From my assesment of the chance to milder conditions in FI, it looks like the possiblity of a return to normal temps for the time of year, certainly not BBQ weather.  Still only Jan, so at this time and with the persistent uncertainty, the general trend is still in favour of remaining colder than normal, with potential for much colder weather.  

If the Meto have called this wrong (which looks increasingly likely), it could be that they were sucker punched by the strat like the rest of us.

Unfortunately, a persistent vortex fragment set up shop in eastern Canada and it has acted as a consistent spoiler for our winter weather pattern, flattening any attempt by the omnipresent Azores HP to ridge into Greenland - you can see it wants to, but it always get thwarted to our cost.

The 6-15 day range is in range of the ECM and GFS models though, and the weather doesn’t look “generally cold” with snow possible across “most parts of the country” on the output we can see, which is what the current 6-15 day MO forecast says. 

But then as noted in the short range snow thread, they can’t even get their warning areas to match their forecasts 12 hours ahead! Their snow warning here begins an hour AFTER the precipitation has cleared through according to the local forecast. Festivities, breweries and the organisation thereof, spring to mind. 

whats the verification stats on GLOSEA?

Surely, based on their own models and human input, if there is a chance of severe cold weather this MUST form part of the MRF and if the chance was shown as 70% then the wording adjusted accordingly.

Many vulnerable people will suffer from cold weather let alone severe cold so in my view the UK Met Office are correct in giving this forecast - even if in the said period it turns out to be totally mild throughout.

Aside from winter storms, mild weather from the SW is far less of a concern.

Well your comment is quite clearly full of untruths.  The MetO have been more or less spot on with their forcast so far this year.  You are alluding to the ramps that happen on this forum with gospel being applied to favourable charts in FI.  Consequense is euphoria from the masses, swiftly followed by a crash and then apportion of blame.  Its still only january and it would be a fool that writes off winter at a point in time when historically we end up with some of our coldest and snowy weather.

Sorry, but they have IMO been poor this winter. I was contacted in early December and asked to comment on the "cold weather" expected during the second half / last third of December. When that didn't materialise the word was that high pressure would migrate to Scandinavia in early January and become established there. That didn't happen. I'm now led to believe today's 16-30 dayer is very likely to contain references to milder conditions, although the emphasis will remain on cold, at least for now.

Last week I went through the media thread and quoted the 16-30 dayers from way back in December showing how they had consistently been forecasting cold weather (and often easterlies/northeasterlies) in that range, simply pushing the date back by a week each time it never arrived. So no, it’s not untrue. They have been calling cold weather for weeks now and they are still calling it but now for the second half of February! No doubt they will eventually get the colder than average forecast right once it is supposed to be spring. 

The ECM weekly maps were also showing consistently cold weather across the whole country, around 2.5-3C below average from mid January, so they were equally as wrong. I know the Met have only been following their model output, but their model output has, for whatever reason, been nonsense so far. 

Martin

The 2m temp ensembles show massive spread, by next Friday the max temp ranges from -1C to +11C in Reading 

https://weather.us/forecast/2639577-reading/ensemble/euro

It`s a forecast not a definite will happen ! If with the information they have there are signs for cold weather then why would they change it just to suite the Mild brigades liking ??

They have been calling cold weather for weeks now and they are still calling it but now for the second half of February! No doubt they will eventually get the colder than average forecast right once it is supposed to be spring. 

To be fair, they must have got their 15-30 day forecast correct for the current week in that case.

This winter has been like Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot. Who is Godot? Will he ever arrive? Will we recognise him if he does?

The background signals for HLB have been good for a long time, since before the SSW, but the downwelling has not played ball in the north Atlantic for the well known reason that eastern CONUS has been cold and has been popping out shortwaves like a man who drank too much dodgy beer last night.

Once the Canadian/CONUS cold relents, it should be game on - but will it?

The MetO were wrong in as much as they originally predicted the colder weather to arrive before the end of 2018 or in early January, that much is true. However, their forecast from around Christmas & New Year of a change to something colder generally from mid-January has more or less been correct, although I grant you that we haven't gone into a deep freeze.

Yes, not all of their outlooks have been correct, especially those that were issued for the first half of the winter. However IMO, no-one can claim they have been wrong about the last fortnight. No big freeze for sure, but my area and I think a fair number of others have seen more by way of wintry weather at times in the last two weeks than they had done in the preceding six weeks.

Sudden changes very possible in this set up .

The met office forecasts have certainly been pushing the colder spell back into the 15+ day range. But lets not forget we are currently in a cold spell with significant snow likely today in places and actually the ensembles for Manchester suggest below average temperatures (mean ECM ENS) out through to the 11th. The metoffice forecast certainly needs to be tweaked milder in my opinion but the overall feeling is clearly that these milder interludes will occur but the background signals are for significantly colder than normal weather moving through February. 

How do you know they are expecting changes?

Some uncertainty but could slide

but T384 shows mild why look at changes closer!!

It is only one run of course, but the deep FI section of the GFS 00z op run could not have been more different to the same bit of some other GFS op runs over the last couple of days. Not saying it will verify as shown of course, but what it does show IMO is that nothing at this time should be taken off the table when it comes to what happens later in February.

This is why I have found some of the negativity and criticisms of the MetO 's forecast somewhat hard to understand, if I'm being honest.