So poor actually means less cold than a cold easterly that some of the output suggested for a few days, thanks for that clarification. Are you suggesting that compared with what our winters normally provide the next week or so is "poor"? I find that surprising.

Edit: The risk is for tonight in places, it's only tomorrow towards the southeast and a spell of several hours of snow is probably just about worth a weather warning. It will be interesting to see what the 12z Euro4 shows.

Silly me

ROFL!

Most people here would have probably bitten one's hand off to have seen a chart like that a year ago.

batten down the hatches

what a crap chart... Cloudy & mild!

What a boring chart: - Not Atlantic depressions or blocking - lot's of T's and H's but which direction are the winds coming from!? Its like the model is struggling to forecast something. Looks like we can't even get a northerly let alone easterly or could this boring run change?

To be fair, the ECM is going for a more zonal feel to things by the end of the month, as shown here (data for 90 miles east of the UK):

http://www.weerplaza.nl/gdata/eps/eps_pluim_dd_06310.png

As ever there's still a fair bit of scatter. That has reduced somewhat over the past day or two in favour of zonality though...

The ECM control run shows the danger of the setup that MetO shows above, namely the high near Iceland gets absorbed by the Euro high, then the SW'ly jet further west (visible east of Newfoundland on the MetO chart) simply rides over the top and collapses the lot, bringing SW'lies back. The control run takes a few more days to do it, but ends up zonal as anything.

The monthly control shows the block valiantly deflecting Atlantic lows for a bit but that too ends up going zonal before the month's out.

Just as well that the charts won't come off exactly as shown!

Is your browser cached? The chart I posted is very anticyclonic with high pressure to the northwest just south of the Greenland/Iceland area 

As for trying to put lipstick on the output, it's pretty enough compared with its ugly sisters of the the last couple of winters, so no need really. What happens at the end of January is very uncertain and quite a long way away.

I guess the 12z GFS op run ties in with the mild SWly outlook for the Netherlands too http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn3841.gif  

yea a very anticyclonic chart with a huge area of high pressure over Europe pumping up south to sw winds over the UK. 

Which way are the wind commig from? That would depend on your location in the UK. For my back yard its comming in from thr North East on that chart, so a bit confused by your statment "can't even get a Northerly or an Easterly".

Also its packed with potential going forward IMO. The PV also looks displaced on that chart.

Im sure I live in the U.K. <checks map> Yup.

It just highlights that for my neck of the woods the Dutch ensembles are about as relevant to me as the Bordeaux ones. That chart is far from mild here showing 510dam air approaching form the north - something the ensembles would not pick up on. Purely academic at this stage of course but it shows why I put very little weight in the De Bilt data. I can understand if you would given your location.

?????? 😕

The chart you posted shows high over Europe keeping even Aberdeen mild.

Ah right, I thought you were talking about the chart I posted in the message you were replying to (and the UKMO one in the earlier post!)

The UKMO one is rather anticyclonic and not overly mild for most I suspect.

The ones I post are for Vlissengen, in the far SW of the Netherlands - so not quite as far away as De Bilt. Of course they're pretty much useless for Scotland, but for Kent they're closer than Reading, for example. It's incerdibly frustrating that the ensemble data for the UK isn't freely available, outside of that somewhat limited London chart from Weathercast (which, incidentally, also shows a marked rise in temperatures from around the 24th).

And Essan - for me the thrill is in the chase of working out what happens next. The past few runs of both EPS and GEFS have been bringing the return to milder conditions and yes, a generally zonal pattern, a little closer each day. None of them will have it exact (as I keep saying) and there will doubtless be many twists and turns before then. Hell, we may not even see a zonal flow at all, but at the moment if you were asked what the most likely option is in the 10-14 day range (as opposed to the absolutely certain option!) then it would be a return to zonality of some sort. Of course nothing is certain, it never is with weather.

At least in the short term there's plenty of interest, starting with the "will it, won't it" frontal clearance tomorrow, then a nice settled spell for much of the UK.

Incidentally the models remind me of that wave effect that happens when you shake a duvet to straighten out the kinks. They will always try, no matter how convoluted it might be, to bring back some sort of zonality longer range. The fun is spotting whether it's just random model fuzz or whether there's actually something in it!

that is the chart you posted link to originally 😂

Yes, it is but it's not the one I posted in the message to which you were replying . Anyway it doesn't matter. 

umm yes it is. It is the only one you have linked that I have replied to hence my reply. Look it is even here...

See post 281 now please stay on topic.

It's worth mentioning at this stage that if you have a credit card you can get free trials of both Weatherbell and Accuweather Pro, both of which have access to some of the ECM data - Accuweather has more parameters but only shows the control run of the ECM run, whereas Weatherbell has more in the way of mean charts (which despite my derision can be useful at times).

Crucially, if you cancel within the time limit you won't be charged. I can personally verify that having used them both for the past couple of winters. (I've tried Weatherbell twice but found it lacks data compared to Accuweather. I have subscribed to Accuweather in the past).

As I understand it the costs of ECM data for companies in the EU are astronomical. While I understand they want to get a return on their investment, it's a bit annoying considering we pay for it via our taxes! But that's something for another thread...

Meanwhile the GEFS ensembles are out for here and they pretty much complete the transition away from cold air aloft down here. Even the surface temperatures are forecast to touch 5C each day now next week, compared with 3C just yesterday. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed, but hey, the weather does what it does!

The next thing to look out for is what happens as the Atlantic fires up a bit next week. Will we continue to be in the somewhat chilly stalemate, or will the long-wave pattern shift enough to bring another pulse of cold southwards?

Indeed, but I can't see where it is coming from, considering that warmth is set to continue over eastern Canada for a while yet?  Not sure what would spur on this zonality, except maybe if there is an immediate cool down to our north and northwest.

Anything that will get us out of this quagmire I'll take though.