Not until tomorrow!

(And yes, there will be much less data going in from flights - as is the case every year. Whether it's enough to actually cause a change remains to be seen, but less data going in is undeniable.)

The 06z is a rainfest as systems get stuck over the UK, the worst of all worlds and that's means a very wet pattern and the risk of flooding.

Seems like the latest GFS run heard you:

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=264&mode=0

Interesting that both GFS and GEM keep playing with this idea; nothing from ECM yet though but could just be signs of a change - certainly interesting.

No, it rarely causes enough to interfere with final model output and until someone develops a way of gauging this, it remains pure speculation. 

And while it may only be a blip/FI eye candy/gone in six hours, it does clearly demonstrate the risks of claiming to know the weather for the rest of winter. While this scenario may very well not come close to fruition...it could.

Probably the best looking chart ive seen in about 3 yrs  

Shame its FI - however there has been murmurs about something a foot in early Jan... time will tell.

Fixed that for you!

Most unlikely to happen though as it's just one of those colder options that get thrown out from time to time. Nice to see though and a warning to those who would write off whole months before they begin...

Well, well - GFS picks up the baton just after little GEM drops it.

Ironic really that "Shropshire" turns up talking about never seeing cold winters again with an Ian Brown esque warm bias and then hey presto this run appears.
Like James Madden but in reverse. Fascinating developments this morning and a couple of the long range 12z's hinted at something akin to this 3 or 4 days ago so again will be interested in the verification stats.
It would not surprise me to see this flip although obviously not likely to be as extreme as the 6z shows.
Question is. Is it a new trend or a rogue run. Time will tell but although mostly fairly unreliable GEM has been showing this sort of trend for the last few days too.
Interesting times. Will of course be typical if it all flips days after I fly out but would not surprise me in the least.

Yes encouraging but will wait for ENS to see if this is just an outlier. GFS  has already led us up the garden path with easterlies around the 29/30th period.meanwhile GEM has gone more zonal this morning. Nevertheless its fun to see an easterly on the GFS op even if its another mirage.

The lack of data isn't speculation, of course, although the effects of it are. The best we have is to look at the verification stats of the models in the week following Christmas, as there should be a dip in accuracy if it's having an effect.

Some eye candy on offer from the 06z, trendsetter or rogue operative?

Hah, no, although I'm enjoying not being at work today! Duane's post is an excellent example of pre-guessing what a run's going to show though.

The ECM's control run will be published soon, but in the meantime it's worth noting that the op run had two feet of snow over the Highlands by day 10, all of Scotland and NW England having seen at least an inch and a good 4-6 inches over Northern Ireland.

And that wasn't even an especially cold run - the control looks to be colder, although that's not out in full for another hour.

EDIT: For those who like to dig into such things, the big dump of snow for NI and NW England takes place between 144 and 192 on ECM - it's not even that far out. I guess it's tied in with that secondary low just pulling in enough cold air in its wake to turn the rain to snow.

Yeah right!

Chalk it up to the ECM going off on one, I reckon - it was just an utter fluke that the parameters were cold enough for snow. I daresay the next model run will show it as boring old rain once again!

Agreed.

Anyone care to oblige and attempt to present the detail?

Indeed. All you can take out of that 6z run is that, as we head into to New Year it looks like a battle between 2 air masses. There's been a growing trend across all models in the last few runs for the High to our East to be stronger and more stubborn to shift. Small differences in output in the short-term could have big differences further down the line. The eventual winner looks to close to call based on that run.

I've already started.

I've been saving the ECM charts which show how much data input there's been, or more specifically the synop/metar/ship and aeroplane observation numbers. I'll correlate that by New Year's Eve with the accuracy charts to see whether there's any evidence of an accuracy drop.

The snag of course is that if synoptically we enter an awkward period for the models accuracy will drop anyway!

Seeing as your the one who questions this every year WM I proudly nominate......

YOU ?

Nice one Jacko.

Fortunately Retron has kindly offered. 

Darren, you have no way of quantifying this as there is no parallel run with all data that would have been available.

Anyway, interesting hints for colder weather fans for sure.