Its not a long-fetched SW though it. Rather a returning mP regime which is very unlikely to see temps in the very mild bracket, even this early in the winter.

As for longer term, the MetO extended and discussion about SWWs, etc remain the only straw to clutch for coldies for now. I have a sneaky suspicion that at some point over the weekend we will start to see FI charts of real promise

I'd make the most of it if I were you; it doesn't look like being a long lasting mild spell if the models have it right.

Unless the latest GFS has it badly wrong this current spell of cold north westerlies will be the last for a while as further incursions of PM air are from a westerly point and milder with temperatures near rather than below average.

Its all down to the eastward displacement of the AH to southern Europe which has been modelled for some time.

Gfs might be wrong of course but it doesn't look too good at the moment.

Andy

Small hints at a less positive NAO towards month/ year end: 

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/new.nao_index_ensm.html

But this and whatever the GloSea5 model shows is likely to flip around based on January 14's SWW red herring. This is why I think the Met 30 day written hint at cold will most likely be gone in the coming days.

Completely pointless in terms of pinning down the detail, but not completely pointless in terms of analysing trends. If all the models start showing some form of blocking in FI, then we can start to believe that it might happen on the balance of probabilities - not will happen of course, since it is common for the models to show some eastern promise, only to snatch it away again, but still useful. Better to see some eastern promise in FI than the horrible gunk we saw week after week last winter - last winter, I don't think the models even got around to attempting to fool us - the weather was stuck in such a rut that even Fantasy Island charts failed to materialise. I want to forget last winter (weatherwise that is).

True to say that the emphasis on cold has always been reserved for January with a chance of February joining in as well, with few daring to expect anything significant in December.

As for the 12z op runs so far, GFS continues to power the Atlantic along without much change to its tune, while GFSP continues to show quite a bit of amplification setting in 23rd-26th December. On this run it leads to an intense cold plunge from the north... just over the other side of the North Sea 

Hopefully this idea of a weakening, meandering jet is closer to the truth, even if we just get a 'stable Christmas' under a UK high.

I reckon that goes for the majority of us here, MM.

As far as the models go right now, while none are showing any "holy grail" type set-ups for cold, IMO the model runs generally right now are no worse or even as bad as we saw throughout last December, January and February. Never can I recall any previous winter on here that had such relentlessly dull and uninspiring output as last winter did.

I was merely pointing out that it's not mT type flow but rPm.

Anyway the GFS control hints at some decent WAA up towards Greenland in the latter stages.

Straws available for clutching are indeed thin on the ground this evening. All the models appear to show the Azores High firmly in charge for the foreseeable. At least its good for the UK economy, and lower heating bills and food prices. I might have to head for the northern hills to get my fix of wintry weather though.

Climatology.  But yes, I agree with you.

All the following Decembers were mild or very mild with little or no cold weather.

1946, 1954, 1955, 1977, 1984, 1985, 1986

Decembers have tended to be colder in recent years raising unrealistic expectations.

Andy

The Decembers of 1984, 1985 and 1986, while all fairly mild months themselves, were all followed by spells of much colder weather after the turn of the year. The freezing December of 1981 was the exception to the rule in the 80's, much like December 2010 has been during this decade thus far.

IIRC the following Decembers were mild

1974, 1975, 1979, 1980, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2013

and were followed by milder than average winters.  The point being that a mild December is probably more likely than not to be followed by a mild winter, especially when the jet is strong, as it currently appears to be. 

Last December I had some exciting wind and rain events to follow, this December... yawn. The outlook as of this evening is about as tedious as I can remember to be honest! Saying that, I wasn't chart-following back in the reportedly dreadful late 90's/early 00's winters.

The ECM run was almost interesting at day 8 (+192) but then a massive surge of westward momentum flattens the pattern across the entire northern hemisphere.

I must say, I do find that unconvincing, though not as much as the giant bowling ball low over Scandi that just rolls on east as if there was no east Asian high whatsoever... pull the other one I say!

As you can probably tell, I'm unable to find any real positive trends tonight. Really the model output is heavily lacking in cross-model and run-to-run consistency, with ECM the most unstable of all, having hurled itself from one of the most amplified 00z op runs to one of the flattest 12z op runs.

Now, if you really want to give the rose-tinted spectacles an airing, an old rule of thumb that comes up every now and then is that highly inconsistent modelling, with a strong tendency to 'revert to zonal', usually precedes a pattern change.

...but to be honest I'd rather leave my hopes with stratosphere-driven changes at the very end of this month or not long into next, which has always been by far the most likely 'get out of jail card' within the foreseeable future. At the very worst, we'd at least see the pattern shuffled about a lot to give a different variety of weather.

But this December does not look like being mild ....

It sure hasn't been mild here thus far. I struggle to think of one properly mild day there has been in my location since December started a week past Monday. Last December from what I recall had numerous mild days here in the lead-up to the start of the long-lasting zonal spell in mid-month.

 I guess im getting old would take a mild winter if we had famous moments like this got stuck on a bus and had to walk many miles home from work in s/e England white out conditions at times

some of those winters had there moments even if mild overall

 Feb1991 Ian McCaskill famous winter stutter at around 2min in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd6DuebHliY