You'll find that away from the forums most aren't bothered at this time of the year. It's the summer that counts. An unexpected washout barbecue, festival or village fete in August is what gets the public grumbling about weather forecasts. 

I dont fees offended Neil that’s the way I feel I appreciate the education but not feeling of them feeling awkward about an unexpected weather change.

The weather does what it wants I’m not heart broken about it Life moves on.

Brian yes that's a fair assessment, however there are those in the outdoor, farming , outdoor and fashion worlds that also listen to every word and when the word "Snow" is mentioned (just like on here) many ears prick up whatever the age of those watching, reading or listening and it does become a hot topic, at school in the workplace, or in the pub....and that is when the forecasters get slated, because they have people's attention and get noticed when it goes wrong. .....in my opinion. 😀

I accept you might be disappointed but this is an abysmal, unwarranted and rather ignorant attack.  What would you have them do and say? If the models show a strong signal that’s what they will reflect. If they didn’t then no doubt you’d be complaining that the forecasts were not reflecting the model output.

This is why the extended forecasts every night are always fraught with danger as we all know only too well how the models can get consistent with cold for a number of runs only to suddenly back away without much warning

The sad thing for the UK is that the stellar winter charts rarely materialise and the crud ones invariably do. We always get downgrades and any upgrades if we get them, only ever occur in FI, later to be downgraded.

If you want snow, move somewhere it usually does snow. Given the rotten winters we continually experience in western Europe, even the Alps and much of Scandinavia are no longer reliable. Best snow possibilities are in the Rockies and for genuine cold, keep heading east until you reach it.

Yesterday, GFS showed a genuine Greenland HP a little over a week away, with -10 850s over Scotland. The scale of the reversal since ECM spoilt the party with yesterday's 12Z output, is shocking, but typical of its kind for the UK winter. All eyes on the next set of runs, but with any optimism for next week having vanished into mild air.

I hear Greece is a good option.

Anyway, I'm sure the 6z GFS will get us back on the right track...

Actually, its quite a common theme now. When it goes pete tong it tends to do it in spectacular style. I said this a few days back, but I doubt I will ever see proper settling and lasting snow in lowland southern England again in my lifetime. Our climate has changed and we just have to accept it. 

That is a little unfair on GFS - we had all the main models, including ECM, dangling carrots aplenty. That is why yesterday's 12Z ECM was such a kick in the stomach. The amusing thing is that UKMO was late to join the party and it did so, just before everything went pear shaped. Personally, I blame the Express - the models must have known that it was going to run one of its winter destroying Snowmaggedon headlines. If only the Express could be shutdown, I am sure our winters would improve

Desmond is trying to flog it but nobody wants it. I think it will close soon. 

Anyway, back on topic and the 06z looks the same so far

Agree, anything longer than 4/5 days out you could have in a thread called Chicken Entrails Discussion

Its a good point though - the GFS does seem to hate the Express.. as soon as it takes the bait, it pulls the rug from under its feet.  

every time.

I do find it amusing the way people blame the models and talk about things "going wrong". The weather will do whatever it does, whether or not the computers churn out their pretty pictures or not. I think some people would do well to remember that.

You can't predict the weather more than a few days out, and I doubt if it will ever be possible. Even if you could somehow take a snapshot of the exact state of every air molecule in the entire atmosphere right now, you couldn't predict accurately where they will be in a day's time.

A case in point: the 06Z GFS is vastly different to the 00Z even at 144hrs.  

Yes. You've seen the verification stats: accuracy drops away quite quickly beyond the 3-5 day range. Indeed for precise detail we know that even reasonable accuracy can be limited to inside 24 hours.

When you consider the complexity of our atmosphere I still find it quite remarkable that the models can pick up trends as far ahead as they do. But not reliably.  We will never, I think, escape the proverbial butterfly flapping it's wings.

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php?ech=192&mode=1&map=0&type=0&archive=0

With charts like this from ECM it looks like next weeks northerly blast is at least delayed if not eventually cancelled.In the meantime enjoy the next few days of sunny crisp weather.Lets hope that the Meto forecast sticks to its guns re return of northerlies.But bear in mind that for the southern half of the UK northerlies rarely produce any substantial snow.