Apologies for the quick succession of frames but these have to be posted...………..stunning  

If GFS 12z has it right, there could (emphasise could) be a wintry spell beginning slighty earlier than the one that commenced in late November 2010 and which led onto that memorable December.

You might be thinking of November 2005. Although it it started off very mild, it turned cold by the 2nd half of month. It was mostly dry, settled with some sharp frosts at night. The late month was unsettled, very cold and wintry with even harder frosts, plus sleet, hail and snow, as a low pressure developed from the Arctic and settled over southern N Sea.

November 2008 also had a very cold spell from the 21st.

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn2402.gif 

Amazing GFS,  Shiite GEM though.

GFS has an ice day for many as early as the 24th. that must be a record 

Many? A few, I'd suggest, as it's over the Highlands and the Pennines mostly.

Nor is it a record - the 23rd November 1993 saw a widespread ice day in the south, with 6 inches of snow IMBY (I was most disappointed when the school bus still turned up, they'd only had an inch inland.)

It's certainly more interesting than the usual mush we get at this time of year, though!

Always rely on you to have the stats.

As for this afternoons output it doesn't get better than the GFS for this time of year but the ICON, UKMO and GEM are not anywhere near as good so huge caution at the moment. 

Control doesn't follow with a Northerly flow, be good to see the ENS

Originally Posted by: wallaw Go to Quoted Post
Apologies for slightly off topic, but can someone remind my poor old brain of the year we had the really cold November with freezing fog and rime on all the trees? I'm thinking it was 2006?

How about 1962? I think the last real smog in London, visibility down to a few feet!

Then came 1963 

I too remember the cold spell of late November 2008. In fact, I recall reading (on this forum I think) that the final day of that November was the coldest November day in Glasgow since 1985. The final few days of November 2010 must have been just as cold though, if not colder.

Back to the models, and for me at least the current output is evoking a lot of memories of following the models at this time 8 years ago. While I don't remember the first half of November 2010 being particularly cold, I don't think it was as mild as this month has been thus far. That is why, for me at least, what is being suggested by the models, should it verify, will be an even more dramatic change from the current mildness than was the case in Nov 2010.

While we wait, a reminder that the full UK ECMWF ensembles are available here:

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

Note that this includes 850s, T2Ms, snow depth and more. It has a wide database of locations, too, including my village.

The UKMO only goes out to 144hr and is not overly different to the GFS at that point?

Regardless of what falls from the sky the ensembles are suggesting this will be a moisture laden unstable flow.

SST's of 11-14c (NE Scotland to Kent) and 850Hpa's of even a fairly modest -7c is sufficient to create some decent convection on the east coast, especially so if you are located on the NW periphery of the European cold pool being modelled by 70% of the pertubations currently.

It does by 360h, my quick look suggests coldest set yet but still some poor runs to be found.

The high doesn't look like its going to Greenland to me but hard to tell.

GFS and GFS P miles apart in how they handle this 

GFS

GFS P

I’ve been looking at the latest (experimental) GFS parallel model for a while now. It’s interesting to see how out of line with the actual operational run it has been. Not sure it carries much weight or you would have posted it before Gavin?

Agree with you on that one Doc, I can’t see much difference there. Great early season charts, hopefully setting us up for a memorable December 

Cheeky. I'm surprised the winter model of choice for some earlier this year hasn't been posted either - ICON 12z is also not keen on the retrogression into a GH.

I don’t what you mean. 

Not quite as well known as the mighty parallel GFS run but the ECM 12z has a very impressive Scandinavian High at day 5