Tbh it looks like a displacement more than a destruction.

Winds still just about westerly. Anyway it seems to not be propagating down below about 200mb at all, about 1/3 strat warmings come to nothing; I reckon this is one.

Awful, absolutely awful. I genually think we can cross out half the winter.

Partly correct - I'm sure most reasonable people would want dry weather.....but not necessarily cold

Also, cold weather will not necessarily kill the bugs that plague us during winter. Our central-heated lifestyle ensures we have a ready breeding ground in our own homes and offices.

Whilst Marcus has stressed that things are less cold rather than mild, that really applies to what maxes we achieve, assuming you accept that the data is going to be correct, which is open to debate IMO. Factor in the projected minimums and lack of frost and the mean will likely be mild.

Tbh it looks worse than last winter, last winter there was some indication of scandi building on the GEM-GFS ensembles, nothing this year. One of the strongest zonal trends I have seen, and certainty on par with last year. Why isn't this strat warming showing any signs at all of propagating down?

Is this the low-res mode that two weeks ago was showing - ah wait, westerly and mobile.
I think the 'low resolution' argument is not all it's cracked up to be when it comes to straw clutching.

Anyway, there is still weather to analyse and that low on Thursday continues to generate very strong winds across N Scotland and then into Norway.

i think we need to wait for ecm and gfs to agree on the direction of travel. i think ecm was too progressive to maintain the split and gfs too quick to put the vortex back together  (following the chart you posted). it may be that a second set of wave activity which is predicted to affect the upper strat by day 10 will be needed to effect a complete split and possible reversal at a low enough latitude to make a difference to nw europe (if we're lucky). i dont see propogation as being an issue with the current strat vortex profile.

hopefully we may begin to see something on the trop output within a couple of days for two weeks time.

If the GFS is indeed underplaying the SSW event and the ECM is right, then perhaps it is the EPS and ECM output we should be monitoring and therefore perhaps 240hr simply isn't enough. About 10% of EPS members go cold by the end, which is an upgrade tbf but there are loads of mild runs too.

GEFS watch (at 384, it should have propagated down by then if it is going to)

Icelandic vortex (zonal):  

Total: 8

Bartlett/Azors/Euro: 

Total: 9

'Cold' Zonal: 

Total: 4

Hope index: 0

If my understanding is correct, it typically takes about 3-4 weeks for the events of a strat warming to propagate down into the troposhere, so even if there is warming going on right now, it may not be for several days yet or even a week or two before we see any evidence of it on the model output, assuming it ultimately does have any bearing on the models.

Wrt last winter, while there may have been indications of a Scandi High coming along on the GFS & GEM ensembles at times, they did sod all good for us in the end. Never once during last season do I remember seeing a Scandi High shown at all on any of the operational runs.

Agree, totally.

As you say if warming is occurring now, we wont see any think related to it until the end of the 3rd week of January..................surely?

What's confusing for some is you get the odd person who has no idea what they are on about, saying SSW has been taking place, or about to take place, since early November. 

As was discussed earlier, too much faith is placed in this as a solitary factor by some, even more so by the odd one or two that don't understand it, and it's no one that's posted in here recently. I don't understand it's affects either. 

Very true Matty. I don't understand it either. Yes I can understand why it increases the risk of cold but I think there are some who wrongly think it's the be all and end all. It is a fact you can have cold and snowy weather in the UK without a SSW event and equally it can stay mild over the UK with one. All this shows to me is yes it may have a part to play but the science and study surrounding it is yet to be fully understood by the scientists and Met Office people let alone mere mortals such as us.

Couple of points:

1. March is considered to be a spring month in meteorogical terms, not a winter month.


2. March 2013 was unusually cold for sure, but that year aside I don't recall a great many springs in recent years that have been unusually cold. I don't recall any notable northern blocking being in place during spring 2014, or even spring 2012 which saw an exceptionally warm spell in late March.

The vortex usually becomes disrupted in February and March. If that happens this year I hope those who've been banging on about the possibility since November don't try and claim any credit. 

Edit: The ECM 12z is one of dullest I've ever seen.

True, but from what i've read it usually takes 10 days, and 2 weeks maximum for the effects to propagate down. Personally I'm not interested in looking for cold at the moment (sod all of it to be had) but just any hint that the easterlies are hitting the 500 level. Absolutely nothing, surely there should be at least something in the GFS low res range. And the most annoying thing is that there were hints of something interesting going on a few days after xmas day, and it evaporated just like that. 

Sod the GFS, lets see if the ECMOP is a mild outlier again, even if 90% of the EPS are nothing interesting.

I was model watching since about 2005 if not a year or two before.

That's not what he asked 

Probably not too bad for stornoway though , I bet they end up with above averge snowfall this year. 

I think I might be right in saying white Easters are more  common are as common as a white Xmas

I gave an answer to a more useful question.