I agree. Five days can be a very long time when it comes to forecasting our weather, let alone five weeks.

You're entitled to your opinion Moomin as everyone is, but in this case I'm afraid I don't agree. I have been following the model output on a daily basis for 10 years now and one thing I learned about the models pretty early on is that sometimes, things can and do change quickly, just like the weather itself often does.

Many people at this time back in November 2009 were quite likely thinking that with that November being pretty wet and mild throughout that December that year would follow in similar vein. The models at the time didn't offer a whole lot of hope for coldies either, that is until the early days of December when it began to become clear that a big change was on the way for later that month.

Unless one happens to have a crystal ball, we cannot possibly know for what December as a whole will be like. Not even anyone at the Met Office.

its hard when you work outside and your hands and feet are constantly cold to want anything other tbh

The euro high may take a couple of weeks to shift- but even I wouldn't write off the whole of December just yet. 

Will probably be gone on the next run - we shall see. However, GFS is good at picking up pattern changes in advance - much better than ECM in that respect.

Looking at that chart, the WAA over the UK looks unpleasant at the time, except that it is pumping up the Scandi high which would deliver decent winter fare to these shores given time.

Needs a lot more runs to see if this is a flight of fancy or the start of something however.

Yeh Agreed

Strangley - there has been a few  runs  showing that Transient HP running over to Scandi... Could turn into a mild drizzle fest mind if we're not perfectly positioned, and also the continent isnt baltic yet.  

But interesting developments all the same... better than Zonal

Yep Zonal all the way eh

Just goes to illustrate the point I made in here earlier. As Maunder says, it could either simply be a flash in the pan, or it could be the beginnings of a change of pattern. I remember there was another GFS run the other day, the 12z on Saturday night I think, which showed a similar evolution in FI.

Even though it's in the outer reaches of FI don't discount anything yet, Dr Doom and Gloom may just have to postpone the post mortem  for this December.

High-res only goes up to 2nd December & Met Office only go to 23 December in their outlook.

It's not the norm to get significant cold in December (December is, in fact, more of an autumnal month climatologically).

The equinocal Winter begins on 21st December.

Remember the saying...as the days lengthen, the cold strengthens (well, until we get to spring!!).

Trophospheric vortex STILL not playing ball.

That's all!! 

David

Northallerton

For what it's worth the recent northerly incursion appeared only within the 168 - 192hr time period with little, if any,eye candy on offer in FI prior to this. Accordingly, to simply write off December now in the absence of any obvious signs of a change to colder conditions is rather short sighted. Many of us yearn for a cold winter and are very often left disappointed but the current output is far from hopeless, as evidenced by the 12z GFS today. Whilst very definitely in the minority at the moment, perturbation 1 on the ensembles has certainly cheered me up!

Don't even go there! FWIW, I'm sure another one of 'those' winters will happen in the near future...but maybe not this year.  But then again, who knows!!

David, Northallerton

By whom. It's verification statistics are always ahead of GFS at every time point. Ive been doing these verification stats for a year now and on only a couple of occasions has ECM been superceded by UKMO and once by GFS at a day 5 point in the summer. The most notable thing to be taken from these for me is how much more reliable ECM is relative to GFS the further away from the present you go. Here's todays crop for example.

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day3_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day5_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day8_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day10_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

Unstoppable force hits the immovable object

http://max.nwstatic.co.uk/gfsimages/gfs.20151124/18/336/h850t850eu.png

This could be significant.

Agree with that,but it is very much looking zonal for the foreseeable,certainly for the next 2 weeks or so.It is rare to get significant cold before xmas,December is more autumn than winter and imby there is often more winter weather in march than December.

Behold - the most probable +384 hour chart of the season so far:

...but that wouldn't be saying much anyway 

Regardless of the low probability of verification, it's good to see the first of the beast from the east charts from the GFS operational output at a time when, if the background signals were dominating in typical fashion, we'd be seeing a raging vortex in control on almost every chart.

Hmmmmm where did that Easterly come from lol

Highly unlikely to end up like this but shows its rather foolish to say its Zonal until 2016........................eh Moomin

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT8_Berlin_ens.png

Sliiiiight outlier that GFS run (!!) but it's not completely without friends looking at the Berlin ensemble.

P8

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2015112418/gens-8-0-384.png

P6 

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2015112418/gens-6-0-348.png