GFS Op 00z: LP moving its way up the W coast of Britain to reach S Norway 970mb Thu 19th with NW-lies behind it re-inforced by LP near Iceland and still strong on Mon 23rd. HP from the SW then takes charge covering Britain 1035mb Christmas Day, intensifying and ridging to the east before declining Sun 29th. (Sunny and mild? or local frost and fog at surface?) . The HP then retreats towards Greenland, allowing weak N-lies to affect Britain especially the E coast through to 2nd Jan.

ECM and GEM - very similar to GFS, HP over Christmas a touch further south so mild WSW breeze

GEFS - temps swinging down and up and again with a couple of brief cold shots before Christmas. Then for Christmas week itself rather mild but declining steadily to norm by 2nd Jan. More cold outliers in this last period than shown yesterday including op 8C below norm New year's Day, Some rain this week esp S & W but then mainly dry. 

Just the usual noise im afraid

One man’s noise is another’s message. The ensemble suite hints at another pattern change around year end, but as ever more runs…

Has some support on this morning's EC mean as well. 

In the winter there’s often no correlation between 850 hPa and surface temperatures. Yesterday’s charts for Xmas Day had it cooler at the surface than above.

Yes, but we have a decent chance of a foehn effect with this set up. If that happens think records will fall.

Where do you get this idea from? That might be true in very rare instances but very specific requirements need to be in place, especially for small maritime islands. No wind, relatively dry airmass etc etc. Warm 850s much more often than not will bring warmer than average conditions in winter. 

By contrast to get a foehn you need very humid airflow moving over orography and strong winds produce better foehns. With the sort of pattern shown for xmas I'd expect a north-south temperature gradient with warmer conditions in the north and colder conditions in the south.

The major caveat to this is that the north is closer to the polar front so is more likely to be in a different airmass entirely.

Keep watching 27th onwards.

The good stuff is always 2 weeks away and like a mirage disappears as we get closer!  

Might do, but its better than it not being there.

Although its far off it sets the stage for some really cold air to be quite nearby in Scandanavia and Eastern Europe that could be advected towards us.

I dunno about that. The adage "It's the hope that kills ya" is true.

I think I enjoy watching the model output for snow more than the actual snow itself.

😁

Seems true with many as if it does happen people lose their sh1t over a breakdown 😂

I love to see snow falling, and love it even more when it settles; as a scene, it's beyond compare to me. I also love the challenge it poses, knocking you out of the 'comfort bubble' most of us exist in.

But I struggle to get overly excited when it's largely going to be gone within 24-48 hours.

Both Dec 09 and Dec 10 we had around 7-10 days of lying snow, and it was great. In Jan 10 it stayed on the ground for 3-4 weeks. Brilliant stuff.

In Jan & March 2013, we had three falls that left at least 10cm, plus another of around 5cm. None stayed more than a few days.

Even excluding the festive timing, I'd prefer the Dec 09/Dec 10 snowfalls (and, of course, the Jan 10)

That aside and looking at the charts there's some interesting weather shown, even if it's mostly some distance away from me. A flick through the UKV run suggests, in the more reliable timeframe, alternating airmasses bringing cold enough air for snowfall to Scotland, along with strong winds for many Western parts at times. I've stuck up a couple of charts with a few more I could have added on different days showing this. (There does appear to be a small window where the air may be cold enough for wintriness on high ground in Northern England and Wales on Thursday but it's a bit blink and you'll miss it).

There's also some coastal gales shown for the extreme SE tomorrow, although not looking at strong winds inland. I guess I should also say there's several hours of potentially heavy rain shown for a wider area of the  south and SE tomorrow too, which is more interesting than gray and drab at least. The ground around here is pretty saturated at the moment so I'd expect some local flooding and a lot of surface water runoff. 

Longer term and some glimmers of hope on the last couple of GFS runs that HP will move a touch further North, allowing either surface cold to develop or bringing in properly cold air. There's a corresponding dip in the ens albeit deep in FI, so may well fade away over subsequent runs. 

Yes, tomorrow's gales have appeared like an unwelcome lump of coal in a stocking... gradually being ramped up over the past few days.

And yet again, it's MetO vs GFS. The former here has gusts to 46 tomorrow evening, while GFS has 58 - the difference between a very windy spell and more trees and fences down. Further SE, at Langdon Bay, both models have several hours of gusts in the mid 50s. I'm surprised there's no warning for it, considering the one that's been issued for NW England mentions 40-50 inland and 50-60 along coasts - exactly what we'll be getting down here. Odd, but it's not the first time recently that their eyes have been off the ball!

The score this extended winter season so far is 3-0 to the GFS in terms of peak wind speeds here - a change from last year where the honours were shared between the two models.

Some extraordinarily (abnormally, even) warm 850s projected for much of north America in the run up to the new year.