Quite.  Getting stuck in a snow drift during "the Beast"  cured me a bit   of wishing for seriously cold weather when I have to commute to work - getting too old for it now !

Every year we get models like these. Every year we say the same. But also almost every year when something decent does appear it is usually suddenly and often at a week or so away when it wasn't there when looking at longer term. No doubt the same will happen this year. The main difference so far this winter is we haven't had to suffer the usual number of pub runs leading to downgrades and the inevitable disappointments. Still time for that as well though 

18z ensembles for NYC - well, NYC would be under water if this verified surely!?

Sadly I’m in a similar place: but as I’m retired I’m content to see the snow falling and lying provided it’s warm on my side of the window - unlike the two bitingly cold easterlies which found every gap in the house.

I got the bug in the memorable winter of 1962/63 so the love of disruptive snow is deep-rooted even though the practical appeal has lessened.  I’m sure we’ll get another cold winter with some notable events but I rate the chances for the current winter as close to zero based on the output and the long range predictions.

I was looking at the charts for North America earlier and there were several very intense systems running ENE. A lot of rain across a swathe of the central and NE states with snow as the systems pull away. Even up into the southern parts of Ontario and across to the Maritimes there’s a lot of rain mixed in with the snow.

GFS op is zonal out to the 18th; yesterday's trough has disappeared and there is now a brief cold plunge down the N Sea on Mon 13th. ECM similar. This week's FAX shows windy at times esp in the N, with fronts coming in off the Atlantic and mainly affecting Scotland esp NW and IMO this pattern likely to continue.

GEFS cool around the 4th, warm around the 8th, then quite a broad scatter but mean close to normal. Rainfall pattern matches above.

Still straw-clutching opportunities on the ens runs with some blobs of blue over W Europe aimed at the UK by a Scandi high but not quite making it - and you have to go well into FI to find them

No changes of note this morning as there haven't been for weeks. The big question for me continues to be whether this winter will simply be mild or will it be one of the "all time classics " and make the top 10 or even top 5 of mildness.

My suggestion is start looking at EasyJet. Although given the extent of the mildness across Europe perhaps you'll only get to experience real cold if the pilot decides to open the window at 8000m. 

Indeed, the paucity of -10s in the ensembles continues apace. I've not known a winter like it - even in 2015, by the end of December there were more appearing in the charts.

It's also worth mentioning the lack of -5C 850 air: so far this winter there's been 12 hours' worth of it over London. It's no surprise either that GEFS has backpedalled on the -5C it'd been showing on the 3rd/4th - as we get closer it's evaporated, like a mirage.

As your chart shows, bearing in mind the mean for London is -2 or-3 at this time of year, -5 really oughn't to be so hard to get to!

Back to the models....

More of the same this morning. I notice there are one or two emerging Scandinavian Highs and one attempt for a Greeny ridge across the GEFS towards 240 hours but obviously these are very much in the minority.

Some potentially extremely mild air during the middle of next week (not just Fohn induced).

ECM ensembles paint a very mild picture too. Although the 0z sits towards the top of the pile in their ensemble suite.

https://weather.us/forecast/2643743-london/ensemble/euro/temperature

Recent ECM op runs have been toying with 560 to 562 dam in the south next week. I would think that must be approaching a January record. 

That would be a record, yes:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040212210545/http://www.booty.demon.co.uk/tthkxtrm.htm

The (op) GFS only has 555dam, though:

http://wxweb.meteostar.com/sample/sample_C.shtml?text=egmc

Splitting hairs but I've got a GFS 556

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/gfs.aspx?run=00&charthour=141&chartname=ukthickness&chartregion=uk&charttag=Thickness

One to keep an eye on Brian. Given some brightness there has to be a chance. 

might not be cold and the only help would be having the air con on full blast to start cooling the warm uppers

Given the current output, I am going to stop checking the models for a month. January is clearly going to be a write-off and I doubt that February will bring any relief. As per usual in these scenarios, it will be when the delicate buds are opening in mid to late March, before a late winter snap will bite.

That's not updated yet - still verifying the 00z Christmas Day charts, which were initialised with data collected on Christmas Eve.

bet you don’t give up!!

If only the models were reliable enough to show any useful level of accuracy at day 30 it would make forecasting so much easier. Sadly they’re not.

The delicate buds are already here! Its much easier to take if you embrace the mild and want it to get even milder to break records. We have a chance for the mildest winter on record, if we can get the Sun to appear a bit more. 

I like any kind of extreme weather, even unseasonable warmth

I don't think that's very likely. Although I agree the charts have been extremely boring for a long while now, it really hasn't been all that mild, certainly nothing like the long-fetch mild SWerlies we had in the late 80s and 90s. The CET for December came in "only" 0.7C above average at 5.8C- there were five warmer Decembers (in terms of CET) in the 2010s alone.

Talk of the "mildest winter on record" seems very premature when after a third of the winter we are only three-quarters of a degree above average! I haven't done the maths but I think we would need close to both the mildest January and February on record to achieve that.

So far this winter has just been boring, rather than notably mild. Hoping for one of those changes to appear on the models out of nowhere at short notice but for the time being it just looks fairly benign.