My birthday on Saturday. Would be the second year running I'd have snow on my birthday if that came off.

It's my birthday on Saturday too, Saint. Instead of being in Edinburgh I'll be in Nottingham. Looking at those graphics though I should be okay for a flake or two......mmmm...we'll see!

The GEFS not quite so mono-tonal this morning.  Generally mild cool mild alternation but one or 2 perts give some fantasy cheer if you need it.

Realistically, there is a lot of spread post 144, but a bet against continuation of the "sine wave" would be foolhardy.

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION  A deep depression is moving NE near to the NW of Scotland pushing troughs quickly East and more slowly South becoming slow moving over Southern England later while a new trough crosses East over the North tomorrow before it too moves South across Southern Britain followed by a colder and more showery WNW flow late tomorrow.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn001.gif

 CURRENT SNOW FORECAST AND FREEZING LEVEL OVER THE UK The freezing level across the British Isles ranges between 8000ft over the SE of England falling to 4000ft over Scotland and Northern England and Ireland tomorrow. Some snowfall can be expected across Northern mountains tomorrow.

http://www.snow-forecast.com/maps/dynamic/uk 

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow.gif 

MODELS-2 WEEK HEADLINE  Changeable and windy weather with rain at times. Generally mild especially at first but some colder spells in the North with wintry showers at times.

THE GFS JET STREAM FORECAST  The Jet Stream forecast today shows the flow blowing NE across the UK over the coming days before strengthening further into a West to East corridor across the UK by the weekend. The flow then becomes somewhat less strong for a time next week when it appears more undulating briefly before it strengthens again at a further South latitude at around 50deg North late in the period still travelling West to East.

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream 

GFS OPERATIONAL The GFS Operational Run today shows a continuing period of very volatile weather across the UK alternating between wet and very windy conditions mixed with colder brighter weather with showers, wintry at times. The worst of the weather seems to be for the rest of this week and again towards the end of the period while there may be less wind and rain for a time, especially across the South next week when High pressure is shown to move in close to the South of the UK for a time.

GFS CONTROL RUN The theme of the Control Run today is similar in type to the Operational Run though more disruption between Low pressure areas is shown over the second week when things turn altogether colder at times with the risk of more wintry precipitation very much greater then as cold air gets and not just in the North. 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1441.gif 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn3841.gif

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gefs_cartes.php?code=0&ech=144&mode=0&carte=0

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gefs_cartes.php?code=0&ech=384&mode=0&carte=0 

GFS ENSEMBLE DAY 14 DATA  The most depressing message from the Ensemble pack this morning is that all the clusters suggest unsettled and windy weather still very present across the UK in 14 days. There is a stronger consensus though that colder air from the NW is much more representative within the clusters this morning.

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=euro&MODELL=gefs&MODELLTYP=2&BASE=-&VAR=cpre&HH=372&ZOOM=0&ARCHIV=0&RES=0&WMO=&PERIOD= 

UKMO The UKMO model this morning shows a very windy and potentially stormy period at times as strong westerly winds across the UK with low pressure close to the North. There is a marked colder snap shown too this morning towards the weekend with Wintry showers coming all the way down to sea level for a time at the weekend almost anywhere must mostly towards the North and West.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rukm1441.gif 

THE FAX CHARTS The Fax Charts today show plenty of troughs sometimes slow moving across the South at first and bringing spells of rain, heavy and prolonged in places and interrupted by rather colder spells in the North with showers, turning wintry at times over the hills with a repeat process of tomorrows weather system looking likely again on Friday before colder air reaches all parts with showers turning wintry for all areas at times over the hills to start the weekend.

http://www.weathercharts.org/ukmomslp.htm#t120 

GEM GEM this morning also maintains Atlantic domination in the weather over the UK through the next 10 days with repetitive spells of rain and strong winds alternating with relatively short colder spells, these especially but not exclusively over the North where wintry showers are likely between rain bands. The pattern looks largely unchanged at Day 10.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rgem2401.gif

NAVGEM NAVGEM today also shows a volatile and windy spell of weather with spells of rain and strong winds with colder showery spells in between especially later in the run and in the North. 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rnvg1681.gif

ECM ECM today looks very disturbed again this morning with wet and windy conditions frequently over the next 10 days culminating at Day 10 with quite a vicious storm approaching the NW. In between the wet and windy spells remain short periods of brighter and more showery spells when wintry showers may affect the higher ground at times.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm2401.gif 

ECM 10 DAY MEAN The 10 day mean chart shows the main vortex of Low pressure close to Scotland with westerly winds across the UK ensuring by far the biggest message retained as more rain and strong winds at times for all with temperatures sliding down somewhat as the UK lies on the colder side of the Jet Stream by then.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Reem2401.gif 

NOTABLE TRENDS & CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS RUNS The models this morning continue to portray the Atlantic under complete control of the UK weather over the next two weeks with a tendency towards colder conditions later as Low pressure and the Jet Stream drift somewhat further South than currently.

31 DAY HISTORICAL VERIFICATION STATS FOR GFS, UKMO & ECM The verification Statistics of GFS, UKMO and ECM show at 24 hours ECM ahead at 99.6 pts with GFS at 99.5 pts then UKMO at 99.4 pts.  At 3 days ECM is leading with 97.6 pts to UKMO's 96.9 pts while GFS lags behind at 96.7 pts. At 5 days ECM leads with 90.3 pts to GFS and UKMO at 88.5 pts each. Then at 8 Days ECM has taken over the leading spot from GFS with 67.0 pts to 66.3 pts. Finally at Day 10 ECM is ahead of GFS at 49.1 pts to 48.1 pts respectively. 

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day1_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day3_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day5_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day8_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day10_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

MY THOUGHTS  Another day and another day of unrelenting output that says the Atlantic is in total domination of our little patch of the world again this morning. With the day to day details largely irrelevant all that can be said is that all areas of the UK will endure many more spells of wet and windy weather across the next few weeks. If anything this morning the rise of pressure expected towards the South of the UK later next week shown in yesterday's output has been largely removed this morning and the chance of more deep depression running on a slightly more Southerly latitude looks very possible this morning. This would of course mean more rain but could also mean that colder air would be injected into the airflows across the UK at times with snow becoming very possible at times especially in the North and maybe hills of the South too. If I look longer term I am still waiting for cross model support for the anticipated pressure rise across the Atlantic to show it's hand in the extended outlooks and GFS do show some disruption to the stormy spell later in Week 2 but a lot of expansion on this theme will have to be shown in the upcoming runs before I look at this with much conviction. Conversely with ECM in rampant mood towards  continued wet and windy weather in 10 days time it maybe a while yet before we can look forwards to anything reliably colder, drier and more wintry.    

Next Update Wednesday January 27th 2016 from 09:00

The mildness of the air mass across southern Europe showing on some of the charts is exceptional. Most of France under +10C 850s early next week.

Hi Martin, for some reason I'm still getting yesterday morning's ECM 00z op run when I click on the relevant link above. The link for the mean run is showing this morning's updated run though.

Signs in ECM FI of LPs eating away at the Eruo High rather than skidding over the top of it

More of this please.

Just seeing the current GFS output for Saturday, which shows the cold with even less penetration. Instead it skips off the UK quicker than any of the previous runs, with only manchester northwards under cold enough air - just.

Edit: attention turns to the LP developing behind it for Wednesday.  Cud possibly get snow on the northern edge?

I just got back from Sauze in Italy; the heat and dry winter is killing alot of resorts on the southern side of the alps!

I am very much a cold weather fan, but I have a gut feeling that a prolonged cold spell of weather will not materialise in February, especially for the south of England. I think its going to be another winter that joins a sucession wet and mild ones. Does anyone agree?

Met Office CPF now favours slightly above average temps for Feb and suggests March / April cold. In late autumn this is exactly what I suggested a strong El Nino pattern would favour.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/o/A3_plots-temp-FMA_v1.pdf

Yes I noticed that Brian, good call. March and April have looked cold fairly consistenly on the CFS charts too. Maybe a Easter 2008-esque easterly might bring a snowfall to the South? SSW seems to be the only chance we have of prolonged cold in the medium term

So we can write winter off for any cold spell ( bar the odd snap here and there 😜 ) and concentrate on a cold spring.😁

I somewhat disagree.

December was dryer then average whilst January was wetter... It remains to be seen how February pans out but so far things have been fairly average. 

Regarding temperatures I think mild is a huge understatement!! It has to date been exceptionally mild with very little in the way of cold to talk about.

As for the 'succession' part this is inaccurate as last year nationally was very average. 

I think that even of we do only get a NW dominated spell rather than one from the N or NE, that in itself would be something of a shock to the system for many in view of how mild the winter has been generally thus far. It would at least give us something closer to what many consider as seasonal compared to what we've been used to so far this season.

Agreed, I think Tuesday is looking pretty decent, but with a week to go, an awful lot can change, especially on features like this which are like a butterflies wing flap in a hurricane.

If it did pull off, it would resemble Boxing day 2014. Infact alot of the output at the moment is similar to what was on offer last winter. Mild then cold then mild then cold.. .progressively colder then bang an northerly toppler quickly replaced by the same pattern.

Encouraging to see extreme FI holding onto the idea of a more solid looking LP picking away at the Euro High.  Even if this didnt deliver, we stiull need that Euro High out of the way.

EC at 240hs. Something a bit more befitting for the season for a change. 

Just a pity it won't happen.

Winter Snow only for Scotland Mid level and Hills Mountains.

Cold with Deep PV Low over Northeast Europe mid-latter part of current 7 days.

Not often much much cold weather often mild conditions rule the next 7 days.

Very Wet and Windy on 1st February with cold weather over Scotland very mild conditions South Central England SE and S Wales etc.

Lmao, last 4 out of 5 winters have not delivered significant snow event in London, but in early February 2011, a two days snow event did occur with a Thames streamer lasting 2 days ahem.

It is not for the south any hope for cold weather- on 2nd Feb it mild high pressure fill in Low Pressure, cold air mixed in mild across UK, SE under Under cutting English Channel Low with small High P over UK, heavy rain with chance of wintry variety in SW and Southern UK on 3rd Feb. 2013, next Low then could bring mild west SW long fetch winds and more NE Tracking Low's to SE Arctic and NE Europe.

Does anyone know why the last two ECM op runs weren't updated on WZ? As far as I have seen, the GFS runs have updated as usual but the last time I looked, WZ was still showing yesterday morning's 00z run.