Nothing against Matt Hugo, but he's been coming out with this sort of stuff all winter. So far, for the vast majority of England & Wales, these events (even if they have come to pass...) have simply not delivered anything noteworthy

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Putting it politely he talks bollocks, one minute there's no end in sight of the mobile westerly regime the next inimment SSW. 

My opinion of the snow risk is rather different to Steve, with the exception of N ireland and W scotland, western areas will see virtually nothing, it is late tuesday afternoon into the evening that the east will see snow.

 

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I'll take his word over your word any day.

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Harsh

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There is still scatter in the GEFS even at day 5. But I cant see how we can swing this back again unless all the models have got the upstream pattern wrong.

Another 2 weeks written off and we are likely looking for the second half of Feb by which time it is starting to get tricky. Looking like the disappointing winter many of us feared it would be (in the south of course, I'm aware those further north have already seen lots of snow)

 

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Why the 2nd half of Feb? There is still 12 days of this month to go.

What were we looking at 12 days ago on the models?

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At work so can't stick charts up but there's enough members in the ens out in Fi to suggest the current pattern may repeat, rather than a lengthy flat zonal period.  Okay they're in the minority and not overly cold but the signal is there.  Check out P19 to see what I mean.  In the near term still looking chilly/cold with snow for some, as was nicely shown by the ens some days ago and continues to be shown. 

 

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ECM frontal analysis. In a word: Mess.

Not that it shouldn't be expected of course, when LPs hit land they become annoying complicated and this is no exception. We start with 1am tonight, there is a bit of frontal garbage in the north sea, perhaps giving some snow to shetland, otherwise there is just the atlantic front. What we have is a system that has no warm sector, consequently its cold front is very weak with no warm belt running over it, this is a kata front undergoing cyclosis. And as you know from a few months ago when I posted my bench mark 850s, cold fronts are very bad at giving snow, so you would need -8C uppers usually. But that is for a decent ana cold front, for a kata cold front the picture is even more dire, nothing probably short of -10 850hpas would give snow on that front. Luckily the front is occluded for northern Ireland, and occluded fronts behave more like warm fronts than cold fronts so the northern part of the front is likely to give some sleet and snowfall, although being a warm occlusion, the back end is watery rather than wintery - not that it will actually be warm or even mild on the back end, and showers will be wintry to higher ground.

Now because this low seems incapable of being well behaved, by the time we get to wednesday it is a complete mess, the primary front moves west occluding as it does so, and as cold becomes occluded it will start to pep up, with the northern part of the front always the most active part, by late on tuesday the front will affect central northern england and eastern scotland and snow will likely fall here, particularly to scotland. In the south it could go either way, but even if it does snow, the amounts will be trivial. 

Okay that's the primary front, unfortunately on the backside of the occlusion/cold we have a secondary low developing with a warm sector. Forget snow if you are inside the warm sector, but that warm front could have snow on it, so we have this rather bizarre possibility of the midlands seeing a snow to rain to snow event (if the primary front produces anything appreciable). Essentially a wave forms in the irish sea with a warm sector probably for the SW, it intensifies quickly and perhaps gives some locally very heavy snowfall to parts of wales or the west midlands; when I say locally I mean locally though, and it is likely to be brief. As the system occludes through early wednesday another period of snow follows for N england and Scotland, although somewhat further west this time. This front will also be more active so could give more appreciable accumulations especially for the north. The midlands is tricky, here the front will stall and rain initially could turn to snow, and there could be some very significant snow here on wednesday, perhaps 10cm+, but again local and the specifics which matter are too far out even now. Northern england and scotland also has a stalling front later on wednesday, and it is the primary front, while weakning initially, a burst of low level cold air from the continent could turn this quite active again and the frontal precip may even become more showery convective in nature, this could produce some more widespread snow and potentially significant but this is less certain. 

 

All in all a mess. so I'll do a regional snow summary.

N ireland: Snow to rain showers (hill snow) Tuesday, showers possibly turning wintry again.

W scotland: Snow tuesday afternoon-evening, 10cm over the hills, perhaps accumulation to lower levels. Snow and snow showers on Wednesday, few cm at lower levels, another 10cm over hills. Wintry showers thursday, heavy snow over the hills.

E scotland: Patchy snow by evening tuesday, intensifying wednesday but still mostly light or moderate, perhaps intermittent but not showery. Burst of snow activity late on Wednesday with snow showers on thursday. While W Scotland has the heavier precip, E scotlad has the more persistant precip.

N England: Patchy rain or snow tuesday Afternoon in west, gradually turning heavier and more persistent while moving east and turning completely to snow. Clearing from the west early wednesday but legacy in the east, possibly light and patchy. More snow arrives from the west later, the two bands merging at times to give intermittent snow for N england with rain possible in the far west. Late on wednesday more snow coming back in from the east, perhaps rain or sleet on the coast. Somewhere over the hills will see 10cm+, perhaps isolated lower levels.

Midlands: Light rain or snow pushing in from the west on tuesday, snow more likely on hills and in the north. In the south drizzly, patchy rain, perhaps some mist/fog. Nothing significant expected at all. Patchy rain or sleet becoming more potent through wednesday, perhaps turning into a spell of quite significant snow especially in the south, although any snow may turn back to rain and then turn back to snow again through the evening as some patchy snow moves in from the NE. Thursday sees a mixture of snow and sleet for the NE and rain, sleet and hill snow for the SW.

Wales: As above but more emphasis on rain than snow (except on higher ground), possible period of significant temporary snow through wednesday which could become permanent locally. 

The south: Late tuesday into wednesday some rain/sleet and snow may move in from the west, a mix of mostly rain and snow on its leading edge and rain on its back edge. On wednesday a period of snow may move close to the south coast, fizzling out as it moves east, but perhaps re intensifying through thursday.

 

 

 

 

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Not really as his daily tweets resemble that of a manic depressive, it was only last week he was tweeting that the ECM 32  dayer made for grim reading and that the overall consensus was for the Atlantic to gain control, the reality was nothing like that and Ian F confirmed this. Ian F is the only pro posting I take note of, he doesn't have mood swings and posts manic tweets but waits until all the avaiable evidence is at hand before making a rational call. Anyway this is the model output thread and not who talks bollocks thread, if it was I'll be at the forefront ( according to my legion of fans on here 😃 ). 

 

Jesus, that kind of post belongs in the meltdown thread of the NW MOD.

 

See you in 3 weeks then ?

Just to be clear regarding my earlier post which seems to predict rather a lot of snow. That is based on the ECM which is the most extreme of all the models, the GFS and the high res models do not predict as much snow as EC. 

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I think had this been last year- we would have accepted the current setup, but i think after it being marginal from the zonality period we experienced through Xmas and into Early Jan - through to where we are now (approx 2 weeks of marginal cold now (with the odd warm spell) has dangled the carrot for too long for some people.

Even though ive seen snow falling a few days now, I am too a little frustrated. I think the lack of heavy precip hasnt helped either - as that would normally sway these marginal situations. It certainly did on boxing day.

Looking onwards - the GEFs to me shows signs of a repeat of the last two weeks, prodominantly cold/cool with short bursts of warmer weather. With the potential for something a little colder in a transient manner.

We really need a cold burst to shoot into Russia with the Atlantic asleep at the moment.

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As these are loved so much

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Best chance of snow will be across the Midlands on Wednesday!

The feature in NE england really seems to be developing now. 

After a brief slight lul in activity around midday its been intensifying through the afternoon, suspect trough or convergenze zone. If it keeps developing I could expect a few cms out of this.

 

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Better than of late for many?

 

http://modeles2.meteociel.fr/modeles_gfs/runs/2015011912/36-779UK.GIF?19-12

 

 

 

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GFS 12Z looking more wet than white on Wednesday for most in the south. Still looks like there might be some snow as the system moves across but would soon be washed away if this run verified. Plenty more runs for it to change back though........

Patchy rain/sleet for most with some localized falls of snow further north 

 

looks poor to me

 

The area of low pressure causing the showers is now just offsure, the band of showers circulating it is becoming very slow moving. Suprised the met haven't issued a yellow warning for this, light winds and slow moving showers makes for potential for some decent snow accumulation into the evening. 

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This chart run on run is showing signs that the LP may want to dip into the med skimming the uk.  I suspect if it did we would find western areas in 7-8*c and drizzle and the east in Fog and barely above freezing - especially into east anglia.

 

The changes on each run are very slight, but enough to assume a slight trend.

 

2013 developed these scenarios in a very similar fashion.  With the atlantic not having that  much push at the moment, we could see a last minute flip by the charts.

 

one to watch.

 

EDIT - just a comparison on the two runs, tricky to notice run on run... but ive noticed it for a day or so now - with each run a little more south... similar to how Tuesdays system is progged to develop.

 

12z / 06z at the same time.

 

 

 

 

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http://www.meteociel.fr/ukmo/runs/2015011912/UN144-21.GIF?19-17

Eyes down for the next so called cold spell 

 

Aye - if it engages with the LP over Italy - we could see a more potent Northerly..

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Another easterly down the toilet it seems. Have to realistically look to February now for the "next" cold spell I think. The new GFS has been quite poor the past few days and the Euros have led the way.

The NMM showing a snow risk tomorrow into Wednesday for the N Midlands and N England especially. Looks fairly light but a light covering possible in places, mainly over the high ground. Looks like just rain here and rest of the south.