Brave call to go for a northerly just before Christmas at this range. 👍

There are indeed only limited signs of sustained cold or indeed sustained milder spells. All quite mobile and at times seasonal.

Further out and UKMO has a marginally more interesting set up at T168 than GFS or GEM, both of whom have less northward ridging of an HP cell that's just west of the UK - might not make much difference in the end although UKMO does look very similar to this mornings ECM chart which was a cooler setup than the GFS managed. 

No winter nirvana charts on display but I imagine next weeks potential storm will hold the interest, plus there's still the snowfall on Tuesday for Northern England and Scotland, albeit that looks to be a chiefly high ground affair at present (maybe lower ground for parts of Scotland). 

GFS Op starts with more or less conventional Atlantic influence, troughs moving E-wards across Britain now and Fri 6th 985 mb Shetland, mild in advance of the trough and colder after, more unsettled in the north (not as stormy on 6th as shown yesterday). The second trough develops into an extended feature over Europe bringing in cold NE-lies but Britain is not affected as HP develops from the SW 1045mb Mon 9th Ireland. This HP then slowly goes back to the Atlantic with winds going round from W to NW but still the major influence on Britain until LP near Iceland Sat 1th deepens and runs SE into the N Sea drawing in Arctic air. There are storm force gales for the East Coast (985mb off Scotland Mon 16th), with cold air flooding south into Europe.

ECM reaches the same endpoint as GFS Mon 9th but it looks as if the HP may persist longer rather than going back to the Atlantic with the Euro-trough developing a separate feature near Brittany affecting SW Britain. But on the way there, as well as LP running into the N Sea FRi 6th, an extra LP appears 995mb Ireland, crosses Britain and augments the LP in the N Sea 985mb Holland with strong N-ly gales for all of Britain Sun 8th.

GEM - closer to GFS, though the HP after Mon 9th is pushed back SW-wards more quickly by LP 1010mb running into SW Scotland Wed 11th.

GEFS - becoming cold Wed 4th, then mild Fri 6th, then cold Sun 8th, recovering to norm (slowly in SE, more quickly elsewhere) but with little end agreement after Tue 10th. Rain (snow for high ground on tail end?) around Fri 6th , then dry for a while but chances of rain increasing later. 

Cold zonality is what we last had down here in 1984, where you get snow or some sleetiness in the wake of departing lows. It's still possible further north, but much less likely than it used to be. Down here it's just zonality.

(I always look for -10 850s for snow down here; you can get away with less but it makes it much more likely if you can hit that mark. There remain a few stragglers in the GEFS which bring the -10 850 line here, briefly, but as with last time the ECM ensembles are having none of it - none of their 50 members go below -9 here, by comparison). Both stats from the 0z runs.)

-6 C to -8 C uppers can and do bring snow but once again marginal with high ground being favoured, nonetheless it'll get to be feeling raw in that strong east wind come the moment. 

I’m surprised by your comment, Darren: the term ‘cold zonality’ describes a synoptic pattern where the angle of attack of the LP systems brings winds between west and north rather than the typical zonality of winds predominantly between south and west.  The fact that global warming has added a degree or so to ocean and air temperatures is, as you know, the main issue that’s reduced the wintriness.

Really is an unusual run for mid December obviously one op run and likely wrong but in the run up to Christmas it could make it quite festive

Longer term there's still a variety of options as you'd expect although the ECM op goes with HP sitting over the UK and a prolonged dry spell. That leads to surface cold as the colder uppers get replaced with much warmer air. 

Still nothing overly exciting from a coldie POV, although cold enough for wintry stuff at times for some. Outside of some brief colder shots this week, the main theme is still wind and rain, with the GFS 6z op suggesting >50mph gusts are possible from Wednesday onwards. This is initially for NW parts of the UK with bands of strong winds then crossing much of the country, meaning pretty much everywhere has a day or two of strong winds. Saturday in to Sunday is looking noticeably windy down the east coast, something I think the GFS has modelled for a few days now. 

The kent problem: The best wind direction for heavy convective snow is easterly; but that's also the direction that makes the kent boundary layer distinctly maritime. Its kent's fault for being so close to the coast. The sweat spot is close enough to get the showers but the effect of the sea has started to wane so its all snow.

Actually the precense of cold core lows over Europe has an additional benefit beyond the synoptics. It also means when the wind does go to the east there will more likely be a pool of cold air to tap into. Its all very encouraging. The Azores high truly is the main enemy of cold conditions in the UK.

ENE'lies are better in terms of convective potential, you get a frictional effect from the narrowing of the Thames estuary and it means heavier snow. Similarly ESE'lies are best for southern Essex.

Anything due east or further south ends up coldest of all, due to the lack of boundary modification. Traditionally you'd want an east or ESE'ly feed to bring essentially unmodified Continental cold, then a switch north of east to bring in snow... and when the breakdown came from the west, you could get away with 850s of zero and 500-1000 thicknesses of 540, just as they look for in the States.

Without that cold boundary layer then you're stuck with the old classics: a minimum of -5 at 850, 522 thickness (which is the 50/50 rain/snow boundary according to research on usw back in the day), or better still -10 and below 520 respectively.

It's a shame the old Meteostar sampled pages no longer work, but old-timers will remember the WZ meteograms - they still work, and yes, "London" is now 50 miles to the north! Here's the 6z GFS output, I find the thickness and 850 sections uniquely useful.

The original URL is here:

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?geoid=49069&model=gfs&var=212&run=6&lid=OP&bw=1 

https://ukwct.org.uk/weather/GFS_U.png 

The plus side is that at the moment the model output doesn't suggest that by Christmas we'll be starting to lock in a southwesterly that remains in place until late February. Of course I'm absolutely not saying that won't happen, just that it isn't nailed on at this point. In other words it will be interesting to see whether the model output goes in the coming days and weeks. I suppose we could say the referee has blown the starting whistle and at least we're not 2 goals down after the first few minutes with a "game over" situation rapidly approaching.

Indeed so, Brian. The modelling offers pretty scant fare for the majority of the UK population. Yet at least the Atlantic hasn't (yet) got a stranglehold on the outlook. I suspect the priority for most will be avoiding the wet and windy dross that has afflicted the festive period in the populous SE quadrant for several years running. 

This is excellent stuff.

I think you can get similar stuff on meteociel, they also do cross sections across a line of your choice which are really really cool.

Entirely subjective but the summer and autumn have felt a little different to recent years - not so overtly hot during the summer and a very wet September followed by the lengthy November settled spell. 

May not make any difference but as you say so far at least no real signs of a length SW zonal spell, which at least means there's more to discuss in the models than how wet and mild it looks😁

Agree, to an extent. Cold airmasses can trump warmer sea temps though on occasion. For example, parts of the Great Lakes (I know, not a sea as such) have had some extraordinary falls of snow recently, with even more to come. And this is largely down to extremely warm water temps being overridden by an extremely cold air mass. The (temporary) cooling of the north Atlantic during 2014-2015 was also largely down to the extreme cold spilling out of North America, leading to increased storminess and more 'churning' of the seas, during the winter of 2013-2014. All knock-on effects and all that, but I do believe that the warmer SSTs over the Atlantic in recent years is tied to the lack of real winter storminess over the basin since about 2000 or so (and wind data from Belmullet & Valentia confirm this). 

I agree and posted about this 6-7? weeks ago when I made the favorable (in my opinion) comparison with the then recent synoptics with those of the 60's, 70's and 80's.

And that comparability is still there.

Interesting output

Have to agree. The momentum for a significant low that is deepening as it crosses the country late Friday is increasing and is the main interest at the moment IMO.

Possible snow to its North, possible severe gales to its South.

A chance of some more general eastern side of the UK snow Monday according to the Op, doesn't quite make it here in the centre, but not far off...