anything but an active atlantic and the occasional cold sector. The fact people are resorting to showing northerly topplers (which don't produce snow for 90% of the country) in the 300+ range is testament to how bad it is. Even the strat is offering no comfort; earlier in the week there was some promising warming right at the top of the strat, now it seems that this is only really going to push the polar vortex onto our side of the arctic; if anything this is just going to make it worse; i'm starting to think polar vortex displacements do far more harm than good when the warming is not on our side. No sign of any real SSW event of course, just the same straws that were offered last year. 

The weather is at that transitional stage to becoming progressively colder even with the temperatures above normal atm it feels a little nippy

Plenty of time yet, even spring has potential for cold snowy weather.

Time to have a break from model watching and come back to them in a weeks time

On this model thread, it reminds me a bit of the Roberta Cleopatra Flack song "Killing me softly" zzzzzzzzzzzz!

 Looks to be getting cooler although not cold