Nothing cold in the forseeable future.

No, not especially, but at least back to normal and not a repeat of the very mild conditions of December.

Meanwhile here's the ECM 00z ensemble for London.  Pretty solid agreement through to next Thursday. After that the usual scatter but buried in there is a coldish cluster and a looser grouping of mild runs, resulting in a mean farily close to average.

The Op was very much at the top end of the rainfall spread.  If it's correct there's a very active cold front coming our way next Wednesday, as indicated on the 850 hPa chart below

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

That's where your perceptions differ from mine.  One of the ONLY ice days in 11 years IMBY  (none in December 2010) was achieved in mid March 2013.

March 2013 proved to some (admittedly not all the country, but large swathes of it) that when March puts its mind to it, it is capable of severe cold that makes most January's blush.

The latter half of February is THE main banker time of the year for snow in Kent at least, and early March is probably the second best opportunity.  The seas will be at their coolest and the Arctic Ice approaching its greatest extent, making northerlies potent with the added bonus of land and sea based convection.  In my book winter runs til the equinox.

I agree , March can really deliver when it wants to, sometimes more so than December

Some people will never learn.  

Your bit of Kent, maybe!

March 2013 failed to bring any ice days here - before December 2010, the last ice day was in 1997 (and before that, 1996, 1995, 1993, 1991, 1987, 1986, 1985... you get the idea). March 2013 also failed to deliver more than a slushy dusting, although that itself was the first March snow here since the 80s.

By the latter half of February it's generally too late for ice days and decent snow where I live - the only time I've known it to happen was 1986, but that was an exceptional month through and through.

Still, winter's only just half-over and TBH given how dismal it's been so far I'd grab a slushy dusting of snow with both hands!

For most of it, I would have thought.  Leysdown is an extreme environment in many respects Darren, and is not hugely representative of the rest of Sheppey, let alone Kent, especially in terms of snow.

There does seem to be evidence that the jet-stream has become more amplified globally as a result of the Arctic warming more than the tropics - reducing the temperature contrast which powers the jet-stream. While many have suggested this may result in greater increase of blocked patterns it could also have the opposite effect for us. A trend in recent years has been for the jet-stream to fire North along Western USA and back south across Eastern USA. This has given the drought to California and some of the big cold and snow events across Eastern USA.

The effect of the jet-stream digging S across E N. America is that it drags very cold air from Arctic into the Atlantic, which engages with the warm tropics and fires up the jet-stream and depressions which then smash into Blighty. Winter 13/14 was a classic example of this.

So while the jet-stream hemispherically becomes overall weaker it could result in a localised strengthening in winter across the N. Atlantic and for us. There's also the fact that Greenland is melting with the cold melt-water possibly cooling SSTs in that area. This could further enhance the temperature contrast and the jet.

This is only a theory but a plausible future trend for our winter climate, but we need many more winters to be confident this is a permanent trend.

Actually, having lived here for 34 years now - it is representative of the rest of Sheppey. I live half a mile inland from the sea and if it generally doesn't snow here it doesn't snow anywhere on Sheppey. The only difference is that the hills to the west (all of 200ft high) get a wee bit more snow when it actually does decide to snow!

We certainly didn't have any problems getting snow before 1998, but as I've said before something's changed since then to stop us getting deep cold easterlies. Nobody would like to see the end of the drought more than me, believe me... Sheppey and the north Kent coast in general was well-known for its silly amounts of snow in the late 70s to the mid 90s, although that snow affected all areas westwards towards the North Downs.

From what I can glean of the longer term outlook (largely thanks to IF's posts about ECM and GLOSEA), it looks like the February cool-down, assuming it happens, will come via northerly and NW'ly winds - useless for here, frankly, but should bring some cheer for those further north and west. There doesn't seem to be any sign at all of a deep cold easterly spell, sadly.

We are now in the sort of progressive zonality where the model verification can be extended out towards days 9 & 10, GFS 12z very similar to the 6z out to T234 hours.

By model verification, do you mean increased confidence?

Yes, we know it will be zonal out to those days and probably beyond, we don't know if it 10 days ahead will be a dry day between systems and 8C or a wet day and 12C, but we know the pattern.

Thank you- does that mean a low-probability of non-zonal or a no-probability?

Sounds interesting.

No matter how poor the models may look just now, we are still over a week away from the start of February at the moment and mid Feb is an eternity away in weather forecasting terms. Others may disagree, but for me, we're not in "last chance saloon" territory yet.

Not a thing to shout about on the 12z

It will be zonal ! 

Whatever the opposite of rose-tinted glasses are, you appear to be wearing them!

The Met Office are hardly going to talk about pressure rising over Greenland for example, as there's probably plenty of non-weather heads who don't even know how close to the UK that is. In fact them saying 'mid Atlantic' instead of 'west of the UK' is a bit unusual. Perhaps to stop us imagining standard ridges from the Azores?

Anyway, they don't say temporary or transient and that's good enough for me given the range it's at 

The GFS 12z op has taken further small steps toward the right sort of setup, though it's still a great deal flatter than UKMO for days 4-6 which I believe reflects the lack of an emerging MJO event in the GFS output as opposed to a pretty quick emergence from UKMO - in just 3 days time! ECM's 00z op output went for emergence in about 5 days time which is sooner than it had yesterday but does mean that, unless it continues the trend for the 12z output, the charts aren't likely to be as amplified from so early on as UKMO.

This is all relative of course, with UKMO's added amplification simply meaning a bit more in the way of polar maritime air getting into the westerly flow. The more significant impacts would be in the 7-10 day range if the charts went that far.

What I like most in that image is that the pumped up Azores High is in its homeland as opposed to over Europe. It does look like it would move back east a bit days 7-8 due to that low coming off Newfoundland, but I expect the next pull back west would last longer and feature more of a ridge toward Greenland.

In case you're wondering, these aren't rose-tinted specs I have on, rather theoretical ones 

You seem to have omitted the probably from your post...

As for consistency, next Saturdy is looking rather wintry in West Scotland based on today's output. It looks like a rather mobile and unsettled outlook but progressively cooler in the mid to longer term. 

As for suggestions by some that mid-Atlanic high pressure resulting in northerly winds will mean a frost or two, that is not true for areas exposed to the northerly winds where such setups can be very wintry indeed, all the way to March and beyond.

So -is that a 100% probability (by definition, certain) of zonality in 10 days time?

Just spotted that GEM, which is launching the UKMO almost as fast as UKMO, has arrived at a more promising day 10 chart than we've seen for some time now. The Candian lobe is weakening and the mid-Atlantic is amplifying. You also have an Arctic High emerging in conjunction with the Alaskan ridge, a classic response to the strat. vortex being displaced toward Eurasia.

I'd say that 'FI' begins around day 7 (+168) based on the evening output so far. It could even be sooner given that the UKMO day 4-6 progression in terms of details would be quite different to GFS - but really 'FI' is relating to broader-scale confidence so I'll stick with +168.

I'm actually aware that there is a small chance of surprises springing up inside of the 6 day range should the MJO really kick into gear within the next few - but I'd only bet a penny on that at most... though they are becoming harder to find these days  

You don't need to ask that question as we know where Melanie stands on "modern winter" patterns.

Fww it does look zonal for the foreseeable but as Doc says that can favour Northern hills especially if they are on the cold side of the polar frontal oscillation. In fact it can be excellent for the ski resorts in a standard mobile pattern at this time of year.

As a rule it's very risky to predict weather beyond say 5 days but an overall pattern can be assumed further out if the models are in general agreement as they appear to be currently

Zonal fast-jet patterns are easier to predict for the same reason it's easier to predict where a bullet travelling at a high velocity will hit compared to a lower velocity bullet. More energy and inertia leads to more stability.

I'm curious as to how you turn that Met Office forecast of northerlies into a 'mere toppler' when the difference in synoptics is like chalk and cheese?