I sure hope not. We've just come off the back of a 10 week long spell of zonality that has left numerous parts of the country flooded.

I very much hope that you're right in this instance, Ian.

it seems strange that just as Ian F, posts that, all three main models trend notably back towards a quicker breakdown. 

Well OK, not strange. Just about par for the course :)

Yes, METO have been playing catch up with their updates behind the publicly available NWP rather than the other way round.

A long way off but -28c isn't that further east:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn3481.gif

Met O update say drier and below average in the SE later???

If the MetO are still forseeing a change to a generally more blocked pattern as we head towards February, then hopefully we may start to see the first building blocks of it in the model output later this month. They first mentioned this when they issued their three month update back in late November and they were still thinking along these lines when they updated their forecast just before New Year.

Although ECM shows milder air returning next week, by 240hrs it looks to my eyes as it HP is attempting to build back in from the south. GFS in FI shows pressure rising to the NE and possibly joining forces with the Azores High. Let's hope that Ian is right with his thoughts that assuming zonality does return, it won't last anything as long as the recent spell.

Why is "a flip back to the extension of colder weather somewhat unlikely"?

Yes it's a better run Lazy but IMO just delaying the inevitable. We want to see a disconnection between the Azores High and the developing High over the low countries. 

The only thing which is apparent to me is that output beyond t+96 cannot be relied upon. Clearly, we are in an unusual synoptic setup, with which the models are struggling.

it is very unusual i have never seen a subtropical storm move south to north like alex and certainly not in january ...this must have effects down the line...

Oh come off it.............everyone has seen the UKMO has been pretty much spot on so far , how do you work that out.

If GFS is correct , Monday is looking like a cold wintry day with snow falling ...................'if' its right

big IF Marcus. We may get some impressive overnight minima in the next couple of days, but for the majority of folk it's another cold spell that may be consigned to the bin. It was supposed to sleet and snow all day here according to last nights forecast- what a surprise that the light rain has now turned into sunny spells. 

Yes but yesterday it looked like it fizzled out before reaching Devon but now it looks like fizzling out before it reaches the home counties & SE (London included) - so it's moved further eastwards but there still seems uncertainty.

http://max.nwstatic.co.uk/gfsimages/gfs.20160114/06/99/prectypeuktopo.png

What I'm saying is that we were able to see a cold spell developing from the NWP before it was given any credance in the METO updates. Then there updates started to mention ' a low possibility' of a brief much colder spell (for right now).

In the past, the METO updates have talked about possible colder spells that have not necessarily been apparent in the 'FI' parts of the NWP, I'm not referring to the UKMO model.

It may simply be the specific wavelength of the flow has moved, so where the was previously a High, it's been shifted West or East in the flow, and a low has been placed where it was.   It looks very different though.

But we see plenty of cold spells developing in the NWP that never occur at all. So you can see why the Met Office don't mention them until they appear on their own output!

Its called the Law of Sod! Why is it so difficult to get a decent cold spell in this country. Awful charts this morning.

JFF as at 15 days away it is all a long way off in forecasting terms and that the link to surface synoptics is tenuous at best, etc, etc, etc, but the GFS continue to maintain my interest with regards to the stratospheric 30 hpa going ons.  Look at the -85 C right over us!

Not only am I becoming a medium range model output monster, but I'm starting to sound like our Quantum! Anyway, I'm only using this as a rough experimental guide to get the feelers for conditions later on down the line. (eg, February - where I could be fooled in thinking it'll be a more wintry month than January).

PS: Why does images appear squashed in posts?

Depends what you're looking for in my opinion.  I'm quite happy with the following two showing snow (IMBY and then more widely).  Extended periods of very cold weather are so rare in this country that I'll take a brief cold snap with a snowy breakdown whenever I can get one.  

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/charts/gfs/06_75_preciptype.png?cb=3

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/charts/gfs/06_102_preciptype.png?cb=3

edit to fix link

Indeed - but this is quite a flip to say the least.

Maybe I'm confused but I thought having a very cold strat over us was bad news?