and to further my point, my car is absolutely caked in ice this morning! Wasn’t expecting it and now I’m running late. :D 

There is definitely a keen inversion under this high. 

Worth keeping an eye on:

1) Friday and the weekend. GFS is keener than ECM on a brief northerly shot

2) Next week and the possibility of more anomalously mild conditions. 17C wouldn't be out of the question if GFS has the right synoptics

3) The chance of a colder period after mid month as the GEFS 00z is suggesting today.

Yes HP a bit further west on this run (4th Jan) to allow a northerly albeit a really brief one,. Hope this is the start of something. 

Officially 16.9c - the highest late December temp ever recorded in the UK - unofficially it actually reached 18.4c in at least one place

[quote=four;1167906]

Not really, Start of March 2018 and all March 2013 were extremely cold with wind from the east.
Then there was December 2010, lots of selective memories coming out for some reason.

Several winters in the 1970s were practically snowless and generally mild.
And in the 50s, and in the 60s. And the 80s...

Winters in Western Europe are noteworthy for being generally mild considering out latitude, it is because there's a big warm Ocean on our doorstep and the prevailing wind is WSW.
/thread 

Nothing you have said here is incorrect - but it hides the whole truth. Winter cold spells are like busses, they come and go in bunches, so there were bunches in the 60s (one year then at my school in Sussex, I emember well noting that when it precipitated - it was predominantly snow, sleet or hail, even though the then more common then 10 day Scandinavia high with snow hard frozen on the ground occurred only twice, from December to March. There were bunches in the 80s. The 70's had the odd notable event - 1979 freezing diesel in Lordy tanks, but was dominated by zonal wet weather - but even in these zonal years - the cold snaps produced notable local snow events.

These cold snaps were a little colder, lasted a little longer - and cold air settles, is heavy and the longer it sits he harder it is to shift, so there were a lot more snowy battles. The 80s had many notable snowy years, although 87 had the signature of a displacement event from a Strat Warming. Only 1991 had any notable cold spell, and then the long wait until the 2009-2013 cluster. However, none of these winters lead to a rediscovery of the joys of river or lake skating.

They were just not cold enough or for long enough to form lasting thick ice. As a child of the 60s, there were events throughout my childhood where we did - boys will be boys- skid out onto local lakes, 3 inches of ice, with weeks of frost. This long period, settled, deep frosty weather is now rare, due to well documented higher global temperatures. There is no doubt that with the right Synoptics, we could enjoy the winter weather of our dreams - like March 18, but increasingly it takes a SSW event to halt the jet. It is a QBO positive year, so this does often serve to amplify the jet, but being the sun spot minimum, I was hoping the cluster of colder winters might occur from here. It is still early days, we have 5 weeks of proper winter left to witness a decent cold spell.  There is no doubt whatsoever that getting a low energy jet that blocks up with what used to be a regular and expected winter blocking pattern with Scandinavia high is getting as rare as a good year for Bordeaux wine, which needs a cool summer, so it's no surprise 2010 was the last good Bordeaux vintage. 

If any of the current 3-5 cold putti actions manifested - they'd bring noteworthy cold, that is most certainly true. It's just getting disappointingly infrequent. There again it's like an Ipswich Town win, rare as a Scandinavia high, but I keep on going, just in case, because when they (if they) manifest, it is just delightful.....enjoy the model hoping...fingers still crossed.

Looks like a potentially more interesting end to the ECM 12z op run.

By your own judgement, we would be running out of time by then for anything properly notably this winter.

I think I'll stand by my thoughts I PM'd you for now 😊

I take your point Kieren, but I imagine that some people in Jan and the first two-thirds of Feb 2018 were saying that time was running out for a notable wintry spell that winter, and then look at what happened right at the end of February. OK, that was two years ago with a slightly different set-up, but it does go to show that nothing should be ruled in or out IMO.

Even if nothing happens in the first half of January, there will still be another six weeks or so of the meteorogical winter to go after that and the events of mid-late Feb 2005 (to which I referred in my message the other day) prove that it is possible to get a notable pattern change in late winter even if most or all of the early part was mainly mild and zonal, just as the 2004/05 winter was.

Hence only 2 or 3 posts since this morning on models?

10-day weather shows the effect of westerlies blowing into the Baltic for that time, and notably above average temps for Russia and points east (i.e. it's cold, but not very) wxmaps.org/pix/temp4

GFS op has anticyclone through to Thu 16th Jan, occasional brushes with low pressure to the east (e.g. 4 Jan) and west (e.g 13 Jan)

ECM goes more zonal from 6th Jan and then a trough and weak N-ly over Ireland on Thu 9th Jan 

Jetstream forecast splits the difference with the current HP-promoting loops disappearing in favour of a southerly tracking jet around the 13th

GEFS as previously cold on the 4/5th, temp back to well above normal 8/9th, then declining but the mean resumes the seasonal average sooner than yesterday's forecast. The control run is having some wild swings, though and pert 1 has a strong N-ly around the 12th. Dry everywhere except far N, very dry in SE

Not really sure what you're seeing around that period. To me it looks as though the fat controller will continue to direct our weather.

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/gefs.aspx?run=na&charthour=240&chartname=ps_500hpa&chartregion=na-region&p=1&charttag=PS%20500hPa%20(GPDM)

But no surprise there surely - once we are in a Dec/Jan zonal rut, it is always curtains for our winter.

Hats off to the Met Office however - their dire seasonal forecasts have been spot on for this ghastly excuse for a winter. Funny how they can be 100% correct when forecasting a mild dirge of a winter - if they ever produce a seasonal forecast for a colder than average winter, it would most likely be a wrong one.

I hate this winter!

To be fair to the Met Office they have produced a forecast based on the data from the seasonal models. However, I bet they breathed a sigh of relief when GlosSea kept churning out mild charts because it is an open secret that if you want to boost your forecast accuracy stats in the UK in the present era call "milder than average".

Indeed. To recap:

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/forecast/uk-seasonal-weather-forecast

Their January precipitation forecast could be wide of the mark however - if a Bartlett sets in, England at least could be mild and fairly settled, rather than stormy.

Spring could be interesting however - with the QBO turning easterly, cold could arrive late to our shores. That often appears to be the phasing pattern when we have had a very mild winter - snow and ice in late March/ early April. I really look forward to the next time we experience a proper January winter - but how many years will we have to wait for one?

Not if it were to cone from the north, but then again that has not happened for many years with more recent cold being from the east. Neither option looks imminent.

Indeed. Precipitation is the elephant in the room. If long range forecasts only contained temperature guidance it would be possible to achieve a high degree of accuracy in the UK in the present era.