W COUNTRY Summary of latest f'cast thoughts: WEDS PM-FRI AM: Cold, windy. Through this period, any snow falling to all levels away frm coast

From I F

And another

W COUNTRY CONT'D...FRI: Less cold air, associated with remains of occlusion, lessens risk of snow. NEXT WEEKEND: Turning markedly cold again

And one more

W COUNTRY CONT'D... We expect this second (next weekend on) phase to be colder than the first (Weds-Thurs) episode, as flow veers to north.

Ebb and flow really. Let's hope there's more flow and less of the ebb of last week's effort.

I "any" is the thing. Looks pretty dry to me away from windward areas such as coasts and uplands. Standard northerly fare were that the case. 

I'm not disagreeing Matty, the wind direction for MBY isn't the best , but if something organised does materialise I have half a chance of some snow

The majority of cold spells, even the best of them, only last five to seven days. 1987 - a seven day slow wane; 1991 - a five day sharp freeze. Less than 10 days yes, but certainly not 'forgotten'

Disclaimer: I'm not saying next week will be anything on that scale

looks good to me. I would have thought the low being closer to us would increase precipitation/disturbance chances. Also temps at 00z are hovering around zero IMBY which may indicate cloud cover and attendant precipitation.

maybe someone more knowledgeable could explain......😊

HERE IS MY LATEST ANALYSIS FROM THE OUTPUTS OF THE WEATHER COMPUTER PREDICTION MODELS FOR TWO WEEKS FROM 8AM TODAY SUNDAY JANUARY 25TH 2015.

NEXT UPDATE MONDAY JANUARY 26TH 2015 08:00

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION A milder SW flow will extend across all areas today followed by a cold front moving SE across the UK tonight and leading to a ridge of High pressure moving into the UK from the West later tomorrow.

MODELS-2 WEEK HEADLINE Changeable with rain at times but some drier spells too. Less cold. Turning more generally unsettled and very cold again later with snow in places, especially over the North and East.

THE JET STREAM ENSEMBLE FORECAST The Jet Stream Forecast shows the flow driving sharply South over Europe later next week and ridging North across mid Atlantic keeping the UK on the cold side of a Southeast moving flow to the SW of the UK by next weekend. thereafter following the model members data the pattern flattens to a West to East flow over the UK in Week 2.

GFS OPERATIONAL The GFS operational today shows the benign Westerly flow across the UK early this week strengthening and slowly veering from Wednesday as cold and blustery weather with wintry showers extend South midweek. Deep Low pressure in association with this pattern slips SE into Europe with winds veering further to Northerly at times through next weekend and the following week with disturbances running SE into the cold air enhancing the risk of more prolonged snowfall in places before things gradually turn quieter under a strong ridge of High pressure from off the Atlantic late in the run.

THE GFS CONTROL The GFS control run follows in similar vein through the first week to 10 days before setting up a more coherent High pressure belt first across the UK and then to the North later with cold weather continuing if largely dry and frosty by then until a cold Northeast flow introduces snow showers to the East at the final frames of the run.

THE GFS CLUSTERS The GFS Clusters today don't support the evolutions of the operational or control much with a 50% group showing a less cold WNW flow around Low pressure to the North and High pressure to the Southwest. Of the rest only 10% show any extension of an Azores High towards Scandinavia and that too far South.

UKMO UKMO this morning continues to illustrate a dip into cold and wintry conditions later in the week as from Wednesday the currently benign weather pattern turns into strong NW then North winds with snow showers peppering all exposed locations facing North and giving rise to frosts by night and the risk of more sustained snowfall as disturbances will no doubt pop up at short notice and move South within the flow.

THE FAX CHARTS The Fax Charts follow the tracks of the raw data well with most of the UK falling under sub 528 dam air from Wednesday with increasingly wintry showers affecting many following a cold front SE midweek Winds will be from the NW as Low pressure deepens to the NE and slips SE over Europe later in the week.

GEM GEM today also shows a 4-5 day spell of cold and windy weather with wintry conditions under NW or north winds and snow showers in exposure. Later in the run the inevitable cut off ridge of High pressure crosses the UK and brings back cold zonality type conditions late in the run from the NW.

NAVGEM NAVGEM today shows the shift to cold and windy conditions too after Wednesday with Low pressure close by over the North Sea bringing showers or longer spells of wintry precipiation in places especially thise with exposure to the North and NW. The end runs with cold North winds still blowing across the Uk at the start of next week with the Atlantic ridge weak and still some way to the West of the UK.

ECM ECM this morning continues to look the best in terms of extended cold as it holds the ridge out across the Atlantic maintaining a cold feed of varying degrees of strength right out to the end of the run. This means that from Wednesday onward and well into next week the UK will see North winds and snow showers and some longer spells of wintry precipitaion almost anywhere at times as small Lows disrupt and move SE into the cold air across the UK.

ECM 10 DAY MEAN The 10 Day Mean this morning supports the evolution that Low pressure will lie to the NE and East of the UK over Scandinavia and Europe as well as Greenland. Contrastingly High pressure is shown to most likely to be ridged between the Azores and Iceland keeping the UK under a cold feed from the North.

NOTABLE TREND CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS RUNS The trend remains for much colder and windy weather later next week and through next weekend. The longevity of the spell is still unclear with various options both for a longer spells and not are shown this morning.

MY THOUGHTS Most cold lovers should be quite pleased with this morning's output as one day on and the models still suggest a cold period commencing from wednesday across the UK. There is total cross model support that this evolution to cold NW then North winds will take place and it's only the longevity of the spell once in that is very fluid within the output at the moment. This is quite normal for models to play around with various evolutions to get us back into the defaurlt Westerly mode we in the UK are so used too. GFS is resolute in this resolve this morning which after 7-10 days bring back milder westerly winds under a flattening pattern, highlighted within it's clusters and mean pressure charts for that time. GEM is also looking like going a similar way while the highlights of the morning is once more the ECM model and the GFS control run. The former brings a couple of reloads as the ridge over the Atlantic is still shown to slowly builds towards Iceland and the NW locking the UK in cold weather out to Day 10 while GFS jostles around High pressure over the Atlantic and eventually delivers a cold NE flow to the UK at the end as pressure rises to the NE too. There is still a lot of 'if's' and 'buts' surrounding the longer term evolutions of week 2 but none surrounding the onset of the cold which is a given now for Wednesday and Thursday of this week. So sit back and enjoy the ride as the models continue to throw out differing evolutions on how long and how wintry the spell or snap will evolve but I wouldn't mind betting the newsprint will be latching onto this soon and for once there will be some locations in the North especially where this may for once be justified come next weekend.

I'm guessing it is a different "ten days time" than this morning's ECM has in mind? 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm2401.html

Only last night he posted this:

W COUNTRY CONT'D... w sunny spells & wintry showers rest of Thurs. In areas 200-400m across S England (e.g. SW Moors), these likely as snow.

Twelve hours later it's snow to all levels. Shows the fluidity of the situation. 

More tweets from Ian Fergusson sounds good

W COUNTRY CONT'D...FRI: Less cold air, associated with remains of occlusion, lessens risk of snow. NEXT WEEKEND: Turning markedly cold again

W COUNTRY CONT'D... We expect this second (next weekend on) phase to be colder than the first (Weds-Thurs) episode, as flow veers to north.

Yes

The cold is really digging in now

Looks impressive going forward on that Wetterzentrale projection: low pressure sending milder air up the west coast of Greenland and an Atlantic high pointing directly north east from Iceland.

Well i'm hoping to see some decent snowfall before the 8th of Feb as i have a lesionectomy (Tumour Removal) on the 9th in London and i may or may not remember much around this date.

Can't understand some of the negativity on here through the run up to the expected cold spell. I'll again say we have the best cross model support for a strong northerly that we have seen for several years in the UK. Perhaps some people would rather see a straight westerly feed with uppers in the + category. People need to chill out and not worry about uppers too high or marginal. The Northern hemisphere is at it's coldest point in the season right now and I will guarantee with the exception of any small frontal features injecting warm sectors within the flow precipitation will be of snow all the way to ground level from Thursday, certainly to the North and for much of the time in the South too especially from next weekend on. I concede a lot of inland Central UK will stay largely dry but coastal West, North and East could do very well for snow and that includes Cornwall. I honestly feel that people tend to spend too much time analysing the charts in too much depth that they often miss the cold spell and snow evolving around them because their heads are stuck in the computer looking for the inevitable end. I sometimes wonder whether folks are obsessed by Model watching rather than the weather itself.

My advice is take a break and just view the models twice a day 00zs and possibly the 12zs and reserve judgement to once a day' It has really helped me as like many on here and the other side I once became obsessed by every model run to the point where it distorted my mind and thoughts. Using the above tact I now see things in a comparable day to day environment rather than run to run. 

More like a west to  north-westerly to End the week than a northerly?

What would you say to this? a delay or downgrade?

Several years of this says you're wasting your breath. 

Martin in optimistic form this morning. 

The ECM mean has my area at -5 850s or below from 96h - 240. 

With Gibby and Fergusson suggesting cold and snow for most maybe a few of our more pessimistic members might start to get on board. At this stage it does look like the coldest spell of the winter is about to arrive.

Very good advice Martin.

Not in terms of 850mb temps (which admittedly aren't everything).