It would be really cool to break a record but 15C isn't going to cut it. The December record is 18.3C, I know we expect a degree or so on the 15C predicted but its not quite enough. We won't get a good foehn on a wind that has such a large southerly component in it. I hope to be proven wrong, I love records falling regardless of type.

Wow, look how far South those winds are coming from in this GFS 6z chart:

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/chart.aspx?chart=/charts/gfs/06_336_mslp850.png

Fantasy island admittedly but 13C widely over England on 29 December is quite remarkable with the prospect of a few degrees higher in places.

Clutching at straws GEFS 6h shows build up of HP to the east on a numbers of ENS at the end of FI.However only a couple mange to push easterlies over the UK with the zonal flow generally pushing any cold threat away to the SE.

Has anyone seen a worse ensemble suite in mid December? Looks more like April, not one -10C and unbelievably we are struggling to even see any -5s

Yes. The 6z suite looks marginally milder at first glance.

Stormchaser: I expect that the sheer persistence and strength of the Euro High is down to other variables, in particular the North Atlantic Cold Pool that continues to be present.

Couldn't agree more. Rather than focussing on anomalously warm sea-surface temps on the other side of the planet, it makes more sense to look at the long-term anomalously cold SSTs on our own doorstep for an explanation. Thanks for providing it!

That cold pool to our west is one hell of an anomaly. There was debate back in the summer and autumn as to what the effect might be for us, and now we know.

We were always told that a negative AMO (for that is what it is) would be a cause of severe winters in the UK - but it appears to be having the opposite effect. If the winds were from a predominantly NW direction, we would be having colder than average temperatures as a consequence, but instead, we have a Euroslug and winds from an abnormally southerly compass point and fetch.

Bah humbug!

Doesn't the north Wales foehn work pretty well on a southerly?

I always thought that AMO had to be taken in conjunction with other factors such as QBO and PDO in such a prognosis?

With a westerly (+ve) QBO and a positive PDO coupled with negative AMO often gives a colder Feb with HLB and lower heights in the Med, but Dec and Jan often showing the opposite with HP over Europe as we are currently seeing? No expert on this, but that was my impression.  

December 2015 is turning into the evil twin of December 2010. You couldn't get two more different months. This month could be end up 10c warmer than 2010. At least the outlook is not especially wet, although heavier rain could return next week.

Also it's not just us, the NAEFS shows almost all of Europe suffering blowtorch weather for the entirety of the next 16 days with temps consistently 8-12c above average.

Temps into the mid 20s across parts of Spain.

i agree.... Even the most long-lived patterns rarely last for more than a couple of months, so on that basis January would seem likely to see a pattern change... However, that's not necessarily a change to cold.

Remember February 2011... No? Ok, not record breaking but very mild and snowless nonetheless... But then of course people only focus on December 2010.... That couldn't last forever.  Perhaps this will be 2010/11 in reverse... Wishful thinking maybe. 

not just Europe, the eastern seaboard of America is anomolously mild too!

Perhaps the problem is that stretch of anomalously cold SST between Iceland and Norway, which prevents a proper, classic warm/cold/warm tripole from forming. That additional cold anomaly was already there at least as far back as Sept, when Gavin P. was doing his winter videos. 

I rather blocked it out of my mind, assuming (or hoping) it would mix out in the intervening months, and give us the pure tripole pattern best suited for northern blocking and cold UK winters. No luck so far.

I've had the opposite impression following a lot of reading around in Nov. The odd thing is, I can't seem to find much in the way of published papers on the subject - but then again, the topic is a rather uncertain one with only weak relationships found between the AMO and UK/NW European winters.

The main one is a slight correlation between a negative (positive) AMO and a positive (negative) NAO. This corresponds to a negative AMO tending to encourage winters to feature more in the way of westerly regimes with LP in the vicinity of Iceland. A positive AMO may then correspond to a better chance of a positive NAO but to be honest that's rather masked by the more important 'tripole pattern' of SSTs that seems to have a stronger link to a NAO.

This brings me on to an issue with using the AMO measure, as it seems that a number of different SST anomaly distributions may produce a negative AMO, and again for a positive AMO... meaning there can be enough variability within a given AMO phase to allow for marked changes in forcing.

This may not matter too much though, as the phase of the QBO and how it combines with solar activity is typically a much stronger driver of our winter weather patterns. In the shadow of those it seems that the range of forcing capable of making much of a difference consists mainly of ENSO, Eurasian snow cover advance and Arctic sea ice. 

We've gone all sciencey in the MOD thread lately but not to worry - the model output for the next 7 days or so features so little uncertainty that it can be summed up in a single line;

'Often mild, sometimes extremely so (most often across parts of England and Wales), with some spells of rain and gusty winds, this possibly severe across the northwest on Monday at least in terms of rainfall'.

The problem is over a lot of winters over the last 20 years, the set-up we have now tends to last virtually the whole way through and a lot of us are fearing the same.

i have to agree any Synoptics for cold in the last few years appear to happen now in early spring when it really doesn't have any long lasting effects once you hit March at least here in Darlington. I still think we will get a cold blast at some point though this winter but I only look 10 days ahead.

That's a fair bet since even the mildest winters have at least on or two cold snaps within them.

One nevers knows, that might be something we should keep an eye on over the coming few days.

I think Moomin said in here yesterday that this week's exceptionally mild spell was first picked up by GFS when it was still in deep FI territory. Some others have said in the past, including just recently, that spotting potential trends at some distance out is one area where GFS can sometimes outscore other models.

potentially stormy run up to the big day, then perhaps the euroslug may build north with the UK as the battleground and potentially stalling systems and lots of rain where its not needed