As it stands there's unlikely to be any significant winteriness in the next few days.......

Normal rules everyone   

Lots of changes the past 48 hours or so.... who knows where we'll up in a week's time.

The tendency for high pressure to build to the north, and low pressure to the south remains through the 7-10 day period (which is as far as I think you can look even for general trends before chaos renders charts utterly meaningless) which is encouraging for those wanting something wintry. 

However, synoptics have many, many ways of preventing a wintry spell, many of which are frequently mentioned on here involving highs of various types (Azores, UK, Euro, Bartlett etc.) but there's another spoiler at the moment..... it's the refusal of low pressure to bury down into the Eastern Med and the persistence of heights  (as distinct from a particularly well defined high pressure system) over the Black Sea/Turkey/Syria area , over that area, causing a southerly drift with its origins in North Africa rendering any easterly over the UK mild, or at least, not freezing.   Although I know this is taking a little bit of liberty with geography in that region I'm going to call this phenomena the "Curse of the Arabian Heights".

Andrew

From last thread:

Roger63:

"is this the fist sign of a SSW event?

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/30mb9065.gif

 "

Does this mean the NAVGEM was right and the GFS wrong? 

Ridiculous comment considering it hasn't 'gone down the pan' not even halfway through winter with an uncertain period watching models - Easterly may even happen

I agree, anyone with the slightest bit of experience will tell that often when easterlies appear on GFS, they are usually a future Echo.  Unless its within the  'less than 48 hrs away' bracket they usually appear then vanish 3 or 4 times.  as i said on a previous message, expect maybe one or two more future echos before a true easterly evolves and takes hold.  Watch FI on this run or the next, odds are another fantastic FI will appear, before fizzling out by sunday. 

Crucial 12z GFS run coming up

Hold the front page.

"Recent" in the sense of "still may or may not happen within the next 10-14 days?" 

ECM still shows an easterly at 240hrs (not a cold one, but an easterly) http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm2401.gif

GFS does too. http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn2401.png (subject to change when 12Z comes out)

wow, so far remarkably identical to the 06z

and so is UKMO

Yawn

That's what someone said about the 6z

netweather seems to be down. not sure why. Maybe they like mild and wet!

Realistically no chance of early easterly now. Must look to day 10 and beyond. Not sure if I have the will power anymore

Blocking to the north looks stronger by this stage:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1322.png

Cold air closer to the UK. I think this will be more ECMish in the latter stages.

yes - interesting really.

I cant see that chart coming off - it just well - doesnt look right.  By that i mean, its possible the GFS is picking up on something else and is finding it hard to interpret.  If we disect it, pressure is rising more pronounced to the north of the UK rather than above it.  Could this be the start of a Greenland high development?

LOL

That would be funny , I got told NAVGEM didnt know what it was doing.........................Rob

an improvement

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2014011012/gfs-0-174.png?12

the limpet trough finally fills

At this stage - we really need to start to see something with alot of energy leaving the pole.... eyes to the north...

True but at least its a LP that is slowly decaying rather than one fresh loaded LP after another.  Precip amounts shouldnt be AS high.

On this GFS run hardly a puff of easterly reaches the UK -effectively its snuffed out.

The only saving grace is that it looks less wet than the 06h. 

GEM now goes down similar route withe Scnandinavian HP forming before being pushed away within 48 hours.

Not too hopeful that ECM will prove much better.

As well as considering the minority of cold options available we now need to start focussing on the real possiblilty of the return to a mobile atlantic weather pattern in the longer term (this is something that has been modelled fairly consistently post 240 hours for a few days). Such a pattern appears to want to throw the jet on a more traditional path between Scotland and Greenland. This would result in the slow erosion of any high pressure over Scandinavia in the longer term.

Early January 2002 started with lots of blocking to the NE before such a pattern took hold and ruined the remainder of the winter.

If this cold opportunity is missed and such a pattern does take hold then it is fair to say that winter clock 2013/14 for the south will be ticking.

The Met Office 16-30 day is certainly thinking this way reading between the lines.

NAE is modelling five times as much rain for tonight as it was 24 hours ago...

...although it did start of with just 1mm 

Still, it goes to show how much the models struggle with the less well defined frontal systems - typically those that are breaking up into showery components with a convective element.

If we see LP sitting over us like GFS shows from the middle of next week, then slow moving showers will produce high totals in some places while others escape without too much. River catchments cover wide enough areas to account for both, so the density of shower distribution will probably be more important than their intensity. With uppers near zero, convection will probably once again tend to be strongest near onshore coasts, where convergence as the airflow meets the land and is forced upward gives them an extra kick.

To be honest I'm not sure why I'm going into such detail over events a week from now. We've got tonight's rain, a couple of fairly standard frontal systems Sunday/Monday (4-15mm for most of us up to that point) and a fairly wet Tue/Wed (totals since t+0 are at 10-30mm by the end of that) to get through first. It doesn't look like a real deluge this time, but it won't help matters.