No you wouldn't as the natural progression into spring is a slow warming of the stratosphere, an SSW is a sudden event that is a completely different scenario and truly does have a much more profound direct impact on the weather over a short period of 4 to 6 weeks.  It does look as if it may have an effect over western Europe due to the PV splitting and a piece relocating over northern Europe, the potential for some of the cold air out in Siberia to get drawn in on a north to north easterly is certainly there, don't expect it to go frigid though (to late in the season and land mass in Europe to warm).  Now if you want a nice warm cheap holiday, Southwest Turkey is reaping the opposite effect, with temps right into the 20's.

The discussion about SSWs is interesting but I'll repeat what I said before and quote the UK Met as a source:

Sudden stratospheric warming events occur on average every couple of years and our long-range forecasts have consistently suggested an increased risk of sudden stratospheric warming towards the end of this winter.

http://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/tag/sudden-stratospheric-warming/

Between 1991 and 2008 I can count the number of genuine cold spells I experienced in the UK on one hand and leave my thumb as an accessory.  I don't need any fingers to count the number of genuine freezes through this period in the parts of the UK where I lived. 

a taste of spring likely later next week

but we could still be plunged back into winter later in the month

Arpege has been very, very wrong!

A whole swathe of the country, from North Midlands through Cheshire, Merseyside, Gtr Manchester, Lancs, S/W/N/E Yorks has lying snow, with the bulk of that area still receiving falling snow

Hopefully the models can verify for the 8-14 day period, the weather often comes right for the Cheltenham Festival.

Sums it up nicely Brian.

Haven't yet checked this evening's models but from this morning, it looks as though height rises are strongly supported over/close to the UK next week and with the sun, pm temperatures can reach the mid-teens. Too early to speculate on what happens beyond that (if indeed, High Pressure builds!).

Spring on its way next weekend

Well, truthers it has been getting less cold and a tad more like Spring, and the Sunshine, heavy rain is welcome, not much cold days this week past.

Whats coming this Weekend is cold with some sunny spells and some sleet rain wet snow and hill snow showers especially on Saturday in the SE England hmm.

Northerly cold winds expected today and this lasts upto next Wednesday, possibly even Thursday.

More Spells of rain next week, a north south split by Friday which as next week finishes the GFS shows following weekend very mild with some clouds and sunny spells, High Pressure.

Some rain sleet and hill snow showers from now to upto Monday, and further cold NW flow Tuesday to Thursday, with a precipitation mixture, wintry in the Northwest and in Scotland and N England is showing up on GFS and UKMO with slightly below average March temperatures across the UK and West Central to South mid Europe side.

For any plant growing gardeners it means you should help raise them indoors let them germinate and give them plenty of light but not too much water and keep them a little warm and out of the cold- with frost protection needed.- for this month matters lol.

Nice to see the Russian Siberian High over Far East to NE Europe W NW Russia GFS and UKMO short to mid range dominant, and they show Azores mid N Atlantic High to our SW in distance of within 800 miles to SW off UK, Cool Chilly cold NW to North then NE Atlantic via Newfoundland SW to SE Greenland through Iceland and the West N Norwegian Sea with cold pooling and these persistent West to east moving systems next week affect W NW Europe and UK as NW to ESE SE travelling systems from SE SW Greenland Iceland the UK To W NW Europe spread across Central and S Europe bring chilly and cool March weather. Next week it looks like we have a chance of it settling down that GFS and UKMO 144 and GFS after that Friday to Sunday SW South and Central UK by Friday an improved more less wet cloudy forecast is what foresee right now, some more Cold nights possible.  The SW part of North Atlantic has areas of Low Pressure sandwiched in between high pressure areas to its SE and NW side, only slowly move NE next week, with the Azores high move very slowly during Monday to Thursday- not able to bring much needed sunny periods, but more wet windy Low P instead!!!.

😅😎🌱🌷🌤🌨🌧🎲.

Yes, a taste of Spring but as Gav said in his latest video winter could make a return towards Easter as a trough and southerly tracking jet return if the CFS and JMA are to be believed.

Yes just noticed that. In my opinion I think the output has overdone the Springlike Synoptics late next week. There are some noticeable cracks within output in the last 24hrs which has hinted at delaying the onset of anything milder so tonight's ECM Operational is no real surprise to me. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the start of a new trend in the coming days.

And here is the obvious reason:

http://users.met.fu-berlin.de/~Aktuell/strat-www/wdiag/figs/ecmwf1/temps.gif

ECM Op below the mean but by no means unsupported!

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION An occluded and weakening front across Central Britain this morning will pull away SE through the day clearing the east coast tonight and leaving a rather cold Northerly air stream across the UK for the weekend.

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

CURRENT SNOW FORECAST AND FREEZING LEVEL OVER THE UK The freezing level across the UK will remain around about the 2000ft mark for much of the weekend but maybe a little lower than this under the occluded frontal zone at first. Snowfall amounts will be small or negligible for most through this weekend with any snow light and fleeting over higher ground exposed to the north once today's occluded front has gone.

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

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

MODELS-2 WEEK HEADLINE  Rather cold and breezy at first with rain or showers at times with snow on hills. Then becoming less cold but windy with rain at times especially in the North.

THE GFS JET STREAM FORECAST  The Jet Stream is shown to continue to blow SE or South across the UK and Western Europe in association with Low pressure moving East then SE to the North or east of the UK in the next 3-4 days. Thereafter the Thereafter the flow backs West to east across the UK late next week at least for a time before becoming less clear cut in positioning and strength towards the end of the period.

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

GFS OPERATIONAL The GFS Operational Run today shows the same pattern as has been shown for days now with the cold and changeable conditions giving way eventually to milder West or even very mild SW winds for a time by next weekend with rain at times towards the North. In week 2 the High pressure area to the South builds North through the UK with fine and settled weather for all. However, it looks like temperatures would fall back again with frosts at night before changeable Westerly winds return at the end of the run.

GFS CONTROL RUN The theme of the Control Run shows a variation on the same theme as the Operational today with chilly North winds backing to a milder West or SW flow by next weekend with the second week seeing High pressure build across the UK from the South or SW.

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 GFS Clusters today show a bias towards Low pressure close to northern Scotland or to the NE with cyclonic winds across the UK from the West or NW the most likely option with rain or showers at times. Up to 20% of members support a more High pressure based pattern centred near to the SW of the UK. 

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 has a much flatter look about it today meaning cold weather will depart to the East by midweek with a milder Westerly flow with rain at times especially across the north and West of the UK taking hold through the second half of next week.

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

THE FAX CHARTS The Fax Charts show good support for it's operational partner with fronts orientating more West to East across the UK towards midweek with rain at times and less cold air filtering in from the West.

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

GEM GEM this morning takes a different approach and instead of allowing milder westerlies midweek shows a Low pressure taking a more SE route down across the UK with more rather cold conditions with rain and hill sleet clearing as High pressure builds behind it across the South. This then extends across all areas later with dry benign days but frosty nights where skies stay clear.

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

NAVGEM NAVGEM takes the milder route with rain spreading from the West midweek replacing the rather cold conditions until then. rain will be most prevalent towards the North and West by next weekend with milder air by then for all.

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

ECM ECM today returns to it's milder roots this morning following last night's changes. Therefore although mild weather is shown to take until Thursday/Friday next week to take a strong foothold once it does temperatures could exceed average levels in the South with rain from fronts more restricted towards the North and West as High pressure builds to the South.

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

ECM 10 DAY MEAN Not released at time of publishing this morning's report.

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

NOTABLE TRENDS & CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS RUNS The pattern between the models appear to be continuing to give good cross model support for  a change to milder Westerly winds arriving across the UK.

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 UKMO at 99.5 pts and GFS at 99.4 pts.  At 3 days ECM is leading with 97.5 pts to UKMO's 96.9 pts while GFS lags behind at 96.2 pts. At 5 days ECM leads with 90.7 pts to UKMO at 88.2 pts and GFS at 86.1 pts. Then at 8 Days ECM has the leading spot from GFS with 65.3 pts to 61.5 pts. Finally at Day 10 GFS has the lead from ECM with a score of 49.5 pts to 47.1 pts.

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  Things may look very different synoptically by this time next week if this morning's output is anything to go by. The main culprit of the change to milder air next week is the re-orientation of the Jet Stream which has recently been pulled South over or to the West of the UK with Britain being on the cold side of this. By the middle of next week the jet flow backs West to East over the UK or even further North with the potential for some very mild weather to threaten the South at least on a week's time. In the meantime we still have 3-4 days of rather cold and rather changeable weather to come with a little rain or even snow at times over the hills before a band of wind and rain midweek opens the door to the Atlantic. thereafter there looks to be rain at times in strong west winds for the North, but less so for the South before all areas look like becoming dry and fine at some point through the second week as there appears sound support for pressure to rise strongly then at least for a time. This may mean of course temperatures falling back somewhat again with the re-introduction of a frost risk at night but any daytime sunshine should support temperatures still approaching normal values of not above dependent on where the resting place of any High pressure may end. Towards the very end of the period the usual variability of output is shown with the favoured Atlantic westerly option hinted at returning again by the GFS model in particular. So as I said yesterday a typical early Spring mix of weather across the UK in the next few weeks but on the face of it it doesn't look that bad.

Next Update Sunday March 6th 2016 from 09:00

again signs of blocking from day 10 onwards. Something maybe brewing for the second half of March and Easter period

Yes it was for the Midland and north. It shows resolution isn't everything. Increasing the resolution is really just like applying a magnifying glass to see smaller details. If the big picture is wrong you end up resolving the wrong details. It's one of the reasons why some of the press stuff from the Met about their new supercomputer (2014 / 15?) made me laugh. 

Having said that, the Arpege has been spot on for the south / Chilterns this morning, so it really is horses for courses. 

The 00z ECM mean chart this morning at 240hrs does a better job of building HP over the UK than the op run does at the same timeframe. In fact the ECM mean seems to be singing from the same songsheet as the GFS 00z op run at that time. Let's hope they are onto something.

Indeed stunning Mean charts from the ecm this morning. Will feel very Spring like if verified.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Reem1921.html

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

There's probably be some drizzle and clouds but at this range it is impossible to tell. However with anticyclonic condition I think in the right places "springlike" would sum it up nicely. Where those "right places are" remain to be seen but it certainly isn't a washout. Interestingly there are few more hints of northern blocking in the charts this morning, welcome or otherwise!

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2016030506/gens-0-0-372.png

Control shows how things could play out if the SSW works in our favour

Now that is what I have been alluding to for the last few post.  PV split with a lobe over Europe, deep cold in Siberia flooding across northern Europe into Western Europe.  Interesting times ahead.  Hope Codge gets his warmth next weekend, might be the only taste of spring for a few weeks.

Well you never know .   Literally