I would like to believe you Matty, but how often has the zonal train been disrupted in January? I would like to see some examples.

Later in the winter, indeed it can happen since as the sun rises above the horizon, strat warming is a consequence in any case - that is why February is often our wintriest month.

HERE IS MY LATEST ANALYSIS FROM THE OUTPUTS OF THE WEATHER COMPUTER PREDICTION MODELS FOR TWO WEEKS FROM 8AM TODAY SUNDAY NOVEMBER 30TH 2014.

NEXT UPDATE TUESDAY DECEMBER 2ND 08:00

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION  A cold front moves SE slowly across Northern and Western Britain with a ridge ahead and behind the trough affecting Central areas later tomorrow.

MODELS-2 WEEK HEADLINE A lot of dry weather especially at first before it slowly becomes more unsettled from the North later. Average temperatures with some frost and fog patches night and morning.

THE JET STREAM ENSEMBLE FORECAST The Jet Stream Ensemble forecast shows a brief dip South in the flow across NW Europe before returning North quite quickly and settling in a generally West to East flow across Central Britain from next weekend onward.

GFS OPERATIONAL The GFS operational this morning shows High pressure to the South of the UK in complete control of keeping wintry weather away from most of the UK over the next few weeks. Apart from a brief dip into a brief colder Northerly incursion at the end of the week the winds quickly back towards a milder Westerly quadrant and even SW later keeping things generally mild with some rain at times chiefly in the North and West

THE GFS PARALLEL RUN The GFS Parallel run is broadly similar with only the addition of another brief chillier period under Northerly winds in Week 2 before it too shows even milder weather under a South or SSSW flow late in the run under High pressure to the SE.

THE GFS CONTROL The GFS control run also offers little change from the High pressure based pattern with the centre alternating from a point to the SW of the UK or over France and Low pressure continuing to be steered East to the North of the UK with rain at times largely restricted to the North and West with a lot of dry weather elsewhere.

THE GEFS ENSEMBLES The GEFS Ensembles also show a fairly flat pattern with persistent High pressure to the South minataining generally benign Westerly winds across the UK with just the briefest intervention of colder conditions from the North later this week before a pattern reset takes place next week with more unsettled conditions perhaps edging further South down across the UK later in the period.

UKMO UKMO today shows a cold Northerly flow across the UK ahead of a toppling ridge SE through the weekend with milder Westerly winds reaching the NW and extending slowly SE to other areas late in the weekend.

THE FAX CHARTS The Fax Charts show a ridge of High pressure across the UK for the period with a NE flow over the South and a SW flow to the NW with dry and fine weather for many with areas of fog and frost in places. Later a cold front is shown to cross SE across the UK introducing a brief and chilly Northerly flow at the weekend

GEM GEM shows a pattern which deteriorates conditions across the UK from the North later next weekend and the start of next week. In the interim period dry and benign conditions ahead of a cold front introduces a brief but chilly Northerly at the weekend before milder Westerly winds by this time next week bring falling pressure and spells of rain followed by winry showers down across the UK next week in rather cold conditions in strong and blustery WNW winds.

NAVGEM NAVGEM too shows the brief Northerly at the end of the week with frost and fog patches night and morning. It later shows winds backing Westerly and becoming milder again with some rain at times then towards the North and NW.

ECM ECM this morning shows a pattern more alike to GEM as the brief Northerly at the coming weekend backs off towards the West with falling pressure next week and deep Low pressure sliding ESE across the Northern North sea sending cold fronts SE across the UK with rain and strong winds followed by colder showery conditions likely although from the 10 day chart it looks like milder weather behind a band of rain is knocking on the door of West and SW Britain again.

THE ECM ENSEMBLES The Ensembles show Low pressure close to the coast of Western Norway and High pressure near the Azores the most likely pattern we arrive at by Day 10 with a broad Westerly pattern across the UK delivering more unsettled weather than currently with rain at times and incursions of cooler and more showery weather in between with snow possible on Northern hills.

NOTABLE TREND CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS RUNS The theme remains for the UK to lie under the influence of High pressure most likely positioned just to the South of the UK over the period with a variety of long term solutions shown none of which point to sustained and notable cold weather.

MY THOUGHTS There still appears to be little evidence of any true Wintry weather for anywhere other than the highest peaks of mountains of Scotland and the North with High pressure as stubborn and persistent as ever across France and the areas towards the Azores throughout. While this stays here our only chance of true cold is from brief incursions of cold Northerly winds behind cold fronts of exiting depressions away from Northern Scotland before toppling ridges of High pressure bring back milder maritime air across the UK from the West. Nevertheless, this week will feel far from mild for many as the risk of frost and fog as the week to come is High under a ridge from the SW later. With time there is a slow trend towards the High slipping rather further South than currently allowing more depth to unsettled conditions feeding down from the North and perhaps allowing more enhanced incursions of colder air at times. Our problem lies with strong Jet flow aligned to the North of the UK rounding a large somtimes displaced Azores high and as I indicated in my reports late last week once this pattern forms it can become devastating for those looking for true Winter long lasting cold. There are normally two routes out of this pattern and that is a ridging of the High North through the Atlantic to greenland disrupting the Jet flow and allowing cold North winds to flood down over NW Europe and while this has been hinted at recently there seems little cross model support for this to happen anytime soon with pressure remaining stubbornly low near Greenland. Secondly we could do with High pressure to migrate from the South or SW across the UK to Scandinavia to once more disrupt the Jet South dragging depressions on much more Southerly latitudes as they approach the UK but that seems unlikely currently. Instead we have to look towards somewhat more unsettled conditions feeding down from the North as the High to the South or SW relaxes somewhat next week but rain and wind are then more likely than cold and snow though with colder air to the North it wouldn't take much to bring that South into the UK at times. In my opinion as of previous days I think the North is the direction to look for any cold over the coming weeks rather than anywhere else as an eventual ridging of High pressure North through the Atlantic will give us our best shot of any real wintry cold and some of the white stuff.

If it's strat temps you're into for long-term prognostics, there continues to be little signal for any warming propagating below 3mb.

http://www.instantweathermaps.com/GFS-php/showmap-strat.php?run=2014120100&var=TMP&lev=3mb&hour=348

This week looks 'seasonal', with fog and frost around and a cool NW waft later on before high pressure builds in again.
The way the patterns look I don't think even Michael Landon could deliver lowland snow before the middle of December

December 2012 had a mild & zonal period during the second half of the month which lasted into the early days of January 2013; this came after December '12 had started on a fairly dry and sometimes cold note. At the time, the models did not look exactly great for cold prospects as we moved into 2013, but I think it was a big SSW event that significantly altered the course of that winter. I can't recall how well forecast that SSW was in advance, but what as I do remember is that once we got into January, the chances of cold according to the model runs at the time increased considerably.

hmmmm.. is it 2001?  These charts remind me of the drivvle we used to get before 2009 when easterlies came back into fashion.

Lots of potential in the wrong places.  Strong HP to the south and west having too much control over what we get from the north.

Currently a good set up for Xmas day - could be very wintry in the SE with NE winds: But this is all Fantasy:

Looking like we will see a few brief colder snaps with snow over the next 10 days up here.

Brian's forecast for this winter is up and running for anyone interested.

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/forecast/uk-seasonal-weather-forecast

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Should have posted in the winter thread sorry^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yep, the last time I was this unexcited was when I watched the unremittingly dull 'The Hunger Games - Catching Fire'.

So we'll have to wait till February. At least the prospects look a bit better than last year

The picture still looks poor for proper cold, northerly toppers looking our best bet. Ian Fergusson on the other place suggesting a strong signal for zonal conditions to establish by mid-month

Although it's looking flat as a pancake at day 7 on the ECM mean

Perhaps the jet slowly sinking south with time as hinted at by the NAEFS mean

But you said the end of November a month back...

Ian's commentary has been excellent on Twitter and from it I'm pretty confident MOGREPS/ECM has broadly been consistent with GEFS in the last few weeks. 

GFS and GFSP are now moving the trop. vortex all the way to the other side of the pole days 12-16. They both shut down the Canadian vortex as should be the response. Yet with the exception of the GFS 06z op run, a flat pattern continues to work against the development of high-latitude blocking. As for that GFS 06z, it's still got a long way to go at day 16.

A persistent Euro High is a problem on most of the recent GFS runs. With this in mind, the 00z ECM ensemble spread is of interest:

Here, the greens and  yellows represent a greater range in 500mb heights across the ensembles.

Because the low heights associated with storm systems tend to be more compact and less predictable, they tend to be responsible for a lot of the variation in these charts.

So what the above shows is a wide spread across the UK that covers anything from a trough diving down just west of the UK on a course for Europe to one heading north of Scotland and then on to Scandinavia.

The 00z operational ECM run dives the trough across the UK and manages to deposit a shallow trough around Italy. That's on the limit of the spread of ensemble solutions so odds are it doesn't make it quite that far, but any progress into Europe in the 9-12 day timeframe will tend to favour a Scandi/Russia ridge over a Euro ridge.

GEM shows the same idea but GFS and GFSP both delay such development until after the northern arm of the jet has established a strong flow over the top of the ridge, at which point you're left waiting for upstream amplification to change the game. You can see in the GFS ensemble spread that they are also more in favour of the flatter pattern than the ECM ensembles, though it can be seen that at least one GEFS member has that trough near Italy:

Overall then, a mostly westerly component to the flow in the 8-12 day range has very strong support, with some potential for a brief northerly, perhaps even veering easterly for a time, if we get the trough motion into Europe and enough of a break in the train of Atlantic storms. 

As for going forward from there, the middle ground of the diving trough/flat jet options is basically inconclusive so all we can do is wait and see!

Five days of maxes between 5C-8C with cold winds blowing, not bad for the opening 5 day of winter!!

For us down here that's as good as it normally gets for winter cold. Northerlies may bring more in the way of sun and frost but they're rarely much colder then what is forecasted for this coming week. Snow is a rare thing in most years.

I think reality check is in order for quite a few on here. Thank goodness for the level headed and informative post by the likes of (primarily) stormchaser.

i would caution against excpectstions re the removal of any upper vortex from canada. expect it to shrink and head to the far ne of the country (far nw greenland), but i would be surprised to see a canadian segment become an absentee within the next two to three weeks. there should remain a northern arm as a result and on a nw/se axis, we could see wiintry conditions at times over scotland especially.

I'd love that but I doubt we will see the same chart by say the 21st sadly ..... I reckon I have more chance of cooking my Turkey on a BBQ than eating it inside an igloo 

Well it is unlikely we see the same chart on the 2nd let alone the 21st

Nothing would please me more to see such an evolution but the most likely option is always the most statistical one, i.e. a SW flow.

No worries SC.

The GFS 12z throughout the run shows a set up that we saw all too frequently in the Winters of the 90s and noughties, which resulted in a scarcity of cold/snow in many parts of the UK.

I agree with other posters that once the Azores High pattern sets itself in, it becomes very difficult to dislodge. The ECM in recent days appears more willing than GFS to link the Azores High with growing heights over Greenland but there are still no strong signals across any of the models for this to happen to such a degree to give anything other than a transient Northerly flow.

So not much to please cold/snow lovers in the current output. One thing I would say however is that I'd rather have an Azores High (current signals) rather than a Euro High any day, as with the former there is always a chance of displacement North to give a N/NW outbreak. A Euro High is a disaster as (a) it normally sticks around forever and (b) it just allows the jet stream to plunge over us into Scandi giving us endless periods of wind and rain.    

Not so much "a transient northerly flow" as several transient northerly flows interspersed with anticyclonic westerly type conditions. A bit to pleas most people and infinitely better than last year. This is highlighted nicely in the Aberdeen ensemble data

http://www.meteociel.fr/cartes_obs/gens_display.php?ext=1&lat=57.2&lon=-2.3