Sleet! Oh no, don't say we are going to stagger from on set of horrible weather to another 🙄

Yes, a good point indeed. As you see from my and Retron's posts that 25 miles East of London makes a lot of difference and maybe being close to a very wide Estuary. I sometimes feel bad with my posts about the drought when I realise some places in the S.E much closer than you have had more rain. Do you consider yourself being in the S.E. Brian? Or are you stuck on the edge of several regions like me. Sometimes I am in East Anglia (very strong EA TV signal from Sudbury which is almost in Essex). Some maps show me in Eastern England yet Kent just a few miles away is sometimes considered Southern England. And my nearest London Borough, Havering, is just 6 miles west of here!

Now with a touch of IMBY I feel that the region least well represented in the charts  and forecasts is 'central southern England', comprising Hampshire and the adjacent parts of other counties. It gets lumped in with SE England (which fails to predict the effect of an easterly) or SW England (which soaks up any rain from the west). I'm sure it used to feature in MetO forecasts but it no longer does so.

I had the forum error the other day. I get around it by copying what what I plan to post, so if the Forum Error occurs, I can easily have another go at pasting/posting which invariably works. At the risk of veering dangerously off topic, I'm showing this link which I find very interesting for a novice like me. 

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/weather-news/7652/introducing-the-signal 

Edit. Thank you Brian.

I think 'forum error' occurs when someone else posts in the thread you're replying in, whilst you're typing your post.

I've generally got round this by clicking 'back' and my post is usually still there (the odd time it's not). Then, as NMA says, copy the text, refresh, paste and post (if refreshing doesn't work, go back to the thread, click 'reply' to reopen a dialogue box, paste your text and post.

If I can define 'far south-east' to be the area of Kent, Essex coast, and East Sussex (roughly SE of a SW-NE line through London) so that I live in it, then I completely agree with the observation that the weather here can be markedly different from the weather NW of London, especially when it comes to rainfall, with any incoming frontal rain fizzling out before it gets here.

We've still got a hosepipe ban, and this is understandable, given the latest Water Situation Report (see especially Section 3 Soil Moisture Deficit and Section 6 Reservoir Levels):

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68ee1df0e7b6794c076bbdee/Kent_and_South_London_Water_Situation_Report_September_2025.pdf 

So the forecast rain for this weekend and continuing unsettled, as shown on GEFS 00z London, is very welcome.

Equal beter chance for sunny days after clearance.  Someone posted showing lot of clear skies zones where the LP is than this dirty HP.

Just in too much of a rush this morning to think rationally😒

GFS picks up the LP in the western approaches and deepens it 970mb Wales Thu 23rd, N-ly gales or storm force behind and SW gales in front as it moves east and hangs around NE Scotland for a couple of days to Sat 25th. There is then a quieter interlude of HP before the Atlantic winds up again; LP 985mb Rockall Thu 30th moving to 985mb Irish Sea Sun 2nd.

ECM views Thursday's storm as a development of the northern remnants rather those in the west, and shows a more mobile depression 980mb Outer Hebrides running SE-wards to Denmark 970 mb Fri 24th. Winds are less strong than on GFS. Any 'hanging around' is done over Norway while Britain is under an area of HP 1025mb

GEM is closer to GFS

GEFS from Thu 24th temps drop to cool (or even cold (op and control both at times 10C below norm) for a week before recovering to nom at start of November. Rain heaviest around Sun/Mon 19th/20th and Wed/Thu 23rd/24th but by no means dry at other times, possibly heavy again at start of Nov. 

AIFS London, maxima holding at 15C until 24th, then down to 8C before recovering, rain at same times as GEFS but not as heavy. Edinburgh, temp profile as for London but a couple of degrees lower, then a first nighttime air frost, -2C on Sat 1st. Rain 20th and 28th, small amounts at other times

GFS picks up the LP in the western approaches and deepens it 970mb Wales Thu 23rd, N-ly gales or storm force behind and SW gales in front as it moves east and hangs around NE Scotland for a couple of days to Sat 25th. There is then a quieter interlude of HP before the Atlantic winds up again; LP 985mb Rockall Thu 30th moving to 985mb Irish Sea Sun 2nd.

ECM views Thursday's storm as a development of the northern remnants rather those in the west, and shows a more mobile depression 980mb Outer Hebrides running SE-wards to Denmark 970 mb Fri 24th. Winds are less strong than on GFS. Any 'hanging around' is done over Norway while Britain is under an area of HP 1025mb

GEM is closer to GFS

GEFS from Thu 24th temps drop to cool (or even cold (op and control both at times 10C below norm) for a week before recovering to nom at start of November. Rain heaviest around Sun/Mon 19th/20th and Wed/Thu 23rd/24th but by no means dry at other times, possibly heavy again at start of Nov. 

AIFS London, maxima holding at 15C until 24th, then down to 8C before recovering, rain at same times as GEFS but not as heavy. Edinburgh, temp profile as for London but a couple of degrees lower, then a first nighttime air frost, -2C on Sat 1st. Rain 20th and 28th, small amounts at other times

I think I'm right in remembering that GFS tends to over-do cyclogenesis and in the end LPs are not as intense as forecast initially. We'll see what happens with this one. 

Lets hope so. If the 00z comes off then it will be another October 87 or Burns Day 1990.

ECM and UKMO look much better

👍I'll probably develop that in the coming months.

TBH, I think we’re (and I don’t mean just on TWO) reaching “peak” model output across the board, and there will be a lot of changes in the next few years. Much of the additional output now available offers very little value, and with AI models being much quicker to run, we could soon face an overwhelming deluge of data. Therefore, distilling and presenting it effectively will become key. That said, I’ve just added UK forecast wind gust and dew point charts to the ECM IFS viewer as I think they do add value. They can be viewed here:

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/ecmhr.aspx 

I think it also follows a drop in the quality overall t hat is presented to us on the TV. I mean in the slot that used to be for the main BBC weather forecast at 17.55pm they have about 3 minutes the first minute of which is forecasting that day's afternoon which has already happened and makes it glaringly obvious when it was wrong! The Met Office Site web videos seem to have an endless number of different presenters who are all very good at presenting but the content is usually quite bland. After the demise of the proper 17.55pm Home Service/Radio 4 forecast +shipping forecast (do they still exist as such?) the Countryfile forecast for the week ahead became my gold standard - not seen it lately but last time I did it was still probably the best readily available notwithstanding Brian's of course 😊

I've always thought Berkhamsted is in the south east. However, reading posts from you and Darren does highlight the differences in weather all year round. Whilst not exactly great here in the winter, it does seem we have a significantly better chance of seeing snow than the far south east. I'd put that down to the strange demise of the mid winter Scandi high. In these parts we can do ok from a mid Atlantic - Greenland high pattern. 

Hear, hear! and it's not just members of TWO that have a detailed interest in weather; (blows own trumpet) several hundred people a day read the detailed review which I do, and I'm fairly sure they're not forum members. What irks me is that if the interview preceding the 5.57pm R4 weather overruns, it's the weather that gets cut not the trailer which has to be squeezed in regardless. Result is that an intelligent and knowledgeable forecaster has to fit everything in to a 30-second gabble., no mention of prospects related to larger atmospheric movement such as the jet stream. That makes the business of forecasting appear absolutely trivial.

There's still a radio shipping forecast at 5.54pm on Saturday and Sunday on R4.

GFS makes more of the second LP but stalls it over Scotland 965mb Thu 23rd before taking it away NE-wards with strong N-lies for all behind. Pressure then rises over S Britain and there is a week of W-lies before a deep LP sets up in mid Atlantic 955mb Sat 1st switching the wind to a strong SW-ly. It makes little progress E-wards but broadens out sufficiently to start bringing cold air down from Greenland esp to Scotland by Tue 4th. GEM follows this pattern.

ECM puts more emphasis on the first of the FAX LPs which deepens to 970mb by the time it reaches the N Sea and runs E-wards rather than NE, while the second gets down to Cornwall as a weak feature. The pressure rise then follows.

GEFS mean temps dipping to their lowest (6 or 7C below norm) Sun 26th before soon rising to norm into November though in the S both Op (30 Oct) and control (3 Nov) are massively warm outliers (9 or 10C) - but just as many very cold ones. Scotland also has a wide spread of temps but not so extreme.  Rain nailed on for today/tomorrow and Wed 23rd, heavy rain in Nov in some runs but others completely dry.

AIFS London follows GEFS, picking the option of a drier November.  Edinburgh not only has a dip in temp 26th but adds another Fri 31st (one day only) and had rain at regular intervals throughout.