Matty & Gooner? - Can't complain? If this did materialise!?

Coincidently, Ian Fergusson has just this minute tweeted this

@liamdutton @GlennRedwood you'll see lots of GFS snow charts getting posted ad-nauseum. Ignore at this early & very tentative range.

I agree.  Its almost like locally grown legacy cold air.  

Reminds me of 2013 - though i think Scandinavia had already received a few shots of Artic air in the weeks leading up to it.

The ensembles paint this picture perfectly with all of them not wanting to below -6*c at 850.

If Matty's still in the plumbing trade I'm sure his eyes will be lighting up at that -10C... burst pipes aplenty!

GFS is prone to "go off on one" on those charts though, especially when (simulated) snowcover is involved.

Nonetheless, I daresay there will be some widespread and severe frosts to come - severe in the definition of "below freezing with a wind" as opposed to "severe due to it being -15C".

I think that's spot on, and comes back to my point about snow accumulation. The reason those temperatures are projected in that chart is because that runs deems that area to be under snow cover. At that range it's virtually useless. Again, though, it highlights a possibility. Once the cold air is in place it's time to start looking for small scaled disturbances that are virtually unforcastable and let the bigger systems take care of themselves. 

Some great looking charts for the UK. Looks like the best wintry period since Dec 2010 could be on the cards.... with the usual twists, turns, wtf, omg, lol, t*ts up, pete tong and upgraded snow-fest moments, of course.

To the UK:

Enjoy the ride!!! And good luck 😃 :-)

GEFS12z and the new GFS 12z op. I'm pretty sure the GEFS are still running the old GFS model core (so no physics updates) and will continue to do so for a while before they are upgraded. It will be fascinating to see whether the new GFS op run is an outlier more frequently until the new GEFS becomes available.

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/charts/gefs/gefsens850London0.png

I doubt it, this looks alot more like a 2013 setup to me.  2010 involved an almighty Greenland high, and threw in alot of precip aswell.  Though IIRC it was only really a month event - with other cold spells being usual short affairs.

This has the potential to lock in cold, though i dont think its looking massively cold at the moment - like i said - very much like 2013.

I think some areas next week will get sleet when they expect snow, and areas expecting sleet will infact get snow.  

Fingers crossed it will be like 2010 in the sense we will figure out who gets what from surprise features discovered with only 24hrs notice, for me - that was what was magical about 2010, was the unpredictability of it.  From looking at the forecast at 9am to looking again at 6pm and seeing another feature crashing in without a real idea it was going to.  It was exciting to watch from afar.  I know southern counties it was every night something happened.

For what its worth following these forums tends to deaden the excitement you get from looking out the window and being surprised its snowing (although this did happen for me last boxing day a few weeks back, really wasnt expecting snow in my neck of the woods that night)

Yes that was odd, here we got absolutely pasted in snow but I remember we travelled just a few miles south into Manchester and there was nothing at all. Zilch. It was interesting seeing the snow get deeper as we got closer to here, and the difference in elevation is only about 10-20m between here and where we went, hardly enough to cause such a dramatic difference. Must be a reason for it but I've seen it many a time in the past as well living here since the 70's. It's always puzzled me.

ECM gives us this beauty

ECM 12z at 168 - chart speaks for itself :-)

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf/runs/2015011412/ECM1-192.GIF?14-0

Rain shadow effect from the Pennines! Only a problem when the wind is from the E/SE and the precipitation is frontal.

Winter 2012/13 was horrendous for it as that image shows! 

Great discussion, but whilst it's been going on ECM has sneaked in the back door and gone 'Oy!'. Worth a look, you won't be disappointed.
Close to cross-model concensus for Day 5 which in light of the last few weeks is incredible really.

This really is J F F 

As is this

All J F F 

A snow fest for many

Yep lovely ECM best run I've seen for a long time 

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf/runs/2015011412/ECH1-216.GIF?14-0

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf/runs/2015011412/ECH1-216.GIF?14-0

A decent ECM it has to be said

Perhaps the Jan 2013 synoptics which produced that NASA image?

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/archives/archives.php?day=24&month=1&year=2013&hour=0&map=1&mode=0

Edit: Just noticed Russwirral posted the same idea while I was flicking through the archive. Beg pardon.

It was caused a very very thin finger  of warmer uppers that crossed the far South of the region. We had torrential rain followed by torrential sleety snow. The flakes that were mixed in were ludicrous sizes and turn the floodwater on my patio to slush puppy. It never turned to proper snow and I was gutted that we missed out.

Just looked at FI ECM and thought it looked iffy but showing good consistency from this morning.

Having looked more closely it's because it was this mornings run as it's only up to T168 on TWO at present

The 240 chart is not so good - where does everything go from there? Could all sink south and let the Atlantic back in:

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf/runs/2015011412/ECM1-240.GIF

I would not be too upset however, if we have had a few days of lying snow by then.

Wrg to the collapsing high, I would not be too concerned about this, as long as the atlantic remains inactive, this is fairly easy to tell from the shape and trajectory of the lows, and lack of cyclogenesis. In such an environment retrogression to scandanavia or greenland is possible, or we could go back into Pm, either way it stays cold. 

The ECM thickness and uppers at 192 don't look too good. Yes I know it's pulling low level air from the east, but I'd not be surprised if areas south of London saw rain from this set up.

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/charts/ecm/168_thick.png