The New Year's Day storm appears nailed on with even the cautious TV presenters issuing warnings for travel a few days out, though the models appear to have drawn back from the extremes. And the cluster of cold ens members are showing their hand, too.
WX charts; week 1 just about on the cold side of norm for N Europe inc Britain, with the unusually above norm to the NE getting pushed S-wards to the Black Sea. In week 2, indications of a full-on E-ly with freezing weather across all of N Europe, affecting most of Britain and ultra cold for Scandinavia. But there's quite a sharp temp gradient N-wards from Mid-France which with Spain stays quite mild, with the implication of 'interesting' weather along the Channel. Pptn quite heavy in week 1 for N Scotland and N France; in week 2 affecting most of W Europe with the heaviest for Portugal, SW Britain and the Alps.
GFS Op 00z: current HP fading rapidly. Small LP 995mb running across Scotland Tue 31st then a deeper one 985mb across N Britain Wed 1st though not as stormy as on some of yesterday's charts. This begins to draw in the N-lies, gently at first, much stronger Tue 7th as LP 980mb runs up the English Channel. This runs into Scandinavia and keeps NE-lies going for a while before pressure rises over Greenland and diverts a deep LP 965mb towards Biscay with strong E-lies for Britain, looking very cold in Scotland as the source there in N Norway rather than N Germany, as for England.
FAX has both storms, 998mb Tue 31st Scotland, and 990mb Wed 1st SW England, and looks stormier than GFS.
ECM: Not nearly as dramatic as GFS; LP Wed doesn't amount to much and the winds soon back into the NW rather than N - though in the last chart of the run Wed 8th, HP near Iceland is encouraging a cold pool over Germany to track towards Britain.
GEM: also downgrades the NYD storm though strong enough to draw in NE-lies for a while before relaxing to NW-ly like ECM. Then on Tue 7th an LP tracking down the N Sea brings in some very cold air from the east with a large HP block over Greenland.
GEFS: Although a random selection of milder outliers in the S offer a note of caution to cold rampers, the large majority of ens members descend into the freezer Thu 2nd (5C below norm) and agree to stay there for several days, slowly relaxing their grip and becoming less unanimous after Thu 9th though mean is still a couple of degrees below norm. Pptn heavy 1st/2nd, also 31st/1st in Scotland, some more likely for England around Sun 5th, persisting with small amounts thereafter. Snow row predicting chances of 1/3 in the south, 2/3 for N England, certain for N Scotland; lower snow row figures after NYD probably indicating that if there is pptn it will be snow, rather than a choice between rain and snow.
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography - Ambrose Bierce
Chichester 12m asl