Many thanks to all posters of output on here. All read daily to glean the knowledge. Gibby's Site in particular as so local. Well done Martin and look forward to another year of posts. ...  Happy New Prospects to all....

Fergusson offering some hope for mid month onwards. Perhaps the effects of the warming showing up

"The most striking thing in 00z EC-EPS clusters is how by T+360, all 51 members offer singular consensus on high pressure to our W, low to our NE; a broadly NW flow and apparent lessening of deeper cyclonicity from the NW. But a long way off for now."

Growing numbers of "snow rows" as we head into mid Jan:

Ensembles looking increasingly colder, inc Temp2m.  

Shannon Entropy from end of next week falls to almost record-low levels, thereby exhibiting high confidence in the mostly westerly (and mostly cyclonic) story until end of 10-15d trend period, at least. More north of west bias by end, signalling drop in temperatures (unknown how pronounced).

So annoying that this happens with such depressing frequency in January - what should be the best month of the winter, is so often the worst (in terms of mildness). In meteorological terms, I guess this is because the temperature contrast between the mid latitudes and the high northern latitudes is at its highest at this time of year, thus firing up the jet across the north Atlantic which blows wet and mild across the dastardly North Atlantic Drift, which is purposely designed to deny these islands decent winter weather.

That is why our best hope is an early SSW, whatever the sceptics might say, since that is the best chance of disrupting the standard, relentless west to east jet which powers in our direction.

The lack of Shannon Entropy identified by IF is particularly depressing, since it indicates high confidence in the current, rotten model output - it was ever thus!

Before anyone gets even a little bit excited about that comment, the control at T+360 does indeed show low pressure to the NE - barely! It has a WSW'ly flow over the UK and midnight temperatures between -1C in the Highlands and +9C over Kent - throroughly unexciting.

There is a ridge to the west but it's a feeble, very weak affair - the chart itself is very zonal still. Even if that were to come off, we'd still be a long way away from a proper cold spell.

EDIT: And looking at the EPS plume for London:

http://www.weathercast.co.uk/services/ensemble-forecast.html?eps=london

we see that 3 of the 51 runs bring a decent cold spell to London. The other 48 seem to show the typical out-of-sync sine wave pattern that heralds zonality...

Confidence levels high in the mid term outlook as I think has been noted:

GFS and GFSP 6z +180 hours

GFS and GFSP 6z +384 hours

Personally I wouldn't even bother worrying about the details on these charts. The general pattern is clear with a broadly westerly mobile flow persisting.

The best advice for most people here is probably to either start looking at the nuances of the set up which could bring stormy conditions and heavy rain at times with the risk of more wintry conditions over higher ground in the north, or to find something more productive to do with your spare time if snow is your only weather interest. Just looking for snow at the moment is bad for your health! 

Definitely the case - still, with the models looking as tedious as they do for cold fans (at least in the south), it means there are plenty of opportunities to catch up on other stuff. I've booked flights to a place gauranteed to have snow, for example, although I'll have to wait until May to see it! Hopefully there'll be some here before then...

Good advice! No indication yet that the strat warming is going to have any effect on the pattern in our quadrant of the N Hemisphere.
As several here have been saying repeatedly for a week at least, there is no sign of anything generally wintry on the horizon until mid January at least, and maybe beyond.
As Lord Sugar would say, the wait continues . . .

If this chart output is anything to go by (I got it from Gusty and now use it to have a quick glance in the medium range output without trawling through lots of graphics), http://wxweb.meteostar.com/sample/sample.shtml?text=EGMD, at least it does seem flooding is quite unlikely to be an issue for this end of the woods despite the seemingly changeable and breezy outlook - a subtle difference on this time last year and proves how that Azores ridge is nearer than we think.

I suspect Scotland and western parts of the UK won't fare quite so well, though.