My problem with mid/long range scientific post's is that I read them every winter, and if half of them come true it would be below average

every Winter. 

I only take note of the met office forecast's in the mid term as they just forecast what the latest model information point's to in plain English.

Im sure if they wanted they could post the same information in very high detail that most would struggle to understand properly. 

Without a doubt she is very knowledgeable but I'm sure the 6,000 word essay can been cut back a bit .  Neil you are spot on, sensible English is correct and I'm sure can be used..................her posts are rather hard to follow . Luckily the last sentence explained it all........................why not just post that , as a separate post maybe.

I loved the following bit in Tamara's post. She's in the wrong business. Writing porn novels should be her vocation.

'Frictional torques have now bottomed out, and starting to trend up in recognition of the continuing low frequency Nino signal in the Pacific. This sets the floor limit for relative angular momentum before rising once again'

ECM 12z ensemble for London:

http://www.weathercast.co.uk/services/ensemble-forecast.html

The Op was at the top end of the ensemble set and an outlier at times for daytime maxima. There's a lot of scatter there after around Day 5 but nothing very cold on offer.  In fact the chart doesn't look dissimilar to those back in December when it was hard to find so much as an air frost.

So, sensitivity to the opening position doesn't at the moment yield anything promising for cold weather fans - but that's not to say that a new signal could appear, just as it did a couple of weeks ago.

I wholeheartedly agree with this! Nothing turns people off a subject or makes them seem unapproachable than using technobabble, which is frankly all this talk of Wave 1, Wave 2, MJO, (GL)AAM, MT etc is. As I've said before, all that stuff essentially boils down to "are we going to see stratospheric warming?" or "will we see disruption to the vortex" and, if so, whether it'll shove the polar vortex aside or split it asunder. If either of those happens, it then becomes a case of will it affect us at all?

I'm convinced egos have a large part to play in all this, as using techno-babble makes people feel superior. It's not just in weather, either, my field (IT) is full of the stuff - and people love to quote it to users, even though it's of no use to them whatsoever. People tend to just nod along, as they don't want to be seen to be "thickos" by saying they don't fully understand what they're reading.

Whilst I appreciate the effort the likes of Tamara put in, the way they deliver their information is all but useless.

Anyway, back to the models. The theory at the moment amongst the stratosphere folks is that the polar vortex is going to take a wander from northern Canada over to Scandinavia, allowing some ridging to occur over the Atlantic. This would then allow northwesterly or westerly winds to dominate, rather than the SW'lies we're going to experience over the coming days.

As it happens, for the first time in ages the ECM-32 control run backs this up - after 360, it shows repeated northerly -> NW'ly > westerly > northerly cycles as ridging repeatedly forms to the west. It's unexciting for coldies, though, as it restricts snow to Scotland.

Last night's 15-day ECM control run also shows ridging to the west with some colder NW'ly winds over the UK by the end of its run (it goes out to 360). However, the control was one of the coldest members by then and as such wasn't well supported.

I agree IT wise - unfortunately work in it myself where everyone likes to use shortened words to describe the full description as you say - also where everyone thinks you love your job so are happy to do things in your own time for them as well because you do IT, NOPE!  

Anyway back to MO  , quite poor runs this morning and on face value you'd be hard placed to see anything inspiring - GFS /ECM is quite simply poor if cold is what you are after. Only hope we have is that the High pressure is close enough at times to break up the endless cloudy mild days with some sunny spells so at least we can have some early spring weather. Amuses me how the GFS strat warming at the latter stages of FI keeps getting pushed back, originally it was happening on the 27th January now it's the 5th February - either the model hasn't a clue or it's a vague signal it is picking up for something that might happen. Let's hope something shows up in the runs soon as becoming rather dull output once again.

There really isn't much to grab at currently, rather hoping something will pop up out of the blue

The PV does seem to be on the move

Not even any "jam tomorrow" charts on offer. 

Slim pickings indeed.  The best that can be gleaned is a Pm airmass advancing into the NE quadrant at day 10 on the ECM, as shown above.

Yep, we've begun zonality again - will it be the usual 4 week affair or can we see a change in the pattern ? It certainly has a 10 day shelf life at the very least looking at this morning's runs. 

A Scandi trough looks very likely but we need upstream changes to break the overall set-up of low heights at Northern latitudes.

I think you mean 'bog' - much more appropriate anyway given that we have actually gone from an outlook a few days ago where the majority of runs showed rather benign mild weather, especially for the South, to what is now quite wet and windy conventional zonality.

Good luck with those comments Shropshire.   not looking good for those seeking cold but as always something can crop up any time.  No one knows when or if that time will come.  there will be some serious gnashing of teeth if the best that February will offer is a 2-3 day toppler  though which is my fear.

It is a waiting game it seems

Have to say, it is unusual to see such unanimous agreement across the board in the 240 hours range. A pity they are all showing the zonality variety with the wind alternating between tropical maritime south west and the occasional visiting blink-and-you-miss-it north west polar maritime flow. 
  Hopefully us South East massive may end up getting to have the best of the drier and brighter weather as we tend to be on the "lee side" of such a flow but that's me trying to be as optimistic as possible (the middle part of next week looks potentially wet & windy with a risk of further gales - again).

Still keeping half an eye open on the 30 hpa going ons as that is showing some interest. Not quite the full on SSW warming we are looking for and probably won't do anything for us at surface level later on down the line, but it is quite a different set up compared to the last two winters.

Meanwhile, the lucky USA prepares for a monster blizzard:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35374741

Life is so unfair!

But it is a general rule of thumb that when the US is basking in a fabulous winter wonderland, we invariably get the grey, dull, soggy, sodding awful Atlantic on this side of the Pond!

There is still time for a change, and we're not in the "last chance saloon" yet. For all we know, by the time we reach 31st January the models may look somewhat more promising for another cold spell.. Look at what happened over Xmas & New Year, when after having produced day after day of very mild runs throughout most of December, they began to indicated a change to something less mild as we went into the New Year.

Yes the NWP trend in the last couple of days has been to favour the more unsettled conditions extending southwards. Today's MetO update will be interesting.

Maybe the cold over in the east of the USA will ease a bit if/when the polar vortex begins to shift eastwards from Greenland to Scandi, as LW mentioned above. We shall see.