Is anyone a stamp collector?

ECM 120 stamps from the 0z run - 3 clusters. Click for full-size.

I suspect the GEFS equivalent will have even more scatter, the permutations are all over the place tonight even as early as 120!

The lack of isobars on those mean charts in Fothergill's post just show how uncertain this is, as all the different options are cancelling each other out!

 

 

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...if you believe the latest GFS over everything else (I assume you do?) 

I get that there's a big IF over the longevity and the southern extent of the cold next week, but to say 'it's slipping away' based on one dodgy model output from an unreliable model is borderline trolling 

You got a bite from me though, so congrats  

GFS was first to backtrack and the others are gradually following. Perhaps our best hope is for some sort of UK High to keep it cold at the surface

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Maybe the GFS has gone off the boil - but if I cast my mind back to 2010, GFS was the first model to pick up on the fantastic cold spell we had that year.

At the moment though, I just hope it is completely wrong, but my churning guts tells me that it is right - the stellar charts of a couple of days ago were just a cruel fantasy to get us excited.

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Agree 100%.

I have been very reluctant to trust GFS on its own ever since the "easterly that never was" fiasco from mid-February 2007, when it teased us with the mother of all easterly spells on a few successive runs which had very little support from ECM at the time and none at all from UKMO. In fact, UKMO came out of that episode with the most credit in my view, as it never bought into what GFS was showing (ECM did in one run from what I recall).

Just goes to show that even though the UKMO runs don't go any further ahead than 144hrs, it is still a major player.

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I think you only have to read these MO threads to see just how unreliable all the models are beyond three or four days.  We keep saying this, yet we still hang onto every sniff of whatever weather we'd like to have.    

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Which was on offer from virtually every model, like you I also think GFS has  this right and that it was all a weather hoax

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Can someone tell me if the shorter-range cold spell has been changed in the models much? If so (and I hope so) then we can extrapolate forward and assume the same possibility for this low- that it could degenerate/ shift/ disappear on the basis that GFS can't tell that far forward (although I often hear it said on here that GFS outdo the others for spotting a trend from far out).

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Translated as GFS op runs are all over the place and different to the rest of the models which still show cold but possibly less so than the extremes of a day or two ago. It looks like the GFS op run will once again be one of the milder options in the longer term ensembles. That of course does not mean it is wrong just, unlike what Beast implies, that things are very uncertain.

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http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2016010812/gens-13-1-288.png

Would settle for Pert 13, but most are pretty crap for cold

 

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The variety at 168 on GFS is mind boggling though the median solution has a high angled in from the NW is the SW approaches, which is not brill.

Anything past around t120 is pretty much FI.  But the FI eye candy charts of earlier this week are on the wane, so my view of last night - cooler and drier than so far this winter with some wintriness on northern hills - is probably a safe position as far as Tuesday.  Beyond that I would tend to favour the return of westerlies as the most likely solution by dint of sods law and the real difficulty we have in the southern half of the UK in getting cold uper air in situ, worth reiterating that confidence in any outcome is low.

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GEM flirts with bringing milder air in (looks a bit windy as well towards the south east).

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rgem2162.gif 

But keeps us in the cooler air.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rgem2402.gif 

And at only +288hrs so set in stone. 

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Atlantic seems to be held at bay on GEM. Chance of something colder later on?

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rgem2402.gif 

Certainly doesn't mean that it's wrong  We can only hope it's 'off on one'. The popularity of this model can surely only be due to the fact it updates 4 times a day to t+384? I can't deny I get a twang of pleasure when it shows a snowfest at t+168 but I wouldn't shout it from the rooftops 

Beast and Fothergill seem unaware there are other models 

Sod's law says everything will backtrack to GFS now 

The postage stamps show the inconsistency:

 

The spread in solutions sums it up:

 

The first part of your sentence completely discounts the second part though 

Not at all, its the solution that sits in the middle of a range of options

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But does that mean it's anymore likely to verify over the other solutions? Granted it's not a great median, but there's so much scatter it's just one of many wildly different outcomes 

edit: or am I getting it confused with the mean? 

Which you have to say is a possibility

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Yes, and the problem is that the GFS gets most attention because it offers up four editions of fiction per day with about 20 times the number of parameters available and runs out so far that even our favoured expression 'Fantasy Island' scarcely describes it.  Might as well call it 'crystal ball gazing' for all the sense it makes 99% of the time.

Anyway, everyone needs this pinned to their wall or on the driveway outside when viewing the models; a pinch simply isn't enough....

 

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My gut feeling is that the "median solution", - between the one extreme at 168, of the on-set of a polar continental long fetch, and the development of a Bartlett High at the other extreme, (both very unlikely and only shown on a couple of the pertubations), - is the most likely option - and that is - a finger of HP nudging in from the SW/W, but as I said, confidence is low in any solution.

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Where do you get the median solution from?  Or do you mean the mean?

If the latter then, as Darren has said, it tells you very little after a few days, particularly when there are so many outcomes on offer.

 

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Thanks for clarifying 

That's what I thought regarding the mean in such a scenario, too, as it would be largely useless if there was a high degree of scatter in the ensembles.

Well, one thing's for sure - the GEFS is continuing to trend milder with every run.

Yesterday's 0z and 6z had 85% or so of members showing a prolonged cold spell (circa -5 or below at 850 for London).

The rot started to set in with the 12z, which had around 80% on the cold side. That went down to 70% or so on the 18z, then 60% on the 0z, 50% on the 6z and now only 30% or so have a prolonged cold spell. It's less of a sudden switch, more a gradual move in a mild direction.

Of course, before this present colder interlude showed up as a mainstream option it was lurking in the ensembles as a low 10-15% chance, much the same as the potential easterly last week.

The ECM was playing catch-up to GEFS this morning, as around 70% of its members had prolonged cold versus 90% on yesterday's 12z.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the ECM lowering the chance further tonight, although of course things are even less certain than normal.

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