And here are the 850s, compared to the mean (nb - I guess that's calculated "on the fly" by WZ rather than being a field in the GRIB data - a shame, as it's handy to see at a glance just how far above/below things are):
It's been a long time coming, but there's now good agreement of a departure some 7 degrees below the mean. It's been a while since we last saw one of those in December.
Incidentally, here's the equivalent from 7 years ago. Note how even then a warmup was lurking in the depths of FI.
And as Joe says, the EPS are persistent with their cold outlook which, as a coldie, is encouraging!
Originally Posted by: Retron