It's almost as if that High is trying to retrogress northwards, but never quite manages it due to the strength of the polar vortex.

The thing is, that HP is dying to go to greenland, it wants to do that. And its a battle of attrition between the HP and the polar vortex, with no winner well into FI. That being said this is like a chess game between two grand masters of almost identical skill, but with one player being ever so slightly superior (the HP), so even though you would expect a stalemate, the HP checkmating the polar vortex is far more likely than the converse. 

This is an insane chart, that 1902 record is definitely threatened. Not really sure what to expect from such a potent 'anti-storm'. 

..but just look at the trends guys..2 days ago this high was poised to sink southwards into Europe opening up the atlantic, yesterday most of the output shifted the high to the west opening us up to an anticyclonic NW'ly and now we have the high desperate to get to Greenland but keep most of the south in a cold continental, all be it dry easterly of sorts.

All the time we either have either a brutal trough digging into Scandinavia or a Siberian easterly in eastern Europe.

With the atlantic clearly moving into its more traditional quieter period things are screaming potential for the UK.

Just sayin

Can't be far off an Omega Block?...Darren, what say you?

One thing's for sure, Europe is going to be absolutely frozen during the coming week or so...

And the longer and stronger we get this solid cold in place, the greater the battle line when the Atlantic finally does win through (in a month or so ).

Well said that man !

It's a diffluent block (otherwise known as a Rex block in the States):

http://weatherfaqs.org.uk/book/export/html/144

You are getting the feeling Budz

Well I was close....I got the word "block" correct

Cheers Darren

I'm always getting the feeling, but that's just an age thing

Something else that's come to mind from days gone by, was old Ron Lobeck on Meridian TV. He used to have a saying that went something like "if a block holds for 3 days, it'll hold up to 7, if it holds after 7, it'll go on to 11"....or something like that?

Quite a few cold northerly shots on GFS 12z FI...

Indeed Steve.

Well you'll probably guess I'm not buying it at this time. It will take a monumental shift from the 00Z and 06Z ENS set to get that high far enough West and North to bring the Arctic in again ('again' used loosely)

Not saying it won't but it would be very unusual.

As Steve says, its about trends.  If the trend of positioning the block a little further N and W can be maintained then we could get that cold shot.  If time permits I look at all models rather than just the GEFS as I think over reliance on them can lead to errors of judgement.

There's a lot to look at and discuss, and snow chances for many over the next 4 days

edit: here's the GEM,@ 144 Im aware some in here don't hold it in very high esteem though

and the model of the day is UKMO - a bitter easterly @96 and then setting up for a northerly @ 144?  Fascinating times.

Im not quite sure what you mean by the METO - to me thats just cold at the surface with very mild uppers.  That kinda setup is really bad for cold/snow, as theyre usually really really good at letting any cold slip very easlily to central europe over and over again (as the GFS shows).  Maintaining its position for long periods and slowly introducing spring.

Those kinda setups can be very devlish in their nature.  Id rather take Zonality TBH with the chance of a northerly.

I mean that it could just lead to a glancing northerly by around Feb 9th.  It probably wont, but the chart shows that a high ridging N could just do that later on. It would look something like this Russ (taken from the GEFS):

A shame it is on the UKMO at T144. My views on that are well documented

Now.... if ECM can......

ECM in 6 days...Brrrr -14s approaching Shetland and -10s across Scotland.  Doc will be happy.

Just a slight edit