I thought you were talking about next week. Of course it's too warm on a Friday/Saturday for most. 

https://www.gavsweathervids.com/ Big cold upgrade for next week?

On the BBC lunchtime forecast where Friday into Saturday was discussed, they showed the prognosis of either cold with rain or depending upon timing and intensity of precipitation, cold with snow.

All these complaints that its game over for the south coast... not when -10*C uppers are within the vicinity

Ok ok, so it just clips southern england.... but still - the point is there, this winter is far from over.  Infact I would say the current output is probably some of the wintriest ive seen since 2013.

Also - expect some fun and games into FI if we are begging to get wafts from the cold beast over canada / Greenland

This chart is crazy cold

One surprising thing I noticed from the data which Arcus posted over Christmas and the New Year was that it's the 18z and 00z which took by far the most observations into account - up to twice as many as the 06z and 12z.

If you're looking for a potentially flaky run, it would be the 12z, which is ironic, because it's probably the one to which most of us pay the most attention, frame by frame, as it rolls out.

A nice MetO output this evening - the warm sector at 144 has, I believe, -7C as its warmest temperature! That's a recipe for widespread snow as it moves eastwards across the UK.

The GFS at the same time has 850s quite a bit higher (they are positive for a time over the UK on this run) so still lots to be resolved.

With charts like this for Tuesday, I fail to see what all the excitement is about?

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=1&model=gfs&var=2&time=135&run=12&lid=OP&h=0&mv=0&tr=3

I see frosty weather in the drier spells and after a close but not actual encounter with some E'ly air, it looks like Atlantic air from the W and NW will dominate next week.

Yes... the upper air is notably cold from this direction (relative to norm) but the air in front of the ppn band is not cold enough for widespread snow. Colder PM air follows before milder/wetter interludes follow and then a return to colder/showery PM air.

In essence, we have drier/colder and frosty, followed by some rain/showers with hill snow and at times, wet snow in parts of the N/higher ground, followed by blustery wintry showers.

A few tweaks are likely but all in all, it seems rather chilly with frost, wintry showers with variable temperatures. Not mild/zonal but certainly not a 'proper' big-freeze type of situation either.

For me personally, I'd prefer rain at 13c than at 5-6c!

You have picked the single mildest chart of the next 8 days there, to be fair!

Look at the precip type charts. I'll give you a head-start - here's the middle of the GFS mild sector (which is 8C warmer than the MetO at the same time, remember).

Snow on the leading edge and snow following behind. The next frame shows widespread snow as the warm sector is chased away.

And that's a mild run in comparison to MetO! (and GEM - ICON and ARPEGE don't quite go out far enough).

Best and coldest spell of the winter coming mid-month with the Strat warming and split vortex - showing up already in the GFS charts. Still FI for now - but watch events unfold from 12th Feb onwards.

So the soothsayers on NW say. But they seem to say that every few weeks in winter and it rarely comes to anything, so I will keep my rock salt dry for now.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/GFSOPNH12_300_1.png

I'd say much encouragement with a chart like that, yes FI but look at the blocking

I hadn't seen the latter stages - I was looking on Meteociel and it ground to a halt at 240hrs.

In FI the 12z Op run shows signs the N. Atlantic is quietening down for once: This could flip back! But this looks like the start of a very Arctic Northern blocked set up esp over Greenland if we were to fun on a few more days.

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2018013112/gfsnh-0-288.png?12

Meteociel catching up

I bloody wish

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2018013112/gfsnh-0-336.png?12

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2018013112/gfsnh-1-336.png?12

Agree.In the 06h GEFS ensembles the easterly  options were very much in the minority.Lets see how the 12h ENS go.

Not intentionally Rob; Tuesday is the day in question regarding the PPN. I have since seen Darren's METO chart but when we are talking the W, rain is the most likely for lowland areas.

Yes, often the way that when GFS whips away some of the near-term excitement it offers up dreamland at T+infinity just to keep people hanging... 

Did you do as I suggested and run the preceip type charts for the GFS? Remember, this is with a much stronger mild sector than GEM and MetO, the only other runs which go out so far (which are any cop!)

Here, this is Tuesday evening as the warm sector slides away eastwards...

EDIT: And the GEFS show the mean values for the warm sector on Tuesday are now -5C or -6C, compared with -7C from the 6z run. Much colder than the op, in other words...

if I had a pound for every FI potential winter outbreak I would be a rich man. I see nothing to get any excitement about, all pretty bog standard by the looks of things- always remember the rule of thumb, if it can go wrong it will and stellar charts always downgrade come the day.