Phew!

Thank god , I thought that was aimed at me ......it cant be though , I dont have a clue what J J F means

For gods sake lighten up its only weather

I might get a bit white .....maybe instead of J F F ...which it is , the charts should be labelled IBT ( In bad taste )

Thank you Jas

And you are right the chances are so slim , but they are part of the MOD so why shouldnt they be posted ?

From IF again

Currently unfathomable re outcome detail. Much depends next week on degree of retrogression by high to NE and how long the colder air lingers in E/SE. The suspicion has always been for slower(ish) return to W'ly progression than billed in operational output (models lean too quick with breaking-through this sort of gig, usually); then (as per repeated GloSea5 runs) a temporary phase of stronger zonality last week of Feb (but with colder NW'ly bias returning), before signs of hopefully more settled/drier developments on into early March (with MJO phase 6 favouring -ve NAO). 

Again from IF

The overall outlook remains for broadly average to slightly colder than average conditions rest of Feb, but with risk of colder weather tending to rise later, commensurate with increased likelihood of NW'ly flow.

If you've got a stutter then perhaps January, January, February.....

It was always just a chance for the south this weekend - I've been saying "cold rain" to people, with just a small chance of some snow. The problem was always lack of sufficiently cold air; that problem goes away next week so the basics might be in place.

Indeed, hopefully after Saturday the air will be cold enough to get some snow in the coming days

Yes - it would be nice to have a night where the temperature falls and even better if it falls below freezing. Most recently temperatures have risen throughout the night!

At least it's -10c for Marcus: - ha - they said it will turn milder toward the end of next week!? hmm...

Interesting how similar to January's cold spell this is turning out to be - like that one this was originally pegged as a short event but now looks like possibly lingering on longer than initially predicted and January's cold spell also had a lot of uncertainty in the models once it got going. Tomorrow's runs could be very interesting.

So the long and short of this - cold spell with potential snow for this weekend has been downgraded!? No real mention of any snow on Saturday, just looks like cold rain for many! However, the cold spell for next week has been upgraded/lasting longer?! - That's the impression that I am getting anyway. Marcus would be happy for this if this materialised!

about sums it up Tally- until we get to next week and then wonder what all the fuss was about lol 😂

(Ok I will get my coat......)

Indeed - however, it was never really that cold in the south because temperatures rose at night time instead of falling and it was more of a cooler spell than a COLD spell. Max of 6.8c in January is not what I call cold. The BBC made a big mistake by forecasting "Coldest spell since 2013" at one point, so I think they are being very cautious about any colder spell this time. The last cold spell was a disaster, because many major towns and cities barely reached freezing, let alone below. Any snow that did fall was wet and no more than a few cm's. - Which only lasted a day at the very max.  Hope next week will deliver something more seasonal to put an end to this abysmal, mild, wet & windy weather.

Yet J. Hammond and Alex Deakin said he was more confident about next weeks weather than this Saturday's weather ha! - Say's it all.

JMA is a peach tonight, it's similar to the UKmo at 144 and then goes very cold

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rjma1682.html

Also they don't even mention any snow for Saturday today - Where as previous days they said that there will be the chance of snow as it bumps into the block of cold air either north or further south and to 'watch this space'. Now it just looks like a wet and windy day for all southern area's - but yet suddenly they are forecasting an area of snow from tomorrow afternoon (which has cropped up for the south east of Scotland and will move into the NE of England giving several cm's).

It's not "suddenly", it has been modelled for days now.

I've been sitting here quietly observing it while attention was elsewhere. 

what January cold spell are you referring to? Are you talking about those two frosty nights 😄😄

And is this new cold spell that keeps getting extended the one that was going to start Saturday (or was it Friday) but now unlikely to begin until next week?? 😊

I agree it feels a long time ago for decent cold for south and s/e almost gets you down but its only weather I guess.

Glad to say ECM's more progressive solution across the U.S. and therefore Atlantic middle of next week is not at all favoured by the American mets. They expect the trough to be further west with a more amplified jet, which is what leads to the dive south in our part of the world and potential trough disruption with LP development near S. UK. Alternatively, if there is enough of a trough over Europe, the jet may engage with that, in which case we get an easterly, for which there is some reasonably cold air on tap as JMA shows:

As for the weekend, I'm not expecting much down here, but not writing it off either, as some high res models get the cold air across more effectively on Sunday, this engaging with an occluding frontal boundary across SW'rn UK with snowy results close to my neighborhood. I'm giving that a 1 in 5 chance of delivering falling snow but settling will be harder to achieve... more of a risk of widespread ice really!

Arpege offers some hope for snow-starved southerners at the weekend.

aye up on the downs by the looks of that 😕