That doesn't rule out the odd transient wintry interlude but spring is on the way and I feel winter is done.

Still only January.  So amusing reading all these post about winters over.  The current trend is for it to turn milder, lol, the last trend was for it to be colder and the one before that and that etc. 

Prediction. Greeny high around 8th to 12th Feb, and a few humble pies to be eaten.  A little reset required then all to play for. 

Some extremely short memories on here.  This last decade has seen at least two nationwide easterlies at extremely late winter interventions that have given us memorable episodes of sever winter weather. 

Some extremely eminent metrolologist have mentioned that winters in the northern hemisphere are showing a trend towards late winter with more severe but shorter extremes as becoming the norm.

🤪

You do realise it is January? More of less one third of the meteorological winter remains. Your assertion that the models are reliable to 4 weeks out is perplexing. Based on the last week or so, four days seems to be pushing it. It is not “positivity” to suggest winter may not be over when it is still January, it is realism.

Saying that there is no obvious cold spell imminent based on the last few days’ output (on the day we have had the lowest temperature for 7 years) is fair enough I guess. Saying winter is over is histrionics.

reinforces my previous point. Cheers. 

Kieren, I live in the north of the UK, (just to the NE of Glasgow) but I don't live near any particularly high ground. You might think it's all over (famous last words!) for your area but I am not going to concede until at least the 20th of February, by which time we will be inside the last days of the new month and thus the last 10 days of this meteorogical winter season.

If you want to know more about the potential perils of writing off cold prospects too early, you could do a lot worse than speak to our much respected member from Cumbria, Andy Woodcock, about what happened almost exactly 14 years ago. I don't know of you were a member of this place back then; I wasn't one myself but was a regular visitor to this forum that winter and I well remember the commotion there was on here when Andy made his now infamous "Winter is over" when the models seemed to backtrack on a previously suggested cold spell. No sooner had the wrist-slitting on here started, than the models changed their mind again and brought the cold spell back. Furthermore, than was at the back end of a winter than was no better for cold than this one; rather worse IMO.

Great post, Michael.

Deep FI is unreliable at the best of times, but this winter the FI section of the GFS runs and even the 7-10 day bit of the ECM runs seems to have been particularly unreliable. One only has to look at the easterly spell that a few GFS op runs a couple of weeks ago would take place last week, and how ECM at the time never really bought into the idea. On top of that, it took the models long enough last week to work out the exact track of the LP which has brought fairly widespread heavy snowfall to southern parts of England and Wales today.

Moomin mentioned in one of his posts yesterday that "mild invariably wins", or words to that effect. If that were true, we would never have bad the blast from the east that occured at the end of last February. I can still remember the amount of turbulence there was in the ECM and GFS op runs for a time last February and we has a few people on here at the time who said they thought it was game over for cold.

You can tell the 18Z para is really trying.

Feels a little bit like a stone vs the ocean though.

No more than recently.

The ECM 12z ensemble suite shows the op was in the milder group but if anything the milder options seem to have dimished towards the end of the run.

Great.  Wet snow this Thursday evening led to heavy 1CM snow cover by about now 00:07 Circa Friday 1st February 2019, in my area, at last it turned to full snowfall that is readily settling at 1 degrees C in my area and in the Leytonstone PWS Station that is about 2 miles away to my West. Sleet turned to snow by about 23:40. Temp fell to 1 from 2 degrees and maybe nearer zero by now.

I understand this is Model Output Discussion Only.

The ECMWF 12z looks very good for those who like chilly as well as mild spells- interludes ahem- spells of wet and windy from Monday onwards next week all the way upto and including Saturday 9th February- all of North Atlantic straight across the UK- if it bring much needed rain the so be it.

The forecast is showing further snow on Friday evening and early part of Friday night.  

Heavy snow is continuing to fall here... so happy again, it looks like a blizzard but it is just moderate to heavy.  Ground covered throughout.

I'm certainly not writing the second half of February off. But I am also being factual. This is the model output discussion thread and there is very, very good agreement by recent standards to suggest that there will not be any serious cold in the next two weeks. February is a short month. Winter officially ends then. It is likely therefore we have two weeks that could produce something. But cherry picking rare examples in the past doesn't make it more likely. I absolutely agree there could be a decent cold spell but you have to accept that the odds are now more against it than for it. 

What if the models showed the next two weeks as cold and very cold in FI and I wrote:-

" Deep FI is unreliable at the best of times, but this winter the FI section of the GFS runs and even the 7-10 day bit of the ECM runs seems to have been particularly unreliable. One only has to look at the southerly spell that a few GFS op runs a couple of weeks ago would take place last week, and how ECM at the time never really bought into the idea. On top of that, it took the models long enough last week to work out the exact track of the LP which has brought fairly warm weatherl to southern parts of England and Wales today."

I'm sure you would have berated the post and quite rightly!

No, I would not have berated a post like that as long as it was based on facts and proper reasoning. IMO, anyone claiming they know with any certainty at this time what the weather will be like through all four weeks of Feb is not based on any facts or reasoning. It is based on nothing other than a hunch which may or may not turn out to be what happens in reality. I shall refer you to the post that Michael (Doc) made in response to Moomin earlier. There is reasonably good agreement now than there will not be any cold of note in the first 10-14 days of the month, but beyond that we don't yet know with any certainty. I don't see why it is unreasonable to say that much

I have never said that me or anyone else plucking individual examples of past late cold spells, be it the one last year or other late winter cold spells from the last 15 years, makes the same thing happening this time any more likely. At the same time though, it doesn't make it any less likely either. Yes, the models don't look great for cold generally at this moment in time- that much is true. However, anyone who has followed the model output regularly for any length of time must know that sometimes, the models can be as fickle as the weather itself often is. See the example from Feb 2005 which I mentioned in my reply to Moomin earlier.

By the way, for the avoidance of doubt I am not saying that the models will do a Feb 2005-style turnaround this time- they may not. But it shouldn't IMO be competely discounted at this time.

Were you abroad for late Feb/early March of last year perhaps?!?

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT8_London_ens.png 

At least the Op is good in FI!

ECM toying with a colder end to next week.

It is different to the GFS and not especially cold but if you think it is markedly zonal I think your browser may be cached as it is as much meridional as it is zonal.

It looks like it will turn notably milder at the start of the coming week for a while but after that there are no notable signals one way or the other and it could potentially end up persistently mild or surprisingly cold. I wouldn’t say either is highly likely but neither is impossible even by days 7 to 10.

I would say that chart says the future continues to look full of potential for coldies.

I can't see any promise of mild weather  

Not without interest

Yes. that is reasonable, but you are still implying that I am saying I am writing off all of February and winter which is absolutely NOT what I have said. I have said there is strong cross model agreement that the first two weeks will not be unusually cold. I have said that we then would only have two weeks of winter left.  That is just a statement of fact. It is not saying that on Feb 10th a Beast can't appear from nowhere. But at any time anything "could" happen but this thread is about what they are showing and I still contend that you would not be defending Shropshire in the same way had he posted a put down of cold charts when there was equal evidence to the contrary and nor should you. It's all about balance. 

I was in the red warning zone in edinburgh :-)

It wasn't all that to be honest, a 3-day spell among many snowfalls we had last year, with rubbish powdery snow no good for snowmen, and it didn't get as cold as it was this morning* in edinburgh. Certainly no Dec 2010.

*Dunno how accurate this is, but it seems to fit, low maxima but the minima were only a couple of degrees colder. This morning for comparison it was -7 to -9 depending on what station in edinburgh you use as a reference, and with a clear blue sky. Walked to work. Glorious -->

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/edinburgh/historic?month=2&year=2018