JFF LP over Italy and Balkans preventing the block from sinking, looks like this block could retrogress further westwards as it's such an intense block of 1055mb:

FEB 1991 comes to mind: JFF of course !! Here's for hoping!? - We can only dream!!

PS - This was in the wrong thread but it is a moan really because it's very unlikely to materlialise! 

That was what I had thought, as I'm sure that you had originally meant to post that in the MOD thread, although I can see why this is a moan as well.

Of course, I have plenty to moan about myself tonight as I have just seen a really good snow opportunity being ruined by the fact that the temperatures here in Edinburgh have just refused to drop at the crucial moment and now, it's just raining here in Edinburgh despite the fact that dew point at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh is slightly below freezing just now.

This surely has to be only occasion which I have seen so far, where we have had a sub-zero dew point and yet, still just got rain with that when under these circumstances, you would have expected that to be falling as snow. there again, that is just what can happen when those stupid temperatures refuse to behave themselves at this time of year.

So that snowfall of what 2" Edinburgh had yesterday evening/night all melted very quickly I see?! I woke up this morning 9am and checked the Royal Mile and it looked more patchy and melted...! If only the snow had lasted and you had more snow today instead of rain...! Just shame really... drip drip and now the milder air has won! It's +11.5c here in south west.

Just looking at rainfall radar - the precipitation just missed you to the south if you were a tad further south things could be different.

http://www.raintoday.co.uk/

At least you got the snow but yet again it's a one day'; event or one night stand! Yet again snow doesn't last long let alone any colder snap. I would have thought the snowfall from last night would have lasted at least several days but nope! If you can;t get any lasting accumulating snow and cold then what are the chances for the south or south west!? Nil!!. Also the snow that came and fell last night was at night time - perhaps 11pm so it's not like anyone had the time /chance to enjoy the snow and appreciated it unless they got up to see it? ALso for children, who haven't seen much snow there since 2013 - they would have been in bed by that time last night and woken up this morning to see little or no snow or slush etc. 

0/10 for the south! Because apart from hail showers - not only did we not see frost or snow but it never dropped below +2.3c.

We were not expecting anything but even in parts of Scotland - like where you are it never really got cold last night ....what was your minimum 0.2c?

Long gone were the days when snow fell during the say or night and lasted then froze and then fell and froze as temps plummeted etc etc.

Positive thing is - At least you have had and seen the snow and plenty of it in a short time which was enough to lift spirits - and that's something! Also good for Scottish ski resorts too!

The overall picture for this month though, doesn't actually make for very good reading here. Yes, we have had a couple of snow events on back to back days. However, this was just a one-off event over a couple of days (and no more than what we should expect to be getting at this time of year anyway) and we have to remember that this was only a transient event which has resulted from cold zonality, and not from that proper easterly which I keep hoping to see one day, and which would deliver our best chances of getting a more sustained cold and snowy period if that was to ever happen again.

On top of that, we have had very few air frosts during this month. So far at Edinburgh Gogarbank, we have had just four air frosts during this month so far and yet, we are more than halfway through the month and the January 1981-2010 average for the number of air frosts at Edinburgh Gogarbank is 12, so we are well below average in terms of the number of air frosts. When you consider that this is supposed to be the coldest month of the year on record, that is just abysmal

Furthermore. there is nothing that I hate more about the weather at this time of year than being stuck in no-mans land during what is supposed to an interesting weather event (as we are just now) with nothing actually happening here, whilst areas just to our immediate south get to see some snow and areas further to the north in that clearer weather, get to see an air frost (thus even giving Richard from Aberdeen, something to be happy about).

Finally, I will add that if the forecast models are right, our winter could well be all over and completely down the pan once we get to Sunday in any case, as the milder Atlantic air wins out in the end. This is a La Nina winter where it is believed that the coldest weather tends to be in the first half of such a winter, and the fact that the models have backed away from a possible SSW event at the end of this month doesn't exactly bode well for the rest of this winter either.

But even in Aberdeen it's what -1c which isn't exactly what you call record breaking cold for the coldest month of the year. But re the SSW it's very frustrating when things were looking so good a few days ago with cross model agreement. Also even if A SSW does occur in February then it will be too late and as days get longer the sun get's stronger and I really don;t want a cold Spring!

Just so devastated that yet again this January has been another let down for many! Also not just La Nina but easterly QBO too!? So why the NAO is so positive I just don;t know - is it warm Atlantic ocean = more moisture etc!? = more intense storms !?

Interesting when I heard that a more Atlantic hurricane season can increase the chance of blocking and solar minimum (which is what we are in) has a greater chance of blocking - which of course what we haven't seen - well that chillier easterly last weekend. This is just dire.

What will it take to get a proper sustained cold spell with an easterly!? North America has seen the cold and snow and again we get unlucky! 

At least winter 2016/17 gave us good cold frosty nights and nighttime lows of -5c end of November 2016, -2c 21st Jan and -3.5c sometime end of first week of I think 9th or 10th Feb 2017.

It's 18th Jan 2018 and we still haven't got to freezing yet here in Exeter!

Just wet, windy - rubbish bins, blown over & flying around and pouring out being blown away etc with heavy rain! The only cold are coughs and people sneezing! No wonder people are sick with this damp wind and rain! Just a few nights of cold frosty weather would be nice ...just a few - at least it would kill the germs!

We've been unlucky this winter thus far. In the amber warning for snow only to see it slip further south although we did get a little bit of snow. 

This time, the low is too north and we missed out again. 

Having said all of that though, Gavin P. has always said in those winter update videos which he did during last autumn that whereas these above mentioned drivers increase the chances of a cold winter, they never actually guarantee anything. I know that Gavin P. gets a lot of help from his friend, James Akrill when it comes to devising the analogues that are discussed in those videos and in the last set of winter update videos leading into this winter, the easterly QBO scenario was discussed in depth.

These analogues showed that whilst most of those easterly QBO scenarios did result in a cold winter, there was still the odd one which resulted in a mild winter, so this is probably just one example of those few occasions where an easterly QBO hasn't resulted in a cold winter and the analogues which were discussed in those videos, show that this is something which can happen. Furthermore, Gavin P. doesn't believe that we haven't yet actually entered into true solar minimum, and believes that we are still a year or so away from that. Just now, we are still in the process of moving away from the last solar maximum even though the solar activity is already low just now, and I have always believed (and Gavin P. has mentioned this in a few of his updates) that our best chances of cold winter will probably be when we get to just after solar minimum at the beginning of Solar Cycle 25, and that is probably going to be some time in the early 2020s.

Before we get to that, we are probably going to go back to a westerly QBO at some point in time, and there will probably also be a switch to El Nino before then as well, which means that there is probably going to be at least one more mild, wet and stormy winter to come before we get to that more ideal scenario just after the solar minimum. In summing up, I always believed going into this winter that whilst we would have a better chance of getting a cold winter this time, I never actually believed that this would actually happen on this occasion.

I think that this winter (at least in this part of the world) has actually borne out both parts of that last point really well because whilst it still hasn't been a cold winter, it also actually hasn't been a mild winter here either and if we do that really mild spell next week which the models are pointing towards, it will actually only be the first such mild spell that we will have had this month in this part of the world. For here, it might be hard to believe but this has actually been our coldest winter so far since the winter of 2012/13. The reason why that has happened though isn't because this winter has been all that cold, but because of the fact that we have had such a run of mild winters from the winter of 2013/14 onwards.

When I look back on this winter, it will therefore probably be those factors such as an easterly QBO, La Nina and low solar activity that we will be able to thank for ensuring that this hasn't just ended up being yet another mild winter here. Whilst this winter hasn't panned out in the way that I would have liked it to, I am therefore pleased with the outcome of that in terms of how I believed beforehand that it would go, and I just wish now that I could have presented that as a formal prediction for that on this forum before this winter started. I know that I had a chance to do so since there was a thread during last autumn which was dedicated to that, but I never really thought about doing that back then.

Note to self - it was raining here this morning. I’ll remember this for future occasions that are synoptically similar.!

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/GFSOPEU00_6_2.png

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/GFSOPEU00_6_33.png

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/GFSOPEU00_6_10.png

At first glance you’d think there’d be a fair chance of snow - it’s not like I’m on the coast! 

This cold-but-not-cold-enough spell seems to be clinging on, with the model output - that had had Friday being last chance of snow day - now showing the cold air holding on until Sunday, with a chance of snow.

No doubt it will be rain/sleet for most (for us!!), and just the latest/last of a series of mini-disappointments that has characterised this spell away from Jockland/NI/far N of England.

My gripe is that in some previous cold spells, when we've had actual proper cold in place and with snow on the ground, when the milder air has been forecast to move in, often with a forecasted period of heavy snow as it tries and perhaps struggles to do so, it's simply waltzed across the UK without a faltering step. NYE 2000/01 springs immediately to mind, but there've been other, more recent examples.

How many lows have tracked south of Scotland this winter across England and Wales? There is a slider forecast for tomorrow.

Not even giving us a frost!?? Look - even the whole of continental Europe looks like it's starting at or above freezing and this is first thing in morning:

What a mild High indeed. - So frost is out of the equation then!?

Here at Kent, it's being what's known in the English vernacular as being s**t. Horrible cold drizzle (4.4 mm so far today) and 5.8 C. The only thing that stopped me from being REALLY let down by this rubbish winter in terms of snowfall was yesterday and the day before having been fine sunny days.

I`m complaining more about the accuracy of the weather forecasts than anything else.

On BBC breakfast this morning a dry day was forecast in this area, while this morning`s Telegraph said " Mainly dry today with sunny periods". The forecasts couldn`t have been more wrong. We havn`t had a glimpse of the sun today, it was overcast and raining when we got up and it continued like that till about 10 minutes ago. It`s stopped raining but it`s still dull and overcast.

So that`s at least 6 or 7 hours of rain.  Tomorrow`s forecast is for rain and some snow moving across the country, so I wouldn`t be surprised if it turned out to be a hot and sunny day!

Noses are red, fingers are blue,

I just want the God-damned spring to hurry up!

Although this has felt like a miserably dull winter, the lack of balminess has meant there is no compensatory clause; it hasn't quite done enough on the cold front to please, so yes, this is a moan. In 2 years I won't remember what happened this month, as I do from all the Januaries 1979, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1998. 

What's worse than not getting snow is not getting snow and reading reports of surrounding areas getting snow and that what sums up this winter for this part of the country.

Even yesterday, Midlands did better than up here for what snow fell from that system and I get the feeling its going to happen again today.

29th January is my birthday and what a Crappy Birthday chart that is. Getting a present of slippers would be more exciting than the tedious dross that would bring.

It's just beyond a joke. When is this dire run of winters going to end? January has been atrocious with less snow than each of the past three Aprils and if February follows suit we will end up with a winter that is awful even by recent rock bottom standards

January has seen less snow in Aberdeen than in each of the last three Aprils? You should have seen what we've had here since last Tuesday, Richard.

As we all know though, it could be snowing every single day in Aberdeen with every day being an official ice day, yet I'm sure that even with all of that, Richard still wouldn't be happy with the winter weather in his part of the world.