As Liam Dutton has mentioned, it’s more of a fart of cool air rather than anything remotely resembling the original BFTE. I’m just hoping for more of this lovely sunshine. You can feel the suns strength now this time of year out of any wind. Looks like more to come on current output 

Unsurprisingly Nick Miller seems to disagree saying there could be significant cold after next weekend. The truth is it could be either!

could be cold enough for snow flurries ??

06z Control brings the -10c uppers in earlier on 10th: - But mostly for the south,.

Yet Liam is correct. The cold pool over the continent isn’t even close to what it was on the BFTE

ECM ens remain poor with the high the wrong shape and not able to send any deep cold.

GFS is better but the good stuff is still over a week away. 

Unfortunately we will probably end up with a chilly SE flow, just hope its sunny and not a dirty high

Taking the current possible one, there's a few things I'll be looking at:-

* What are the actual on the ground temps? If uppers aren't overly cold do we get low level cold IMBY via the continent or do we pick up air that's travelled over the North Sea, in which case for me it's likely to be chilly but miserable whilst further west it'll be cool to average and sunny? 

* Are the uppers cold enough for decent convection to form over the sea? Most decent easterlies have a deep cold pool that moves through, drops some snow and then whilst uppers moderate the surface air is cold and stays that way, with any further precip falling as snow despite modest uppers.

* Will we get a reload with another cold pool moving through, either due to the HP sticking around for long enough or due to it relocating?

Easterlies are one of those uncommon patterns that I find quite hard to read in terms of surface weather at anything other than close range. You can have cold uppers but limited convection, cold uppers and a lot of convection, coldish uppers with surface moderation and fairly uninspiring cool but not cold temps, unspectacular uppers with very cold surface air (if you import it from the continent), clear skies, perma gloom, convection closer to the centre of the HP and nothing on the periphery etc. 

In terms of the current pattern I like Michaels rather succinct summary of what's looking likely. An easterly influence of some description looks highly likely, the detail after that is TBC. I guess as you'd expect given it's currently in FI, the models aren't really strongly agreeing on whether we import any decently cold uppers and for how long and there's still a chance looking across the ens suites that we only get a gentle and not particularly cold easterly drift with a slow wander back to something more typical. I think as it stands that's an outside chance but as ever even though for MBY it looks much more likely we'll get at least a day or two of uppers around the -7 to -10c range, I'll wait until that's in the 4-5 day range before getting too interested.

As always seems to be the case though, the interesting bits tend to get pushed back by about 24 hours each day, once the models pick up something that looks interesting!

Which is true and I understand the desire to make it very clear that we're not looking at depth of cold close that spell involved, with usual hype coming from some sections of the media.

That said though ultimately most models are showing a strong possibility of air around -8 to -10c at 850 level at least for some and for a couple of days, which would likely result in temps of 1-3c on the surface and *if* things align could lead to some snowfall for prone areas. I suspect your average member of the public won't care if it's -15c or not at 850 level if it's cold at the surface and the traffic is screwed due to a bit of snow.  You can go too far stressing it's not 'classic spell of winters past' IMO and end up misleading people to thinking it's just going to be a few cool days and end up looking a bit daft if it ends up more than that. (Unless that's what happens of course and/or the models back away from anything more than a brief chilly spell, in which case it would be reasonable for Mr Dutton to go in to full on Kryten smug mode😂). 

I haven't seen the forecast but if it was me I'd be making it clear it's not the same as 2018, the airmass is noticeably less cold but if the pattern persists it's currently looking possible for the weather to move through chilly to cold with increased chances of some snow but that's a long way off, keep tuned to the forecasts etc. etc. 

GFS is indicating light snow flurries coming down the Channel, from afternoon on the 10th onwards.

https://modeles16.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2025020206/gens-31-0-192.png 

2018 was a significant event 850 wise - up there with the top five of the last few decades. You don’t need -14 uppers to generate snow. -8 to -10 will do the job of the feed is between 80 deg and 120 deg for example.

My interpretation is we have a cold spell incoming, but how cold and how snowy is a fair way yet from being resolved.

If the airflow was coming from the continent he’d be right, but is it?  It doesn’t look like a south-easterly flow to me?

Agreed, but he was referring to the depth of cold that could be tapped into. 

As others have noted, you don’t need BFTE levels of cold for snow, but then again I don’t recall anyone saying you do. 

Great Summary - and all very true. The scenario has been batted about for 2 weeks, and is only now gaining momentum with cross model support. Enjoy the ride, this is model watching in the top 20% end of the spectrum, and we might yet end up in the top 5%. 

Yes indeed, but even then the 850s and forecast 2m temps are not that cold, would hope it would end up colder than that if the pattern did evolve that way.

As runs go possibly one of the best, background signals sort of support it. Could be quite a cold February 

That will welcome and greet Darren when he back home from Japan like myself really want an 80's proper cold freeze type to arrive   I am after proper subzero temps which is my priority, less cold temps 1-4C thanks but no thanks.

We deserve a reward for this winter. So much cloudy highs. We need this.

I’ll get your coat 😉

(You’re going to need it).

Short GEFS solid. -8 mean London by 9th.