Became available yesterday.

The GFS  12h  OP has a fascinating battle from 192-384 between the Atlantic and the cold (but not very cold) air to the east.The Ens have anticyclonic influenced members in the majority with some quite tasty members.My favourite is this very Feb 47 type chart at 360h.

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gefs_cartes.php?ech=360&code=18&mode=0&carte=0

Mild is likely to prevail in the end but plenty of interest in the Post Christmas week model ouput.

The Force Awakens? 😎
As many have said, the potential of a significant push of WAA north has been loosely touted for some time now and this op run punches it big time.
Maybe not screams, but definitely loud whispers that something may be simmering heading towards the year's end.

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=240&mode=0

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/geme_cartes.php?&ech=240&mode=0&carte=0

Reasonable agreement between GFS and GEM at 240h>However ECM spoils the party with a short lived toppler

An incredible amount of scatter now showing on the GFS ensembles after Boxing Day compared from where we were  just a day or two ago. 

Maybe .

excellent and informative post, just what is needed if it's a shot at colder weather you want.

as Gusty has just pointed out also, there is a great deal of scatter in the GFS ensembles just out of the reliable period, another sign that something may be afoot. However ECM does not want to play ball atm, so I think we are heading into a crucial model watching period with more of a hope at breaking this incredibly mild rut that we have at present.

And that's as close as your ever gonna get to a cold ramp from me 😀

Horrific ECM, January could be even milder if that comes off.

ECM op may disappoint but unusual spreads over Scandi gives hope.

ECM 15 day ensembles

I fear you may be about to fall into the same trap as Moomin did. Yes it's a poor run compared to the GFS 12z op, but there's no need to jump the gun.

That ECM run only goes as far as 30th December! There is little point just now IMO in trying to judge how January will unfold based on that or any other model run in isolation.

I'm far from convinced by Gfs about potential for a cold spell. If a genuine pattern switch is taking place after Christmas I'll sit up but I've been model watching far too long to know better.
Other usual important signals are absent. For example the NAO scatter, albeit varied remains mostly in a positive trend:

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

I didn't fall into any trap regarding December at all. I merely gave my appraisal of what was transpiring before our very eyes.

I made a lucky call I guess but no I did not fall into a trap.

I have said a couple of times in the last few days that a significant pattern change could be emerging. I did not base any of my previous comments based solely on one operational but on the clear trend cross-models. 

This ECM in isolation therefore is not concerning and certainly offers no reason to jump the gun and write off January. 

On the contrary. The trend is clear towards something possibly quite significant next month and it was only about 24 hours ago that ECM was showing something not too dissimilar to what the GFS JMA and GEM are showing tonight.

Definitely all to play for IMO.

Op and control on the mild side, larger cluster go for cold is my interpretation of that. Hmm...

Kieren, while I do accept there is every chance now of your prediction regarding a record mild December coming to pass, even you must accept that when you first made this prediction (in the early days of the month IIRC), there was still enough by way of variation in the model output generally to suggest that your prediction may not necessarily have come to pass. If you recall, some GFS op runs in FI a couple of weeks ago were suggesting that the second half December could have been rather colder than the first half. That was why I, and some other people, were finding your apparent very high confidence in a record mild December hard to understand at that time.

As I said, there is now a good chance you will be proved right, but it is one thing to merely suggest a record breaking month and quite another to go on about it as if it's a dead cert to happen from a way off. You have got lucky this month, big time.

Are you being serious? 

(Bearing in mind that the publicly available ECM op run doesn't even reach January!)