"in my back yard"

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn18617.gif

WeatherCast seems to be plotting another GFS run (blue line) as the Op also

oh wow look at how cold it is 😦 1C !!

look at that severe cold for the mainland -1C - +3C

-2C over the northern Pennines and -6C for highland Scotland.... 

Record breaking cold for January night? 

parts of the South you mean

-3C wouldn't be noteworthy here, or anywhere really. It fell to -8C at Heathrow Airport in January last year and that was an average January.

A significant improvement in the outlook for coldies this morn. I'm starting to believe but really want the ECM to improve before I get too excited. The UKMO is fantastic.

The ECM ens anomalies are finally showing well below average uppers, can't remember the last time I saw that.

However there is by no means full agreement on a sustained cold spell yet, so definitely more runs needed tbh.

Settle down, partner - I'm not panicking. I'm not bothered how cold it is as long as it's dry, with some sunshine as an added bonus - just stating that the current GFS min temps being shown are.. unremarkable in every sense of the world.

The label on that chart suggests it's stale 0z data. 

Indeed - I really hate it when people make these sweeping generalizations about semi-mythical past events.

-4C or colder is noteworthy down her on the south coast. 😊 

Ooops yes. For heaven's sake keep up Rob...

Tell you what, lets keep the p****ng rain and mild then.  This is  far more seasonal and who knows who gets what??

Mock all you like, but GFS 06z op run would produce the coldest spell of weather, and lowest recorded temp, here since 2010.    We might even get more than 3 (three!!!!) consecutive nights with a temp below -3c .......    


Of course, I don't expect that to transpire, especially as this is the ever-unreliable 06z run.  But nice to see as a remote possibility, nonetheless

Yeh, you Know Gandalf this ***could* be an epic spell- I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some serious overnight minima on snowfields up north. At least it will dry out somewhat too.  

After the last 24hrs of outputs I'm hoping Gusty goes on another 2 week break from model watching in Feb ..sorry Steve, love ya really ...can you come out and update me on Thames Streamers please 

00z ECM ensemble for London:

As expected, 100% agreement on it turning much colder by Monday and lasting through the weekend.  So, that rarity of a week of cold weather in prospect.

Thereafter the usual spaghetti starts to appear after two weeks but the two main clusters off the choice of continuing very cold or becoming rather cold with virtually nothing mild on offer at the moment.

The detail is never clear at this range; it may be a predominantly dry cold spell or it may not.  Even if there are no disturbances or features around windward coasts will get peppered with wintry showers as always.

Surprisingly nice GFS runs this morning - must admit I was fully expecting the 0z to be as flat as a pancake. Then I was expecting the 6z to flatten the pattern out, just to make up for the 0z

ECM isn't as nice to look at, although still cold and perhaps more importantly for a fair chunk of the country, considerably drier than recently*. Hard to tell where it would go from T240 although enough potential there for it to go cold/stay cold (or slump back to average/mild of course).

Fair to say it will get cold for next week, still very much up in the air (tee hee) as to how cold, how prolonged etc. Given the pattern hinges an awful lot on the set up over the Arctic and WAA setting up in the right place, I'd be cautious on ramping just for the present - really wouldn't take too much to revert back to a more non-descript pattern with ridging from the displaced Azores HP collapsing after a couple of days. Happily of course that's not shown at present

I will of course big up my January CET guess if it does get cold enough

*Interestingly there's been a little bit of flooding down here lately too. Given it's not been that wet just shows the water table is pretty high I guess.

EDIT - added WAA comment....

As well as the control run there's several very cold runs in the ensemble set. This is one of the coldest:

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gefs_cartes.php?ech=240&code=18&mode=1&carte=0

As good as the GFS 06z looks, cold enough uppers for snow to most of the country (circa -8c) don't arrive until about 9 days time. What could possibly go wrong in that time?  

T850s of -4C are more than cold enough for snow, even with light precipitation.