My gut feel is the ensembles haven't at any point come close to reaching the 'cold spell threshold' which I've seen in years such as 2009 and 2010. Obviously things could change this week, but until they do I'll remain sceptical. That 'thing' to the south of the UK is also showing nasty tendencies on quite a lot of the output.

I think despite what I have said, there is genuine reason to be more optimistic. Many of the models have been trying to build heights in Greenland, although admittedly well into FI. But the consistency is there, and it is better than anything that we have seen in a long time. 

This sort of pattern has been shown fairly regularly, we clearly have a calmer Atlantic here, and although heights are not exactly high over Greenland, there is some evident amplification to the south. AO is clearly negative here as-well and with a more cooperative atlantic that might even be worth something. 

Indeed Ian a very good example to illustrate why looking at individual charts at that range can lead to insanity.

The only thing it is reasonable to consider at that range is the trends in the ensembles. At the moment the longer range GEFS appear to me to trending slightly colder. 

Agreed but as said the vast majority of the population do live in the south of the country so there's always going to be that "bias".....

Anyway NWLY'S are ok for me as are Easterlies, it's straight Northerlies that do my head in ...... All because someone decided to stick all those mountains about 100 miles due north of the central belt

Sure but the height ensembles are probably more useful than the 850hpa ensembles. At longer ranges only large scale patterns are visible, so I'm looking for high pressure in the right place rather than cold air. Sometimes the delay is a week or more (in 2010 it was 7 days I think) between getting a solid setup at the 500mb level and actually getting cold air. Which is why I'm a little more encouraged by the model outputs at the moment, especially the GFS. ECM admittedly is not really budging. 

Looking at the GEFS runs it seems to me the 850s are trending cooler only because, on a significant number of the members, the Azores High is weakening slightly and drifting south, so the 552 line is thus getting further south. No real sign of any large scale height rises over Greenland, or very cold air appearing from any source. There's no real game changer in view as far as I can see. But now I'm kicking myself for even attempting to analyze things at this range.

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2014121512/gfsnh-0-168.png?12

Different to the 06z. Should be a better FI

I agree, less pesky LPs exiting the eastern seaboard, allowing the HPs exiting Canada to make more of an influence.

Will be interesting to see where this cold HP over the mid atlantic ends up... please head northwest :)

something tells me its going to scandinavia...

But then a NW offers more snow to larger areas of the British Isles than a dry cloudy easterly. The NW that we had recently was actually a westerly that originated in Labrador so its actually good that we managed to get snow to low levels from that, a true NW originates in Greenland and would bring arctic air. 

In 2010 we had one such occurrence and it was fantastic, very cold ice days and snow lying for weeks on end. 

Well its true, last week I went on Netweather and all I seen was a reference to snow on mountains yet I have low single figure maxes and snow showers right down to sea level. 

Not here, we had to wait to February for snow last year. It was much warmer than now, say about 12c most days.

Right now it is 3,4,5c during the day.

I know its FI but Im sure we have seen this scenario a few days ago for about the same date:

Something is a stirring!

Based on my recent experience we really need to have -8c uppers from the arctic to get lying snow and ice days to low levels. 

Yep, I agree something is stirring albeit still in la la land for now. The 12z continues to toy with the idea of a decent cold plunge from the North before blowing it all away near the end of the run. A pattern change or a short blip before the Atlantic train continues I wonder 

12z GFSP is more interesting this afternoon.

in my experience the GFS always dangles a carrot then allows the atlantic to dominate when considering FI, as i feel it always has issues with cold from the north/east.  Like i said - there does seeem to be a theme developing of a possible end to the atlantic being so active, and a theme slowly developing of pressure rises to our North or east.  with one or two scenarios ive seen of HP over the UK as we hit xmas.

I think the current trend we can take from this is pattern change, what the new pattern will be is difficult to tell -  reflected in the messiness of the GEFS - though even this has started to look a little bit - "pointy downy" over the past few runs, which is encouraging also.

The GFSP is a Boxing Day snowfest. Much better

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=264&mode=0&runpara=1

Not really. Looks like rain turning to snow as it clears. A couple of cold days and then high pressure to the south restores milder conditions. 

Here:

There are some interesting options appearing in the GFS/GEFS at the moment, but high pressure to the south is still probably the most identifiable pattern.

Still ends up reverting to Euro-high boredom by the end of the year.

True, but at least there are some reasonably encouraging signs from the models that we might break out of this pattern, although for how long is anyone's guess. We just have to hope that these indications are built on and start appearing in the output with some consistency in the coming days.

12Z is even better than the 6z, take a look at this!

Again 500mb anomalies and SLP chart. 192 hours as before, see the oranges and yellows to the south of Greenland, and the blues over Scandinavia. This trend is continued well into low res with some significant height rise towards Greenland This is really very promising, and its the first time since early November that I've become really quite interested in this. This is really one to watch, very strong consistency in the start of low res is not something that should be ignored. Also kudos to the CFS for predicting high pressure (not necessarily northern blocking) after xmas for weeks on end, looks like it may be validated. 

The ENS plots are available here:

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twoforecasts/ensemble-forecast.aspx

I've had a quick look through the GEFS and still remain unconvinced. Individually they don't look as impressive as the line graphs perhaps suggest.  

Quite a nice day 10 from ECM looks like it would lead to a proper cold spell. We need the Azores to bugger off though.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recmnh2401.html