Too many obstacles to overcome to even get close 

At least some faux cold and if we get lucky a battleground snow event. But the northern arm of the jet is just too strong these days. 30 years ago, definitely, sadly today we need an SSW to kill the jet first

ECM seems more progressive.

Over the years that’s not an unusual scenario. I can remember not infrequent occasions when the ‘battleground’ was over the southern North Sea or Denmark, leaving us on the mild side of the zone.

But it is blocked. And its come a little earlier than the MJO would have suggested. I see three bursts of deep WAA prior to 192h, which strengthens the deep high each time.

Things certainly seem to be looking good by the end of the first week of February. Remember, the easterly might not be the 'one', often you need a faux cold scandi high prior to retrogression to greenland before the real cold gets in.

Still February looks like it has a good shot of being a cool month at the very least.

Moving on and of course I could be wrong but it looks like the models to me are starting to firm up on the orientation and location of the massive high (that should not exist). Just hoping we get to pull in some colder uppers and the chance of a convective easterly. February could  be a very interesting month especially if the strat charts are anyway near correct.

I always think SSWs are overrated anyway. The troposphere and the stratosphere are really not that well coupled at all; the tropopause is this massive wall of stability that really stops much interaction between the two. Its why I prefer to focus on the upper trop.

Dynamics of snow from the west is much different than from the east though

Yes obviously there is much more boundary layer modification. Still a bit depressing when we have deeper cold coming across 3000 miles of Atlantic than we can get from Scandinavia!

I agree. 

We're now at the time of the year when the classic "raw" easterly can develop. However, we're also approaching the point where daytime temperatures can increase noticeably due to the strengthening sun. 

It happened in 1996 when New York was -26C and this cold air travelled to here giving us -2c maxes from the west but snowfall was poor quality and wasn't much fallen as preicps band was broken to pieces instead of winter storm type to give us deep snow cover.

The famous white Christmas in 1999 was the result of an Atlantic flow.

Have you noticed how you need an anticyclonic flow to get truly deep cold from the US? If you have a slight 'sad face' shape in the contours you can quite easily get -12C uppers to the UK on a pure westerly, yet if you have 'smiley face' shaped contours, you struggle to get below -5C even with a direct flow. My guess is that even very modest descent from anticyclonic flow inhibits bouyant mixing and prevents the maritime boundary layer from mixing with the deep cold above.

So when watching those model outputs, look for 'sad face' shapes in the contours and see how easily they bring deep cold across the atlantic!

I might eat my words but this could be another winter that fizzles away.

They have to keep up their site visits somehow! The strat temp forecasts and all the WAA should in theory keep the high robust with enough to keep us under influence

It like when a plane travel from New York to London they go NE then E then SE to UK so you refering the isobars to be same lines that allow the cold air to travel as per the plane route and hit here than straight line which will warm up quicker.  I was in Los Angeles and Toronto during 1999 Xmas and was standard winter there and mostly sunny in LA.  Cold and snow from Greenland isobar route are also excellent for here due to Cheshire Gap firing up.

I've not noticed it, but your logic make sense. Also, I like your smiley (cyc) and sad face (anticyc) analogy - that's really excellent, although it would be nice if it was the other way round!

I suppose it works for mildies!

I've noticed it on model outputs mostly, but when the anticyclonic flow is really pronounced such as an almost southerly becoming almost northerly in the flow the uppers barely seem to get modified by the atlantic at all. Of course if you are after snow this is all rather counterintuitive, as synoptic scale stability is not conductive to showers; its quite possibly the showers that are doing all the mixing.

I suppose the ideal scenario for western based snow is just enough CIN (convective inhibition on a synoptic scale) to keep shower activity low across the entire atlantic until the friction from the land overcomes it and convection bursts into being over the UK. We see this kind of scenario sometimes in very cold anticyclonic easterlies or south easterlies. The uppers are something like -13C while the pressure is 1030hpa or something; no showers form over the North sea because the air is just too stable, but the friction over land is just enough to set off the showers. This kind of convective snow looks rather wierd because its rather continuous with the strongest precip pockets over the pennines rather than the coast. 2018 is a good example of this effect in action; I suppose come to think of it it also explains how the uppers got so cold with weak modification.

The troposphere is far from stable. In fact it would be fair to describe it as completely chaotic.

The tropopause not the troposphere. The tropopause is the interface between the troposphere and the stratosphere. It is characturised by a massive increase in stability