Dave,lCorsica is very mountainous with peaks over 2000m and a lot of land area over 1000m -that is refleted in the lower temperatures.

Originally Posted by: roger63 

That's true Martin. Having said that, I can recall one occasion in the past when the model runs and their ensembles were in seemingly good agreement wrt one particular dominating for a while, only to do a major U-turn in the space of 24 hours or so. That was during the early Feb 2009 cold spell when the model runs and ensembles had I think been in agreement on the cold lasting for a good deal of that month, only to then seemingly change their minds all of a sudden and change to a rather milder period developing instead.

Much more recently, as far as I recall, back at the start of January the majority of op and ensemble runs were indicating the strong zonality we had at that time still dominating in the middle of the month; the majority of op runs at New Year certainly looked none too clever for cold prospects. I seem to recall that at that time, quite a number of people on the model thread at the time were on the point of writing off the whole of January in terms of anything wintry turning up.

Originally Posted by: David M Porter 

Indeed Matty, cold without snow is like sex without ejaculating, let's hope these synoptics rinse and repeat throughout the summer months.

Originally Posted by: Solar Cycles 

there were talks of a possible reload elsewhere on the net, i think tamara / fergie over on NW may of mentioned some sort of outcome, later in the month tho remains to be seen, we can still get cold/snow in march, tho is that rare ? 

Originally Posted by: sizzle 

By the way, slightly off topic (given the dull model output hope that's ok)  but does anyone remember Gavin P's great video last autumn about the sunspot cycles and the correlation with cold Winters? 

Going by the sun spot cycles, this year was predicted to be not a cold winter but just a little above average with some coldish spells - so far that's been pretty accurate interestingly. The next 2 or 3 winters in the cycle I seem to remember were predicted to be substantially below average.  I'm sure this will be discussed elsewhere but is this winter the half house as such before a return to a 2009 / 2010 couple of Winters? Gavin P, do you have a link to that video as would quite like to watch that one again if you do.

Anyway back on topic, GFS 06z out and as you were unfortunately and no change yet being signaled even deep into FI, that HP wants to become a UK squatter 

Originally Posted by: Scandy 1050 MB 

Im going for walk into the lakes on the weekend - so this weather is pretty perfect.

So far this winter has been a classic, and if every winter was like this i think there would be alot less stress on these forums. Weve had decent storms, decent frosts, decent snowfalls (albeit not IMBY) decent dry spells, and now - heading into a very typical Cold HP dominated week or so. This winter has so far delivered in every expectation... some may argue we need more snow, but really - this is the UK.. be sensible.

I doubt we could have wished for a better winter really. Proper classic weather.

Originally Posted by: Russwirral 

I agree ,there has been something for everyone so far!!

Originally Posted by: Tree & Snowman 

The problem in March is the increasing strength of the sun and longer daylight. In March 2013, we had some seriously cold 850's and some places received decent falls of snow. But daytime temps inched up a couple degrees higher than if we'd have had the same conditions in late December or through January, and snow meltage happened far to quick, it being gone from roads within a day or two.

Whilst March snowfall is always welcome, to me it is always tinged with a 'pity it's not early January' frustration.

And I'm still waiting for that albeit rare event of a catastrophic, state of emergency-inducing, Day After Tomorrowesque snowstorm giving us widespread 50cm+ depths

Originally Posted by: Saint Snow 

EC32 update from Matt:

Interesting latest EC32 update which shows Scandinavian blocking setting up through Feb with possible continental influence temp wise.

Originally Posted by: Whiteout 

Hi all,

Here's today's video update;

High And Dry For The Foreseeable Future;

http://www.gavsweathervids.com/

A real high pressurefest coming up.

Originally Posted by: Gavin P 

Hi Scandy. I think your referring to the correlation between SC24 and SC12? That was sent to me by James Akrill and did form part of the winter updates.

It's funny you've raised this now actually, because I'll have a new "Solar Sunday" video coming up this weekend with more on all of this.

You can see the data James sent to me Re. SC12 and SC24 in the eighth winter update here;

http://www.gavsweathervids.com/nao14-15.php

The final ten minutes of so of the video I think. 

Originally Posted by: Gavin P 

LOL

How many times have we seen this from EC32 this winter.  

Originally Posted by: The Beast from the East 

LOL

How many times have we seen this from EC32 this winter.  

Originally Posted by: The Beast from the East 

There's always a first time for it to be correct during this winter. At least the atlantic appears to be much quieter now than it had been for a while up until about 3 weeks ago.

Originally Posted by: David M Porter 

It's not really - it's just all the vorticity and activity is going up and around the high, which I'm sure would migrate North if it were allowed to but it simply hits a brick wall and is staying put.
Shame as Saturday's injection of cold air into central Europe is quite impressive.

Originally Posted by: nsrobins