It looks like today’s UKMO and ECMWF are showing a cold spell from Wednesday the 31st January 12z Midday to upto Saturday 3rd Feb. With lesser Support from the GEM NAVGEM and GFS, GFS has downgraded it so has GEM and NAVGEM, for 120,168, and 192 hrs.

The ICON drops support of Cold Low Pressure by 168hrs- but has agreement with ECMWF and UKMO for 31 Jan-2 Feb. Respectively, it has the SE Tracking East NE Canada through NW then N Atlantic to UK and North to NE Europe PV Low with cold and wintry weather.

The swap to these today from the others, is plain silly!!.

Cold Waving Short Wave Low’s And Blocking High’s running at their angular direction of movement- High’s   building to the West And NE of us, NW SE tracking Low’s across NW Atlantic West Greenland And Central North And NE Canada to UK via N Atlantic and through North to NE and East Europe then north across our North Sea And SE to E of Norwegian Sea  is all very well placed for giving us cold and wintry weather.

Western N Central Atlantic and NE to East USA Blocking High’s, Blocking over East and NE of Greenland to Iceland is all set very well indeed. I have just typed this up again, very hard effort indeed.

Widespread cold and wintry weather with frost both early and late from Wednesday 31st to Saturday 3rd Feb, going by today’s UKMO and ECMWF Model consensus.

Todays GEM, NAVGEM and GFS appear to be all over the place, so they need to be fixed methinks!!.

❄️🌨😆😀😉.

still enough tease in the ens to keep the interest going

Pert 5 looks like Feb 1991 but number 18 is close to an omega block

never going to happen of course!

Lot's of cold options here in ensembles - The positioning of HP is crucial as to where we get the air from!? If it's not to the north it's over Scandinavia or over the UK. SOme ensembles show quite an easterly setting up but they are a minority! There are a few zonal set up's but they are more rare and even with the zonal ones - there is still blocking seen to the north or east! At the very least we would have severe frosts at night! Something we have lacked this January - esp for the south.

Op and control runs have been interesting - only concern is that the easterly always seems to be at the end of the GFS run deep in FI which is now around the 10th /11th February. By then it is getting very close to where it won't be worthwhile for us down here were that to verify (in terms of lying snow not melting)  but good for anyone with elevation or further north. 

Even at 144 hours though quite a difference between GFS and ECM today:

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php?ech=144&mode=1&map=0&type=0&archive=0

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

Early February still looks like it is yet to be decided.

if, and it’s a massive if, we get a proper easterly in mid-Feb, you won’t need to worry about melting.  We just haven’t had one for nearly 30 years so have forgetten what real deep cold is like...  

Yes, but to be honest, the easterly is very much a minority solution, and the ECM Op 0z run is a much more probable solution. Still time for a shift in the ensembles but potential easterly is not one to pin your hopes on. http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php?ech=240&mode=1&map=0&type=0&archive=0

I understand the point about the strengthening sun etc. However even in December 2009 the snow was melting here in the sunshine during the days. More often than not the snow is melting in the Alps when the sun shines in January. In my experience it is very rare for the snow not to melt in the sun regardless of the time of year or location. The key difference is the amount of time the snow is melting for during a given day and the percentage of the landscape which the sun has its wicked way with.

I agree with all of that. My thoughts entirely. 

The easterly is indeed a very low probability and the issue of preserving snow cover in the south will only generally be possible with low dewpoints on said easterly. Any snowcover with dewpoints close to 0c will succumb to that strengthening sun. 

I,m always intrigued by the sun,s too warm and too high come mid february posts because they always assume the sun will be out. It is always possible to have a heavy snowfall followed by cloudy weather a la 79 78 47 etc.

Good Mean charts from the ECM this morning. Looks very Euro troughy dragging some cold air from the north. Much better than the Op.

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

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Reem2162.html

The Op was a big outlier

Since 1972, there's only been one year which saw an ice day after the 15th Feb at Manston, my local station - 1986. That's why there's so much of the "sun's too warm" stuff. Obviously stats may be different where you are, but here there's a marked change away from the possibility of powder and long-lasting snow towards the slushy gunk we all know so well - and that change is around the middle of February in Kent at least.

Meanwhile the EPS continues to show an easterly cluster, albeit only around 20% of runs bring one.

It must be a different world in the south if snow cannot last in the south in the first half of February. In the right conditions up here it will last for days on low ground in early March. If the air is cold and dry enough at any stage in winter I would have though snow melt would be negligible? I’m not referring to a situation where the temperature briefly dips low enough for snow but rather days of cold and wintry weather.

The whole problem is getting that in the first place and with the random selection of charts we have had in the last few days anything is possible with still just under 5 weeks of winter left. As has been mentioned there is, once again, uncertainty by day 6. Lots of options on the the table and none really looks more favoured than another IMO.

Easterly? Northerly? Anticyclonic? Westerly? Southerly? Take your pick! If we claim to “know” what will happen we have probably ventured away from model output discussion and into psychology and mind games.

Yes you can see the Control is a real beauty. The Op one of the warmer ones towards the end. A real mess though you couldnt make a call from that lot.

https://meteoijsselmuiden.nl/knmipluim

Your location is  very extreme though its a bit like someone in Wick saying once September is here it won't get to 30c . Ice days more than possible for 80% of the population well into March. But I agree they are getting rarer and rarer these days.

not so much the sun, but the humidity. several days of dry few degrees above freexing air and sunny following a snowfall, it will last a while. one damp day, maybe only just above freezing it melts quite rapidly.

Agree with that 

The snow here in March 2013 lasted days. On the 24th, we had full sunshine, and virtually no snow melt at all, and the maximum temperature was a mere 1C. And of course the day before when we had heavy snow the temperature stayed sub-zero all day. On the 30th, we still had >50% snow cover. The snow first fell on the 22nd, so that's 9 days of snow covering the ground. In late March.

It's certainly possible well into March.. and easily done in February if we have the right synoptics. They've just been largely absent in February in recent years. We've had January 2010 and December 2010.. January 2013 and March 2013.. but February has been pretty lacking in the cold and snow department even by the standards of recent years. February 2012 came close.

I was thinking how they didn’t look as good this morning.

The easterly remains an outside chance, but I can hear the tick tock of the dripping clock . . . 

At t168 this morning we have ECM and GFS both showing high pressure close enough to the UK to keep us main dry

UKMO has other ideas with a fairly deep low to the north of Scotland bringing windier conditions and some rain

Hah! You've fallen for the trap.

Yes, the location is extreme but not in the way you're thinking. You see, given a dry continental easterly we're actually more likely to get ice days here than other places in the south - simply because there's less time for things to warm up.

Case in point: Manston has recorded 7 ice days in the 2nd half of February or later since 1972. To be exact: 15th Feb 79, 15th Feb 85 and the rest in Feb/Mar 86. The absolute latest ice day was 1st Mar 86. (For reference, there were 12 ice days in the first half of Feb in the same timespan and 27 in January.)

Compare that to Heathrow - a little to the north, but something like 60 miles to the west:

https://en.tutiempo.net/climate/04-1991/ws-37720.html

Heathrow had just 4 ice days in the latter half of Feb or later since 1972: 15th and 17th Feb 79 and two more in late Feb 86. The latest ice day there was 25th Feb 86.

So if you look further inland you'll see that my point holds true: ice days down here are virtually impossible after the middle of Feb, correlating with the general warming that really kicks in around then. The only way you're going to get them is if there's already a deep cold layer in place, plus a decent cover of snow - and we all know what the odds of that happening "down south" are!

Of course, those further north will experience less warming from the sun as it'll still be at a lower altitude. There is, however, a marked switch around the middle of Feb here. I'd be interested to know when it happens further north, for example I'd imagine it's not until you get into March up in Scotland.