ECM 240hr chart looks close to delivering a cold snap if it went on another 24hrs?

The Azores High is the boss on that FI chart.

Refreshingly new type of anomaly chart there but unfortunately look at all the Reds and yellows bang over central Europe. No chance of a cold spell with heights there.

Yeh but there are also yellows over S greenland and blues over scandi. Sometimes a low in scanadnavia can cause azors high to retrogress.

I reckon that will be our best hope of a decent cold spell anytime soon Quantum. What will also need to happen is for the northern arm of the jet to quieten down somewhat in order for any northward movement of the Azores High to take place. If the ECM had shown any charts for beyond 240hrs ahead, it would have been interesting to see what happened as the Azores High did look to me as if it was starting to move north-westwards ever so slightly.

Perhaps these will prove useful over the next few days?

Personally  we're in a worse place now then we've been since the start of winter as the Azores High is ruling the roost and overriding all other favourable  teleconnection, until we see a lowering of heights in Europe and the Azores high do one, then the best we can hope for is RPM shots.

Aye, very funny.

Had a longish post all typed out and hit the wrong button and cleared it

In short - GFS ens, a minority in the far reaches have HP to the North West, there's a few UK hps giving chilly/damp easterly drifts but the majority are zonal.

So I'd go with a weak signal for HP to migrate North in a way that may bring us cold but a much stronger signal for more of what we've had lately. Given it's all FI anyway no point in paying much attention unless the cold signal grows and is moved closer with subsequent runs.

ECM T240 as has been mentioned looks to be pulling the HP to our South west and North, although looks to be a 24/36hr cooler interlude to me rather than anything else.

Not without interest I guess but nout to get too excited about unless you Ski in Scotland in which case I'd have thought it's all looking quite good, providing the milder interludes don't strip the snow off...

Excellent trends in the 4-10 day range this evening. It's the nature of the progression that is must important and this would require an insane number of charts to illustrate, so instead here's a written version of my thought process when analysing the 12z operational runs - with the two most positive charts from a cold perspective thrown in for good measure (the stuff beforehand is important but not that interesting to stare at):

GFS clears the first western low from SW of the UK with the whole system in the North Sea by day 8. It's the first op run from this model to do so. The second western low is slower moving than on previous runs and despite only a weak Canadian ridge takes long enough crossing the Atlantic to allow a transient ridge ahead of it. By this point I suspect overcooking of the western trough is at play. Despite this the run maintains amplificaton of the flow right to the end with a better attempt at a northerly day 13, the negative angle to the trough suggesting to me that it should not have broken down nearly as fast as it did.

ECM has the same total clearance of the first western low to the North Sea days 6-8 but the cold NW'rly is impeded by shortwave development south of Greenland. At this point I feared the run would fire the second western low, developed into a large trough by day 8, rapidly NE, but it turns out the U.S./Canada ridge - not supported by the GFS run - is still strong enough on this run to push that low south, setting up a decent mid-Atlantic ridge by day 10 with WAA heading for Greneland - the most promising operational run of the past two days (day 10 chart below-left).

GFS would have turned out even better had the U.S./Canada ridge been present.

GFSP has different ideas as far as the first western low is concerned. It diverges by day 6 as low heights are 'left behind' in the western North Atlantic. It's a curious development where the original system races NE and bombs out days 4-5 but leaves behind a weak area of instabillity which generates a new 'daughter' low days 5-6. All of the other operational runs resemble ECM/GFS to varying extent so the GFSP solution has no support at all there.

Anyway, this 'daughter low' supports a ridge ahead of the second western low rather than behind it. The resultant slowing of that low is enough to bring about the decent ridge with WAA to Greenland at around the same time as ECM - quite a coincidence really!
It could then have become a stellar run but for the development of a ridiculously large yet well rounded trough in the Hudson Bay area. A low there fits with the pattern but for it to become so enormous is an extreme solution, not to be looked at without a roll of the eyes.

Hippydave, I know how tragic that feels, which is why these days I type my posts up in notepad before copying them in 

I'll give the GEFS a look now and see if they are as lacking in interest as you suggest.

Confusing chart - high pressure trying to build between SCOTLAND AND GREENLAND then get's pushed eastwards and diminishes ...! Still never know!???

I still only see a 3-5 day cold snap at best from around boxing day onwards before the Azores high flattens things out, there's nothing in any output at this moment in time which screams cold spell a coming bar the MetO Glosea 5 model hinting at such towards the years end.

The current model output suggests the Azores High may briefly ridge north a bit allowing troughs to drop down behind, bringing us a transient northerly.  It may be squidged east a bit with troughs running SW/NE, putting us in a mild SW flow. But broadly it looks to be an immoveable influence on our weather for the foreseeable.

According to the text books it is supposed to drift south of the Azores in the winter allowing the jet stream and associated weather systems also to filter south. It's not playing the game according to the rules

No we arn't, an azors high in isolation isn't the bogieman its made out to be, when there is a dipole between the azors and greenland, that is when you have real issues. Personally I think the pattern has been the best we have seen certainty since the start of the month if not longer. 

Continuing the text-heavy theme tonight (sorry if you're feeling tired!) and very much in response to Hippydave's report that the GEFS lacked HP to the NW in 'the far reaches', here's my view of the day 10 and beyond evolutions of the control run and each of the first 10 perturbations in the 12z GEFS suite.

Control's close but too progressive with second western low.
P1 has a lot of lows coming across under a mid-Atlantic/Greenland ridge but is borderline for southern snow days 12-16, better going north. P2 has a decent northerly days 11-12 then LP comes over the top of the mid-Atl. ridge only to dive south with another northerly day 16 ongoing.
P3 has trough dropping south days 11-12, largely borderline for snow from there to end of run at which point a decent northerly is incoming. P4 just keeps flattening the ridge with a chilly NW'rly the best it can manage.
P5 is similar but a good mid-Atlantic ridge building at the end.
P6 has a very flat ridge and brings 'shortwave hell' with the UK absolutely hammered by rainfall events.
P7 is like a hybrid of P4 and P5.
P8 seems promising on day 12 but then throws low pressure over the mid-Atlantic ridge. A low does get into the Med. to end though with hints of a Scandi High.
P9 has a complex Scandi trough days 11-16 and cold enough for snow days 12-16 though mostly borderline in The South.
P10 has a good northerly day 13, LP then overruns mid-Atlantic ridge but low over Med. allows Scandi High to start building by day 16.

In conclusion, true that HP isn't often to the NW, but plenty feature decent mid-Atlantic ridges.

The GEFS are in fact the most promising in the 10-16 day range that I've seen this month, though far from remarkable - that being largely down to the insistence on taking the jet over the ridges, cutting off the cold feed on the promising runs before it can really get going. While it's far from unreasonable and often seen in past winters, GEFS/GFS are notorious for going for this too readily, so there's some good potential on offer in that period. If only it was anywhere near the reliable timeframe eh 

Yes does seem a little odd that one and be interesting to see how this is modelled on the next run, if it's still there! Wouldn't take too much tweaking.

Hard for ecm to sort that energy very hard to model as that trough also entres negative phase also is there to much energy left left at grenny for a grenny high?

Not always Sc sometimes we can have a strong Azores and it can still be bitter with a lot of snow but I do hear what you are saying..

January 84 was another but these are as rare as hens teeth and until we see a lowering of heights in Europe and the Azores High input diminish or push towards Greenland then the outlook will remain much the same for the next 15 days at least and probably much longer.

I concede that the charts we are seeing generally aren't what coldies want to see, but at least at the moment there is some hope, no matter how small, of a change down the line. If one thinks back to this time last year and the awful charts we were seeing day in, day out at that time, there was virtually no hope to be had. As Gandalf mentioned earlier, the synoptic set-up over in the states seems to be different just now compared to a year ago. If it was the same as last year, I'd be more concerned.