i sense you are hankering for a northerly!

Will be interesting to see where this feature sits on tonights run.

All to play for at this stage in december.

Interestingly, I've noticed today how BOTH ECM & GFS showed Kent being under a north east airflow on Christmas Day. But sadly the 850's looked too "mild" for snow production, probably just cold rain showers running in from the North Sea.

And being 9 days away, it'll get watered down still, but it was something to look at today anyway.

Depends where you were. I've just been reviewing 2018s photos, and I can see we got just two coverings (1-2cm) that didn't last the day, plus a couple of patchy dusting. Had better in most years.

ECM 12z also holds a bit of interest from 192-240hrs IMO.

ECM evolves in broadly the same way as GFS.  I would say the odds on a seasonably cool and bright Christmas are shortening, which IMHO is preferable to mild nothingness.

 A  low Res 300 hour  plus chart....... mmm is that's really likely to verify ..mean while the high Res ECM 12z for Xmas day ties in quite nicely with the met office medium range outlook.😀

ECM 12z op run was outside the clustering towards the end. 

For me, last winter was the best of my lifetime for quantity and frequency of snowfall. Just goes to show how varied outcomes are from a weather point of view in this part of the world.

December gave us 3-4cm here but that end of Feb easterly only gave a slight covering really.

https://imgur.com/a/FeARzsP

Wasn't a very snowy winter at all.

I'm hoping (praying) we can change that this year.

Still believe a small window of opportunity for the high to inflate and assert

Here it was a load of rubbish. Almost every winter was in the 2000s decade was better. There were two half decent snowfalls in late November and early December but after mid-December it was a complete write-off.

We had no snow lying at all in January and what we got at the end of February wasn't worth having. Horrible unphotogenic snow accompanied by endless grey skies and a vile raw wind. Hardly took any photos at all.

This winter so far has been even worse with not so much as flake falling so far and if nothing more falls in the next 15 days this will have been the least snowy year since 2014.

My account of this winter so far compared to last winter is given here on my last post on the moaning thread on 15 December 2018. In addition to that, we also had a reasonable snow event last Christmas night which officially gave us a white Christmas here in Edinburgh. I wasn't here at the time since I was spending Christmas with my family down in the Scottish Borders at the time, as I normally do every year.

Down there, it was just raining on Christmas night, but this rain did turn to snow by the time that I had got up on Boxing Day morning to leave quite a good covering. After that, nothing out of the ordinary really happened until we got those Beast from the East events at the end of February and the beginning of March which for me, had came a bit too late as this was now extending into the start of the meteorological spring.

However, I do realise that this is the Model Output thread and not the moaning thread (or any other thread for that matter), so I will now get back on topic by saying that this coming Christmas doesn't appear to be anything like as seasonable as last year according to the latest model output. For me, it looks like that same old story that we see just about every year in the run-up to Christmas where everything looks Atlantic driven, mild at times, and possibly wet as well (although in terms of making up the rainfall deficit from earlier on this year, we do need that rain).

All we can therefore hope for, is that the upcoming SSW event if it happens according to what the models are suggesting, will go on to change all of that as we go further into January and the start of the New Year which will also be final year of this current decade that is known as the 2010s.

Here are the GEFS ensembles for the English Midlands for the next two or so weeks - looks like the mean 2m temps have notched up a degree or two as a windy westerly and mildish regime establishes with the chance (but no real confidence in that eventuality at this range) of high pressure nudging in from the SW later in the period. Certainly looking very damp in the run up to Christmas.

but at present dull,damp and mild would sum up the output into the New Year.

Lots of seriously cold air making its appearance over eastern Europe

http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/temp4

and snow cover has taken a leap westwards over the last few days, to the Franco-German border

https://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif

But, frustratingly, it looks as if that cold air is going to slip SE into the Balkans, rather than in our direction.

A poor ens for coldies very few runs going below -5

Not much Xmas cheer if it’s deep cold you’re looking for this morning, after a an unsettled week pressure rises over the U.K. giving most of us a seasonal feel to the month at least. Thereafter heights sink slowly SE as low heights coming out of Canada continue to plague us despite the lack of an organised PV. Still no signs of of any warming of the stratosphere effecting the output though to be fair the effects of such aren’t due to early in the New Year........ Hopefully. 😏

What is remarkable is the total absence of any frosts amongst any of the runs until the slightest sub-zero on NYE.

Western Europe widely above average over the next week or so

Does anyone know when the much talked-about SSW is due to take place? I think I saw someone comment a week or so back that it was forecast to be sometime between Xmas and New Year but I might be wrong about that.

I can't help but think that whenever a SSW event is due to happen, the models often go into a state of flux for a while. They certainly were rather chaotic for a time back in mid-February this year when the SSW that preceded the Beast was taking place. In fact, some GFS and ECM op runs at the time showed it not happening at all, from what I remember.

The ‘rapid’ warming (at 10HPa and downwelling) phase modelled to start Dec21st. Technical SSW (reversal of polar  flow at 10HPa) due 25th Dec. Pretty much solid cross model on this one. The theory then is HLB triggered by this maybe more likely from 1st Jan on.

The last part is the less certain bit!

Jut to clarify, what I meant in my final sentence was that a few GFS and ECM runs in mid-February showed the Beast from the East event not taking place and not the SSW event itself. The MetO text forecasts at the time were pretty consistent with their thoughts of something notable coming along in late February and early March, even during the time when some here were doubting them because the models that we have access to appeared to have other ideas at one point.