Well GFS lurches again at relatively early timeframes, the UKMO T144 is a really difficult call to say where that would go from there, would like to see it on Wetter.

Have to say on Wetter NH view it looks more reasonable to say undercut.

Hairdryer switch on put back to T204 on the GFS : 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn2042.gif

Not if you're in Italy or Tunisia (as examples)

I think the element is bust.... http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn20417.gif

GEM12z 147

I seem to recall that basic physics suggests that warm air rises......  I doubt that will make much impact at a freezing cold surface.

Assuming, of course, that you haven't consigned the run to the folder labelled 'Fiction' by T+204.  Based on recent evidence that's certainly my current stance.

Yes, the 12z is often the most progressive (wrt the jet) run of the day so to see it further delaying the Atlantic I think shows how much it is struggling, there are however some deeply low heights to the NW.

Well the GFS keeps it cold to the 22nd now and the ukmo looks to be setting up a snowfest nice upgrades this afternoon.

Pointless speculating at 5-days out, but there appears to be an attempted undercut at 120 hrs which retreats under attack from the Azores high, leaving behind a Tunisian low. So maybe the next frame would see the Azores high edge even further north towards the UK and Greenland highs?

May well be wishful thinking/ignorance on my part though.

Thinking about it, the low res-end of the 12z GFS output does remind me of the winter of 1992. It was a particularly anticyclonic season where it was predominantly dry and cold with several ice days away from the coast, but very little snow fell. I remember as a council landscape worker how the top soil was rock hard with frost for two whole weeks, even during the day - and not to mention the chilblains from wearing steel toe cap boots all day.

looks cold and blocked but dry. Could get a bit boring. We need to flirt with atlantic danger to get any moisture or the high needs to move north. Otherwise its just a frostfair

IMHO, to say the GFS has been struggling in recent days is something of an understatement. "All at sea" is the phrase that springs to my mind when talking about it's performance over the past week or so.

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2016011312/gens-0-1-126.png

GFS control looks a carbon copy of the op. Cold and dry

Pert 13 please

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2016011312/gens-13-1-144.png

Hopefully the situation will keep evolving and the high ends up like this.

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2016011312/gens-16-1-144.png

Or this

Pert 16

Yes do like that one.

Yes that's the worry for snow fans especially in the South. The minute it's cold enough there's no PPN and then as soon as it's not cold enough - maybe a week later - it's raining - if the GFS is correct with it's breakdown scenario, which does look most likely with the upstream pattern.

I'm afraid your stuck record technique is not fooling anyone. Even the realists in here have now conceded GFS has totally misjudged the upstream pattern and is slowly being dragged back towards ECM and ukmo. Are you ready to do the same? 

A bit boring to some of us maybe, but from the point of view of the areas hit by flooding recently, anything dry or mostly dry, whether cold or mild, is essential.

As I type this, there is a blizzard going on outside my window. Winter has certainly arrived here now!