I may have my blinkers on, but all these subtle signs and signals have been in the background for so long now, I can no longer give them any credence.

The major things I see in the current output are a large cold pool developing over Canada, a steep temperature gradient along the Eastern Seaboard, and a zonal train delivering periodic copious amounts of rain to us in Blighty. There might be some wintry interest if you live at altitude in the North, but otherwise, the only positive thing I can say from a southern flatlanders perspective is: at least it will be changeable.

Pretty much my feelings. Things have been "in the offing" since the beginning of November in some shape or other. 

They'v been going on since yesterday or the day before yesterday. I don't get how that qualifies as so long!

I strongly disagree, there was no potential in November (imo) and by coincidence or otherwise (depending on how generous you are) my intuitions were right. What I see now is different; yes the strat is interesting but I would not consider it in isolation, particularly slight warmings over siberia that go nowhere.

Go back and read the threads from that time. Full of talk about SSW and all the other phrases of the moment. Potential blah blah etc. it's all there. 

Yes but not by me, I'm sure I mentioned the strat, but my general mood was the situ was dire. Indeed I was the butt of the 'winter is over' jokes.

Indeed lets not forget the OPI index either which suggested a very strong negative NAO yet the first half of this winter looks set to have a very strong +NAO, just goes to show that if you don't have a physical mechanism for variations in large scale circulation then any strong correlation should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Maybe the second half of the winter will see something more interesting but no sign of that just yet.

As if any of that can be attributed to me.

Yes, sorry, I didn't mean specifically yourself, I was talking generally. You can see why people get disillusioned. Personally I've seen it all before. There are literally 5 contributors who's posts I read in this thread. I skim through everything else. That's not being disrespectful to anyone deliberately, but why bother reading the thoughts of people who don't understand the topic? It's like someone who's spent their lives out of work trying to teach me about business management. That's not to say there aren't plenty more worthy contributions by others, I'm purely talking from a perspective of what is useful as a forecasting tool in here. 

The OPI is something I still have no idea about. For starters, what does it actually measure? I don't have a clue. 

Also the fact that it performed well in hindcasting does not imply it will do well in forecasting. In any model all you have to do is jack down the DOF and you can get a perfect correlation if you desire. Obviously good hind-casting is a good thing, but really it does need to be tested. I'll be perfectly willing to accept the OPI when I see it in a peer reviewed reasonably prestigious journal. 

I understand that, and to be clear about this (and I think Stormchaser agrees - I hope ) I do see potential here in the pattern, I explained many of the reasons after the 6Z analysis, stormchaser probably did an even better job. Ofc it could all go tits up, and if and when it does then I will say as soon as it happens, for instance the appearance of the 'Atlantic dipole'. Perhaps when I joined this forum I retained hope when there really was none, but I do endeavour to learn from past mistakes.

In my experience, there is no point in looking beyond T+144 until a new pattern locks in. We're going to have a sinking high and the south will stay dry for a few days. Beyond that, as Matty says, it's all blah, blah, blah. I honestly believe that nobody has a clue beyond that until the pattern changes and a new one locks in.

This wasn't attributed to yourself Q,  more referring to some of the general talk in early November, with the correlations being reported by the OPI, if there was a physical mechanism for them, the paper would have ended up in Nature. 

The New Year looks like it will see more of a return to what we saw in early December, a strong westerly regime with the occassional intermittent cold shots in between, typical early January fare, but there is a strong theme for cold anomalies to return over Canada, fingers crossed it doesn't fire up the jet and encourage a more cyclonic pattern over the UK like last winter.

As many as five? You surprise me.

Me too, but it was a buzz word at the start of November . And a few were pinning hopes on it for a more accurate forecast for our winter , me.............I don't believe any method can forecast a British Winter 3 months in advance.

My comment was in humour to you, but was somewhat missed I feel.

This is weather

AO, not NAO. It's perfectly possible to have a negative AO and a postive NAO, as chart for T+96 shows:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rhavn961.gif

The forecast was also general enough that it can't be evaluated until March:

"such a low OPI Index value suggests a strongly negative three months mean winter AO, leading to a very unsettled winter Tropospheric Polar Vortex and frequent descent of the Polar Jet over the mid latitudes (negative geopotential anomaly)."

Note it was for a mean winter AO, so until we see what the whole of January and February have to offer the forecast can't be discounted just yet. The AO so far in December has been weakly positive overall:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index_ensm.shtml

https://app.til.it/opi/

Thanks for clearing that up. 

Looks like fluctuating around neutral for the time being so no extensive blocking yet. I'm naturally sceptical (although its still interesting) about the index given I've worked through various projects and dissertations in the past few years looking into things such as large scale synoptic patterns but I will give it a bit more time to judge.

Very interesting runs tonight. Lot of cold air being forced out of the pole into lower latitudes, ridges of high pressure and undercutting atlantic troughs.

I'm fatigued and demoralised about the output. Can't be arsed having another big letdown appearing then downgrading. Even when we got snow yesterday, it fizzled to drizzle, didn't freeze overnight, and was mainly washed away by more rain the following morning.

At least you got some Saint  ... but I also find it depressing when it fizzles to drizzle, so I know exactly what you mean.

Regarding the output...fatigue is what I feel also.

Signs? Signals? Pish!

The thing that I'm finding most interesting at the moment is that there are some indications of the large belt of high pressure to the south of the UK perhaps beginning to weaken slightly as we go further into January. That is something that will almost certainly need to happen in order for the jet to go further south and allow blocking to possibly develop at northern latitudes.

When it comes down to it, January is the month that will make or break the strat. based predictions, as they always maintained that getting something notable in December would be a bonus.

Coming back to the whole negative angle trough thing I have been talking about lately, here's an example from recent history (Jan 2013) which shows what can be produced from that when you have an Arctic High on the other side of the pole and a split polar vortex:

I seem to remember the small cut-off area of higher heights N. of the UK being handled very poorly by the models, underestimated until quite late on. In the end there was a reasonable spell of cold and snow for the UK, nothing exceptional but it very nearly could have been, as March 2013 then demonstrated.

Compare the above with the day 10 ECM 12z op run chart and you can see where we need improvements:

We have an even stronger high on the other side of the pole, but the polar vortex lobes aren't quite so far apart and that doesn't help matters at all.

In fact the 12z GFSP and GFS runs have lost the split completely by day 10, which is disappointing as it was starting to seem like we were getting somewhere up to their 06z runs. It re-emerges later on in the 12z GFSP with a different orientation but that's just having a laugh at that range. Why they've changed their tune and ECM hasn't, who knows? Neither of them manage to cut-off the high from the strong East Pacific/western U.S. ridge or at least keep them separate, which as can be seen on the archive charts is a necessary step.

Still, at least they don't produce something truly bizarre like GEM does (http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gem/archives/2014122712/gemnh-0-240.png)

I mean... what is that as far as patterns go?!