The runs this morning are not as good for cold as some others have been in recent days, but that said they are no worse than the vast majority of model output we've been looking at for the past two months.

As for the last sentence of your post, that is nothing more than pure speculation. Mid-January is still an eternity away in weather terms at the moment.

Melanie is a weather troll who is best ignored. However, the model output is discouraging for the short term, but surely it would be too cruel for words if the destruction of the PV did not leave some crumbs on the table for the UK down the line.

Indeed.

Very cyclonic and very unsettled with showers or longer spells of heavy rain and the risk of gales or severe gales for the majority.

Not necessarily, in Westerly QBO winters often the PV, or remnants of it, never leave the Southern Greenland area. 

Lot's of talk elsewhere about the AO possibly going negative, well it went very negative in 97/98...

I think people are still putting far too much certainty on what is a very uncertain picture, that's all. 

Although the chance of a cold shot direct from the east remains low, it isn't gone entirely.

Longer term the models, as they always do (even during Dec 2010!) are trending towards climatology, but even at day 10 they're a world away from the mild drek we endured during December.

As a reminder, this is a typical chart from this month. I really don't think I need to point out how different the current output is, even at day 10 and beyond (which as was hopefully proven last week really is too far away to predict with any confidence).

I'm not going to claim to be able to forecast what it'll be doing in the middle of January - nobody can - but suffice to say it'll be a long journey back to the sort of persistent warmth shown in the chart above.

About the only things that look reasonably certain at the moment are that a) temperatures will be falling to around average, at least by day, and b) it will be wet, but via different mechanisms to the recent deluges (which are more orographic in nature).

GFS 6z rolling out and being bit of a tease with the jet more south than the 0z with the cold nearer. Wouldn't take much tweaking.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1742.gif

EDIT: The High Pressure belt to the south remains stubborn however, and until that can be broken the LP has nowhere to go.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1982.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1981.gif

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2015123006/gfs-0-198.png?6

Trough is further south on this run, but it seems the azores high is again the spoiler

So it looks like we switch from mild and wet to cold and wet

Either way, no sign of any snow down here and more flooding issues up north

Vortex has gone on vacation from Canada and Greenland at 222hrs on this run, Very volatile output at the moment.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsavneur.html

If thats what you think , thankfully it will be a month before you return.

How can you write off nearly 5 weeks , the charts are still better than what .they were 10 days or so ago

Nope had no idea.....why would I

Not too much has changed pre 144 hours this morning. Its only after 144 hours that the atlantic appears to start muscling in. Bearing in mind that FI is still 120 hours I think its fair to say that there is still masses of potential to be had. We have a huge block to our NE and deep cold just to our east. There is a NW-SE jet forcing lower heights towards the Mediterranean.

The easterly continues to be a very low probability but Scotland and the NE remain tantalisingly close to it.

I am keeping a close eye on height rises in Greenland. Once again the output could be looking very different in 5 day time if the emerging signal continues.

This set up is very good. Trouble for cold lovers in the UK is that the pattern is all about 900 miles too far NE at the moment. 

Watch how the whole pattern will sink south again if those height rises do occur universally to our north. 

A week or so ago people were saying it would be weeks to get out of the pattern you talk about, and look where we are today

Honestly, the only certainty is uncertainty.

Look at the last few runs- some remarkable charts, some awful charts and well, everything in between. Lets see what Frank does before looking any further ahead- this isn't finished by a long shot.

Again

Very sensible Jacko......this is a hell of a run you are on

But you are right , so many different charts over the last few days , its a job to know where this is going

It's easy to get lost in the mire of the Atlantic train after 144 hours. Lots to happen before then, including Frank, which will provide the models with a few headaches as to his track and developments thereafter.

Difference is, they were ignoring what was being shown - instead relying on dodgy interpretations of the means!

Even before Christmas the height rise was clearly being telegraphed as a decent option, but those relying on means missed out on it entirely. Those who looked at the entire output, on the other hand, weren't at all surprised when it showed up.

This time around there are very few (if any) ensemble members showing a return to exceptionally mild conditions. There are a few showing cold conditions, but the vast majority are clustered around the average. Unfortunately, the vast majority also show the battle between the Atlantic and northern blocking to result in copious rainfall as lows become slow-moving in our vicinity.

There's still a great amount of uncertainty as to the track of those lows of course and I daresay that'll continue over the coming few days.