well - the 12z now showing progress towards a sliding low pressure

already by Wednesday colder air is more apparent along the north east

06z

12z

Following on the core of the warmth slides towards germany and beyond rather than sweeping up the north sea

6z

12z

This reminds me more and more of the struggle the charts had with 2013.  The charts would deflate quickly away from cold looking charts, but would slowly creep back towards sliding lows with minute changes like the above.  One time if i remember it was a matter f about T minus 48hrs prior that the charts finally caved into a sliding low scenario.  

GEFS12z update:

Yes. The trigger for that looks to be the shallow 1010 mb low over Texas at 192 hrs:

If you follow it on Meteociel, it travels eastwards, strengthening over the Atlantic, but never phasing with the lows to its north. It then becomes that 990 mb low in the Atlantic at 288 hrs, which you can see triggering the Atlantic ridging above it that spawns the Greenland high:

Quite right; as mentioned earlier, if said matter is subject to such change from one day to the next, now is a particularly bad time to worry too much about Atlantic onslaught in one or two weeks.

Interesting update that Brian, previous updates looked alot tighter 5th Jan.  Seems a couple of Perbs are breaking away for colder air on that chart.  Follows on from Steve Murrs comments

Seems to be a tad colder from ECM

Better ECM this evening snow North England northwards by day 7. Could be a stunner by day 8

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm1682.html

Fractions from a nationwide snowfest -4 850s for many.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm1922.html

I'm almost considering retrieving my towel that was floating down the local river last night.

If the charts verified as they are tonight we could be looking at a major snow event for N UK in six days time. The last three runs have edged each successive low a tad further south. At this rate we'll end up with a miss to the South lol 😉

That's OK down here- at least it restores a little faith that it can happen, even when it looks like it can't. Got to balance the scales, to be fair- I could still have my hopes dashed, disembowelled and drawn at the next output. But, hey.. HNY!

I too used to get frustrated with our winter weather and the ups and downs of the model watching season, but after nearly 18 years of being on weather forums I've learnt to be a lot more relaxed and circumspect about it all. Besides, my old bones can't handle too much of the cold anymore 🤓🤒😎

I feel somewhat the same, although naturally my bones are younger than yours ;)

I think the models are slowly trending in the right direction - by that I mean not as mild and wet as it has been over the past month. It still looks a bit unsettled but at least if it is cooler there should be less rainfall involved. Either way it is interesting viewing and a very Happy New Year to all of you from Folkestone to Shropshire and Hampshire to Aberdeen and beyond!

Good point 

Happy new year 

You too Hendon

And you too Marcus- raising a glass now to a great mentor!

ECM looks very wet with a swarms of lows attacking these isles. May be turning cooler but doesn't look like turning any drier unfortunately

Closing in five minutes.

Happy New Year Model Watchers

Quickly then - just seen Louise Lear's outlook for the week; alluded to cold but didn't emphasise record warmth of Dec- only rainfall. Talked about the blocking high coming into play and splitting jet stream.