It appears as though something that not so long ago quite a lot of people thought wouldn't happen anytime soon may well be about to happen next week; a notable change in pattern to what we've witnessed so far this winter. How long will the change last for is the main question now.

As always, normal rules.

I'm not sure about this, but I don't recall there being a SSW event before either the Dec 2009/Jan 2010 or late Nov & December 2010 freezes. Could be wrong though.

Valid point David but I have heard many times when we are struggling for that pot of gold people say there aren't many signs of a SSW..........of course we may get nothing from what is currently being shown , but my point being is that we don't need a SSW to get cold here .....do we ???

The SSW obsession started after January 13 when we had one and bingo 2 weeks later we had a very good cold spell that lasted pretty much until April. I agree though most recent UK cold spells didn't have one.

Have all the 'sensible dads' gone on a bender or something?....I haven't seen the obligatory "I urge caution" post yet?...

Strat temps for 2009/10 and 2010/11:

http://acdb-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/met/metdata/annual/t60_90n_30_2009.pdf

http://acdb-ext.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/met/metdata/annual/t60_90n_30_2010.pdf

The weather for the week ahead is already up on the bbc weather website and Its not a let down colder snowier weather on the way.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/35248338

Tonight's ECM 12z t240 chart is an absolute peach:

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/chart.aspx?chart=/charts/ecm/240_mslp500.png

Probably as good as it gets for the UK in terms of the prospects of a prolonged cold spell. 

Having said that, and looking at the model projections up to that point, there still seems to be plenty of things which could go wrong that would mean we end up with a 2-day toppler. The key thing to watch out for is the Met dropping the word 'brief' in their descrption of the upcoming cold spell withn their 6-30 day outlook. If they do that in their update overnight or tomorrow, we could be in business

Interesting to hear JH say " once your in either warm air or cold air , you could be in it for sometime "

unbelievable chart, one for Marcus JFF of course 😜

Indeed Jas , of course much better if the 0 was knocked off the 240 and we were looking at a 24h chart eh.

Indeed he seemed to suggest a good chance of a longer cold spell that what's currently on the Meto website.

Yes, as we've been told on here a few times this winter - once these patterns are established, they are very hard to shift. No, the writing's on the wall, we can write off the rest of January, the whole of February, and probably most of March too...for mild weather 

More than enough hints in there that this isn't a 2-3 day cold snap.  Heavily contorted jet stream around the northern hemisphere, pattern tends to be static and if you're in the cold air you can be stuck in it.

That's much as the charts are showing at the moment.

Generally there are plenty of reasons for caution but somehow I'm quietly confident that this will arrive by Tuesday and last for most of next week. How cold and how much snow remain unclear but I'd guess very cold but perhaps largely dry for inland areas, as is usual in northerlies.

And passing the buck to Helen Willets tomorrow to tell us know how long it will last!

Spot on , look at how many on here ( experienced people ) were looking towards the end of Jan / early Feb.

Of course we might end up with frosts and snow showers up N and that is our lot, but currently the charts suggest a little more ,

18z so far

Temps from the 114 chart.

But that link shows maxima of 6C from Monday?

Hover over the temperature range option. Wednesday shows a minimum in the max temp range of 1C; Tuesday's is higher. I suppose they're talking possibilities and probabilities.

Temps continue to fall