GFS12Z not quite as impressive but still an upgrade. 12Z:

GFS has the same idea as the ICON, just takes the mild air a bit further north. Scotland still fully in the cold.

UKMO also on board. More impressive than the GFS. Scotland and the far north of England see no mild spell at all.

When is the mild air due here? I'm fed up with the cool, snowless nothingness.

At least it's better than easterly muck.

Ah.

For you its not coming.

Even if the GFS is right which brings the mild air furthest north, it never reaches Aberdeen.

The great thing about Tuesday is that uppers are in the -2C to -4C range rather than the 0C to +1C range like they were last Thursday. So shouldn't be marginal for snow this time.

GEM has a suprise snow event out of nowhere on Monday

As a general rule I'd say:

Large synoptic pattern settled by 120h

Smaller scale synoptic pattern settled by 60h

Fine details reasonably reliable by 24h

However at the moment these rules of thumb seem to be a good 24 hours out. The suprise snow event on Monday from the GEM is not normal at this range. And it should not be ignored, the GEM is quite good at handeling the regions of vorticity asociated with a large slack area of LP well.

GEM is also the most progressive of the bunch for early next week.

Although I wouldn't rate the GEM's ability to handle the larger synoptic pattern as anything particularly special compared to GFS/ECM/UKMO.

Will be interesting to see if ECM 12z follows suit as it often does. If so it will be a significant flip by ECM, which has been favouring a SW flow next week over the entire UK for several runs now.

Eye-eye... what's this? 

The ensemble has certainly been trending colder in FI over recent runs, and that seems to have continued.

It is the meteorological equivalent to the eye of Sauron drawing us inexorably towards the easterly equivalent of Mordor. Gandalf any chance of a helping hand? 

Moomin will probably be standing on the walls of Minas Melton Mowbray shouting ‘you shall not pass’ 🙂

Surprised the ECM didn't get a few comments, given it's cold and unsettled towards the end.

Further signs from the models of a cool down again as we head in to February although as GFS ens show there's still a reasonable chance of it being mild too. Overall though chilly or cold is looking more likely than mild IMO (usual it's FI and can/will change caveat).

Encouraging

In the interests of harmony I actually scrapped my initial post which had Moomin meeting the same fate as the Ring. 

(Only joking Kieren )

Thanks for posting. I agree, a very interesting read. May be consistent with what we are beginning to see in the FI sections of the model runs. 

Mordor, it’s like you but less gloomy. 

Anyway on topic  and I’ve noticed that there seems to be an unusually strong consensus in the linger range sources for colder than average conditions being more likely than milder in February. Perhaps surprising given La Niña conditions, but perhaps less so because of the stratospheric warmings? Who’d be a long range forecaster!