Meanwhile there's a battle royale being fought over the UK on Sunday and into Monday between the mild and the cold air, according to the 18Z GFS.

I've got no snow showers and the breakdown is looking less likely to be snowy, MO is dying off along with my optimism.

Back on topic.  Wtf model is cosmo and where is it??

 LLTNP 105m asl 

I've been watching the trend to start lowering pressure in the Eastern Med from t144 which hopefully will "prop up" the high to our east, removing its rather ugly elongated form on some runs, which also presents the energy to our west with a route to the East ie: through France. The Greenland Block has showed signs of declining for some time now at around the same timeframe, so a good option for those looking for a prevailing cold spell would be energy splitting taking warm air advection NE through Iceland and also energy SE. Ignore single Op runs, look for trends .... 

The block holds on the 18z but unfortunately the damage is done with it centred over Poland and UK temps back to average

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/GFSOPEU18_186_1.png

p.s. I don't know if I dare mention what's going on in Greece...

I haven't seen any output that suggests any energy slipping under the block which, if we wanted the cold sustain in a meaningful way, it's what is needed. Not sure if any ensembles runs are suggesting this but seen no evidence in the Ops. Temps look to return to nearer normal on mon, tues or Weds next week depending on where your back yard is. I wouldn't say no to a snowy breakdown but I'd swap it for above average temps !

This wasn't worth repeating 😂

Parallel is back working on meteociel 

A huge swath of the UK would have moderate-heavy snow for 24+ hours from the 18z. 

It's a theme the GFS is sticking to resolutely, albeit with run-to-run tweaks, and I hope it's correct. If we're gonna get a breakdown, at least make it spectacular!

Parallel GFS goes for a massive snow event Sat into Sun as a feature crosses the South..

Now that's a classic breakdown

Indeed. A Valentine’s Day Massacre, then roll on spring.

Would be a lovely end to the winter. Bring it on!

Not down here it doesn't - the mild air wins out on Tuesday and it chucks it down with rain, not even any transitional snow. There's loads more rain over the following days as the cold retreats further north.

https://xcweather.co.uk/forecast/leysdown

All very much subject to change of course. (The GFS(P) has some snow on Tuesday instead, FWIW. And, of course, it's noteworthy how the transition date keeps being pushed back!)

Wouldnt it be nice to have a proper snowy breakdown. Alas, not sure we will get that luck. Btw, how are you. Thoughts on this Easterly overall?

Thoughts? Well, we're around halfway through it, going by the models... it's had snow, it's had ice days, it's had drifts on the hills and the usual headlines in the papers. So far though the snow amounts have been generally low, it remains to be seen whether that changes.

That said, when you see things like this, posted earlier today by the local bus company:

"Services listed below are affected by snow and ice , if your service is not listed it is running normal route:

🚌 360 (Sheerness - Leysdown) suspended until further notice"

it does tend to raise eyebrows!

The overwhelming thought I have is thank goodness we can still get midwinter easterlies!

(I'll be interested as ever in how the breakdown works out in reality, but for now I'm making the most of watching snow fall and seeing that line of showers on the radar steadily moving towards and over Sheppey.)

Yes! We had a convergence zone for east for this morning over the E/SE of London. Can’t see it somehow. I think you’ll def see something in the next few hours.

Im still hoping for a surprise January 2003 event, where some longer spells of snow moved down through Essex

My take is that the breakdown will largely fail.  I believe the GFS shows this scenario this morning.  Its tempting to think that the models have the weather 'taped'.  The reality is they do not, and their manifest weaknesses at the micro scale within 24 hours and at the macro scale in the range 72-144 have been cruelly exposed by the cold spell.

http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/temp4 hinting at a re-load in week2 with large Siberian air mass forming up over W Russia, temps over W Europe colder than forecast yesterday and little sign of pptn from the Atlantic on the companion chart. Just enough of a breakdown in cold weather to be irritating? Neither more snow nor mild spring?

GFS has re-instated the Scandi HP (today's charts look more like those from 2 days back than yesterday's). Although that does generate S-lies for a few days, there's always a touch of a SE-ly and by Fri 19th quite a cold one. Mon 19th sees a proper E-ly with a slider low, unfortunately reverting to the S/SE pattern. 

GEFS, after a steady recovery, runs the mean close to or above the seasonal norm from Mon 15th though op and control are both on the cool side, these two even rather cold in the N . Little rain to be had. 

ECM also brings back the Scandi HP, though for a while around Wed 17th placing it further SE into the Baltic allowing a spell of mild SW-lies but cooler on either side of this date