Mine too!

All I meant was it is a shame not having more cross-model support. Everyone seems to be very touchy these days!

As to my point about lack of cold air, plenty of places in the Northern Hemisphere have had record cold in winter in recent years - the US, Eastern Europe, Middle East, North Africa, Japan... the list goes on. There is no shortage of cold up there and I simply refuse to believe that the relatively small amount of ocean to our north has the power to make cold winters at 50+ degrees north a thing of the past! In case people have forgotten we got the coldest December in over 100 years this decade! Has the Gulf Stream fired up that much in seven years?

Sorry for daring to suggest the "modern winter" is a myth!

It would be good if we could keep this thread free of references to the modern winter/modern era.

Just sayin'.

Good riposte, but as far as I can see there is only one person who believes in the Modern Winter, and that person has been much abused so less said the better.

  I'm all for a massive cold northerly outbreak, and I'm hoping it is still possible, but I'm having my doubts. I remain sceptical until Arctic air with a -10c upper air temperature profile hits the south coast, whilst Doc is entombed in a -15c upper air ice block.

Hopefully ECM will maintain this theme over the coming few days, Maunder. For my money, it hasn't performed that badly of late, and certainly just as well as GFS has done in recent days and weeks.

Indeed 

Ensemble means from GEFS and ECM at t+240

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/ECMAVGEU12_240_1.png

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/GFSAVGEU12_240_1.png

I know these charts have their limits, but pretty strong agreement for an Atlantic/Icelandic block. 

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/chart.aspx?chart=/charts/gefs/gefsens850london0.png?cb=876

Some aspirational warm lines, but the overall message continues to be one of colder tha average 850s in London. This is good because that message has become increasingly persistent.

@Rob K totally understand now you have made it clearer .....Shame UKMO isn’t so good as the other big boys but it might catch up eh? 👍

I think the ensemble mean charts can be helpful taken in conjunction with the spread charts. The ECM spread chart shows growing uncertainty starting around Iceland and spreading SE, which I think is associated with the timing, track and intensity of the LP bringing the potential reload.

The 850hPa ensemble chart shows the op was a milder option and then an outlier on days 7 & 8

Looks good to me, Joe.

And how our own cold spell (by our standards) coincide with a surge of warm weather over North America: https://weather.com/news/weather/video/warmest-november-on-record

It seems that it's all part of a slack meandering jet steam pushing warm air further north over the States and thus in turn the usual mid-Atlantic cyclogenesis activity is being replaced by an "omega"-type high and we here at the UK just happen to be on the eastern side of it.

I'm not sure what they use but the NCEP reanalysis data is 1981 - 2010. I've got the datasets and will try to incorporate into the TWO charts.

Edit: Here's the London plot for 1981 - 2010. Quite interesting to see the lowest 850 mean occurs in the second half of Feb. 

Very interesting signature and classic thermal lag there.  Combining solar input and 850s 2nd week of Feb looks like the "golden time".

Meanwhile the precipitation signature of a northerly is in evidence on the 18z GFS accumulated precip map: out to 120

Why though ? 

Surely the crux of the conversation today has been based around the lack of deep cold northerlies symptomatic of warmer SST's and less polar ice to our north these days.

The phrase 'modern winter' is very relevant at the moment IMO.

Careful Steve.  You are entering dangerous territory.  There, be sacred cows, unspoken of  taboos, HE who should not be named, Elephants in rooms, and winters of a less than ancient persuasion.

The consistent theme continues 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/GFSOPEU18_159_1.png

seems to tie in with comments from P Avery 

Check out the current model runs Steve. That is reason enough, in my book at least.

Yes, good consistency between runs and most models. 

The t850 anomaly charts are quite striking at times http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2017112618/gfs-15-90.png?18 

With the second northerly looking still quite possible. Cold for the time of year compared with the long term average.

GFS gives us another Northerly at the start of next week, quite a consistent theme