I'm suprised people are calling that EC solution isolated, it honestly wasn't; its just that the GFS and UKMO were against it; but when you include all the models the colder solution had more people in it!

In any case the scale definitely seems to be shifting now. ICON12Z brings the cold air even closer and is now going for a snow/freezing rain/graupel event across central parts on Saturday.

18"? Never used to count it till it got to 3ft back then!😂

We have, after all, just seen a classic easterly setup synoptically, complete with a 1050hPa high over Scandinavia and retrogression to Greenland, with heights remaining to the northeast. We've also seen an upper low over the Channel bringing instability and precipitation. Historically those blocks tend to last for longer than first modelled, and this seems to be no exception.

It's just been our damned bad luck that temperatures have been a few degrees too warm - and yes, it'd still have been too warm for most of us in the 80s!

At least with winds coming from the east or SE the cloud should, in theory, start to break in the south at least. The North Sea is injecting plenty of moisture into the mix at the moment, hence all the cloud.

What's the main reason then that this Easterly has been too warm? Surely it must be a consequence of how warm the continent has been this Winter and in the 80s it would have got the job done I would have thought?

There's been around 1C to 1.2C of warming since the 1980s (1.5 since 61-90 as a whole) down here. It increases more as you go east - it's 1.8 for Moscow in February. The main problem was that there was too much warm air in place to start with across Europe, exacerbated by the way it started with the high migrating NE'wards rather than the traditional extention of the Siberian High moving westwards - this one was a displaced Azores High essentially. Now it *is* possible for such a spell to evolve into a really cold, snowy spell - it's happened in the past - but it takes longer to get going, as the cold air takes longer to get dragged westwards.

In the 80s we'd just have had cold rain at 2.5C here rather than slightly less cold rain at 4C. It would have been the "second bite" which would have brought the snow, as shown by the deep cold air which until very recently was still appearing in some of the ensembles. It still looks likely to get as far as Germany, for example.

While that deep cold for us is now very much an outside option - but, note, can't be ruled out entirely - I'm hopeful we'll get enough of a Continental influence to bring in lower dewpoint air and with it, more in the way of sunshine. "Faux cold" it may be, but it'll be far more pleasant than the gloom we have at the moment.

Agreed! Just checked the GFS 12z and it looks more of the same to me a few more days of pointless coldish weather then milder.

Was just thinking that, just let it die already and move onto Spring. 

Looks like another week of this stalemate faces us. Still, it's better than stormy winds and frequent rain I suppose.

https://images.meteociel.fr/im/48/15895/ukmo_1_120oyl3.png 

EDIT: And looking at the dewpoint charts on the 12z GFS, while we will see widespread subzero dewpoints over the weekend and into next week, the really dry air - think -8 or below dewpoints - is now 150-200 miles further east than was shown a couple of days ago. Nothing on a global level, of course, but it makes quite a difference here!

Based on past experience we would get a bit of cold rain with wintriness restricted to higher ground inland. Even the fabled BFTE was mediocre here and last month was actually more wintry. The long (mildish) sea trek means almost anything from the east is cool and grey and damp. That MetO chart fills me with little cheer.

Some brutishly cold temps over Canada and northern States at the mo that will continue over the next 5 to 7 days at least. Makes you wonder if this will help fire up the Atlantic once again over the next couple of weeks. 3rd week of February is one of the stormier periods of the winter on average anyhow 

That's interesting, as (like here) you had -15 850s during the BTFE. Perhaps being closer to the centre of the high meant less convective action than down here? Due to a geographical quirk, the mouth of the Thames and the shape of the Channel seem to cause convergence zones, as we had in 2018, yet up where you are they seem to be vanishingly rare... can't even remember seeing them on a chart TBH. I guess polar lows are more your thing, but again they're rare beasts.

I'm waiting to see what the dewpoints are on the 12z MetO charts... I have a feeling that -10 to -12 850 air as shown would come with some rather low dewpoints, but then again there's more mixing going on the further north you are.

Only my view, but I am starting to get the feeling that a return of the atlantic next week may still not be a foregone conclusion as a few others have been suggesting over the past few days.

We did get some snow during the BFTE but even when the t850s were as low as -12°C we did actually get rain at times. The dewpoints are pretty low on the MetO chart at the time point you posted earlier so in this case it would probably just be cool/cold and grey as I think precipitation would be unlikely. I guess in a way it is “classic” winter weather, just not of the enjoyable type (here at least). I did get to experience the weekend’s easterly in the SE but have dried out now I’m back here. 😀

I remember reading on usw many years ago that despite -10 850s and 510(!) thicknesses, there have been times when there's been rain on the coastal strip of Northern Ireland. I guess it's similar where you are - rain at -12 would be unlikely down here, even with a relatively long NE'ly sea track.

This precipitation chart from the MetO sums it up well. It shows -4C dewpoints for you at the same time, but yes... there's a thin strip of rain around the coast (and a larger strip further south, where dewpoints are much higher). That boundary layer modification is quite something!

https://images.meteociel.fr/im/69/2488/ukmohd_uk1_42_93_0zet3.png 

Yep, 12z  not showing on the site I usually use.