Here's the wet bulb potential temperatures for this afternoon. There's a slice of values close to zero (yellow colours) heading SE from which the potential for a transition to snow across the south arises thanks to the wind not being too strong. By 6pm dew points may also prove favourable for some accumulations in places.

A curl of values in the 1-2*C range into the small low early on Friday may also prove sufficient for some snow to fall somewhere if winds are light enough... the location is highly uncertain.

For an idea as to how uncertain - I am receiving a steady train of showers at a time when Euro4 has them about 50 miles north of here. So the model is considerably wide of the mark at just 6 hours range 

Again a vast array of solutions on offer medium and long term from a warm SW to sub-zero easterlies.
Confidence, to coin a phrase, very low as to the evolution into the end of next week and opportunities to come for all in the next five days.

And on the auspicious occasion of my 10K posts, I'd like to say how enjoyable the last 14 years has been on here and here's to another 14

Sure, though it was only biblical in the sense of the low thicknesses which arguably we will still have next week (although highly unlikely to be record breaking now 😞 ).  The good thing is though, that if potential for something that good is there, you can afford to downgrade quite a bit and get off with a fairly decent cold spell, its just a shame that the coldest runs never come to fruition except when they do (e.g in 2010 e.c.t.). I have nightmares about February 2007! 

Indeed, Euro 4 is pretty hopeless for ppn though. It repeatedly showed a band of snow/rain across my area for last night but it was clear all night as far as I can tell.

A proud day

Damit, the lack of lake activity atm is caused by quite significant wind sheer, not a problem for wales and south yorkshire though (why am I not suprised?).

Define "interesting".  See that bit in the Midlands where's sod all falling...     Ties in with the point I made a little while ago on the dedicated 'cold spell' thread.  I suggested experience tells me there's a good chance the precip. will go either side of my locale.  Looks promising for most of the Midlands, parts of Wales and much of inland central and south-eastern England.  

edit and East Anglia (sorry missed you out)

meant "interesting" in that I wasn't expecting to see a chart like that for this evening showing snow into East Anglia and many other parts. I thought today/tonight would be mainly dry here (in East Anglia) and if anything did fall it would be of rain. I guess the chart ties in with the latest Meto advisories. Shows how quickly things can change in such a setup as we have now. Be interesting to see how it all pans out tonight though.

Give that man some sort of gong To paraphrase a colleague of mine... "It's not the posts you put in, it's what you put into the posts" - suffice to say that I'm sure I'm amongst many others who look for your avatar when browsing the Model Output Discusion threads, to see reasoned views and experienced consideration. Good on you, Neil.

Here's today's video update;

A Prolonged Cold Spell Developing?

http://www.gavsweathervids.com/ 

Next Thu/Fri seems key as to whether this is a week long cold spell or something much more prolonged...

Sure makes things interesting.

Looks like waming up in about a week.

Look at the recent quickly forming circulation to the North-West of Scotland - polar low perhaps?

http://www.yr.no/satellitt/europa_animasjon.html

that feature can be seen on the 06z GFS suite running SSE across the UK and exiting Kent tomorrow morning 06z

I assume it is this development which has led the METO to issue a snow warning overnight for the bulk of the UK

Just rhetorical imbyism on my part.  

Sorry OT 

certainly the Cheshire gap playing its part today here near alton towers the north-westerly wind given a couple of inches of snow on the fields,much more in the peak district

Its not your "normal" Gap behaviour tho... I normally do really well out of it - but the best is going just above and below me at the moment - cant quite work out why

Nothing is nailed on, even for this weekend, let alone next week!

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2015012912/gfs-0-108.png?12

GFS so far

Possible polar low developing

UKMO leaning slightly towards GEM at this stage, can the omega high develop hear Iceland from here?  Doubt it.

be interesting to see where that little beauty goes...  suspect its got a Sheffield postcode on it lol

Uncertainty reigns supreme, even within the 12-24 hour range; GFS still has the focus for snow tonight further east than recent high-resolution models have been going for.

Then we have hints at disturbances in the flow at the weekend, but these so inconsistent that placing the details is pretty much a waste of time and effort.

To start next week it seems we might see a low sliding SW of the UK that could come close enough to affect us directly, but the track has been shifting by hundreds of miles from run to run.

A notable disturbance could then track down from Iceland on Tuesday, but this too has been coming and going.

If nothing else, it can make for some entertaining model viewing.
As of +132 the GFS 12z looking good for trapping the Euro trough again as was the case on the 06z op run, bringing some of that continental cold to our shores 

I am hoping it dumps on the West Midlands overnight.