Now that would be a decent Christmas present - if only. 1970 anyone? That was a Christmas treat - snow flakes tumbling from azure blue skies, well below freezing, with the crystals glittering like a million diamonds falling from the sky, and powder snow, in heaped drifts, and hard packed snow on unwritten lanes, with rosy cheeks and hearty walks after a joyful Christmas lunch. Ahhh - if only.....

FAX - Atlantic LPs feeding strong SW-lies with associated troughs and fronts across Britain (977mb N Ireland today, 970mb mid-Atlantic Monday, 960mb running up the west coat Tue, twin threat Wed from 980mb Azores and 958mb Greenland). Often stormy.

GFS Op - Differences in timing but like the above to begin with. A rise of pressure over the near Continent Wed 10th slows the last LPs down but they arrive Sun 14th 985mb Scotland. The E-ly offered by GEM (Brian's post in Snow Chance) is absent and instead on Tue 17th there is a dartboard low 935mb SW Iceland. Continuing unsettled

ECM - also expects the W-ly theme to continue but picks out different depressions, mainly secondaries in advance of the deeper LP on the Atlantic;  980mb Mon 8th E Scotland, 970mb Orkney Wed 10th, 990mb Hebrides Fri 12th , 970mb W Ireland Tue 16th. Then a large LP covering Britain Thu 18th making way for yet another from the west Sun 21st.

AIFS - London, very mild early next week (Maxima 13C), drifting down to 8C by Sat 20th, rain most likely Mon/Tue 8/9th, Mon15th and Sat 20th. Edinburgh,  maxima ca 9C now, down to 5C by 20th but with mild boosts Tue 9th, Sun 14th and Fri 19th. Rain as for London

GEFS perturbations at T+180 consistently showing weather arriving from points between S and W (though P20 has a nice bulge of HP from the continent across Britain).  Generally mild or very mild for the next few days, then mean near norm well supported by ens members. Rain likely from now to Wed 10th, then a dry interlude (not that it ever really gives up in the far W), then most ens members have rain in the week beginning Sat 13th.

Wet and possibly stormy to the middle of next week, then a quieter few days but back to square one from next weekend

I wasnt born but my parents used to tell me about that.  Sadly we need a miracle.  Straw clutching GEM aside, the outlook looks horrendous. 

Looking at UKV and it's take on the T90ish LP, that makes it a deeper feature and has stronger winds for Western areas, potentially disruptively so for some parts:-

GFS is also now developing the T90ish feature, having not done so yesterday (on the runs I looked at anyway) and has a core of 72mph ish running up the Irish sea.

Definitely something to keep an eye on IMO and even if the winds end up being lower the rain may well bring further flooding.

Bigger picture wise and the ens are resolutely milder than average IMBY, noticeably so for 2-3 days then generally mild but in a 'modern' winter kind of fashion with day time temps 10-12c. Not wildly dissimilar as you head up the country at first glance, so wind and rain remains overwhelmingly more likely to generate headlines/issues than cold. 

Something about the whole n. hemisphere pattern and temp distribution though is sort of eye-catching. That huge cooler than average temp anomaly swathe across a large part of Alaska, Canada and northern States - and even into Siberia, seems to be going nowhere and I do have a (likely misplaced) hunch that this will lead to, or at least trigger, something much more wintry in this part of the world as we get deeper into the season. 

This is loosely what the GEM 0z shows. But perhaps it's just playing 'catch up' and the more recent inputs that GFS/ECM have have overtaken that.

The 0z GFS does show some signs of this evolution, but right into FI. So zero confidence.

Back to the drawing board.

Why am I seeing this from GEM for same time on 15th/16th?

That's labelled as Friday's 12Z update. 

Wetterzentrale.de GEM hasn't updated for some reason. It's on TWO and Meteociel.fr 

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

That means less cyclogenisis, because usually cold airmass and warm ocean off eastern seaboard blasts up the jet. If USA/Canada warm up then at leas there will be more of chance for a block to develop to the north of Uk and colder air but won't be until a week after that so we probably won't see any cold weather (if any) until end of month!

Icon is similar although holds the strongest winds to the west of Ireland, with 100+ mph off the coast of the North West of Scotland and 80+ mph for Skye etc.as below (still 60mph or so for South West coastal areas as the storm tracks northwards).

The T180 chart from Icon is also not without interest from a coldie POV, with what I assume is a surface HP over Scandi, with a deep cold pool poised to move underneath it. Over analysing a bit but it looks like residual heights to our south would scupper the cold pool getting too far west and the cold would be channelled towards Greece but it's not too far from a decent set up at least. There's been a bit of toying with HP developing over or near to Scandi around that time frame so worth keeping a small portion of an eye on in case it's not a temporary modelling blip (GFS has none of it, continuing the stormy theme at that point).

PV does shift over to Siberia, pressure begins to build over Greenland/Baffin, energy stars to slide into mainland Europe.... and then it all goes into reverse and by the end we're right back in this bloody awful set-up of the UK permanently under this bloody low pressure.

Except it’s not midday in Florida on that chart but around dawn, the coolest part of the day.

or more likely not, Cant see any way out of this rut.  Could well last all season.  

GFS Op agrees with Fax, and then continues with the South-of-Greenland LP breaking away from its moorings and moving E-wards near Scotland Mon 15th. But a new LP then appears off Greenland 960mb. This one is more mobile and gets to N Scotland Thu 18th with a trough well south into England; only to be followed by another which arrives 970mb Irish Sea Sun 21st and sits over Britain slowly filling. Good news for ducks ... and the water companies.

The jetstream remains strong and aimed at the south of Britain for most of the forecast period

ECM has just as much low pressure but more mobile, LP centres breaking off and running past N Scotland. The trough noted on Thu 18th dips further south, a secondary centre 970mb N England and on Mon 22nd another local centre is also well south near SW Ireland.

GEM keeps pressure higher over Europe, up to 1040mb Poland Tue 16th, but only helping to feed the SW-lies even if it holds the passage of LPs further to the NW. No sign of E-lies as suggested yesterday.

AIFS is the one for coldies: London maxima 13 -14C now, 10C Mon 15th, BELOW ZERO(!) from Thu 18th. Rain in the coming week, drier later with snow flurries by the end. Edinburgh, maxima up and down between 10C now and 5C Thu 18th, then a cooler period around 3C , rain from time to time.

GEFS: at T+180 the perturbations are still mostly SW-ly biased but several have a pressure rise over Europe with calmer conditions over Britain esp P14 (beware fog?) . Line graphs show mild with rain now, briefly drier Wed 10th, then mean temp near norm, but cooling slightly, rain in many ens members from Fri 12th and heavy in the west, only a couple of outliers to match AIFS temps. 

Draw a line from Nova Scotia to Biscay, then onto Murmansk, across to the north of Baffin Bay, then back down to Nova Scotia. Within that, for the entire run, is essentially a complex area of low pressure with multiple individual systems. From time to time, high pressure encroaches on the fringes

The result for the UK is relentlessly wet, often breezy/windy and prety average maxes (mild nights). Our only respite would be the odd day when the Euro High ridges north over the south-eastern half of the UK - bringing dry but horribly mind temps.

Exactly - dreadful isn't it!? Very unseasonal. This could be a December to forget.

The silver lining is that after 15th December all major cities in NE states of US/Canada such as NYC, DC, Phili, Boston MA, Halifax NS are turning milder (closer to seasonal average) so this could be when we see any chance of something colder or at least drier. At the moment it remains very cold there and thus milder here with cyclogenisis etc. A lot of scatter but one to keep an eye on.

NYC 06z ENS:

DC 06z ENS

Philadelphia

Some of the ensemble members offer the possibility of a pattern change and several of the ECM AIFS ones produce blocking patterns as we move towards Xmas.  But the notable point is how windy it’s going to be for the next week or so: London wind gusts:

https://www.meteociel.fr/cartes_obs/gens_display.php?x=&y=&run=6&ville=Londres&lat=51.5085&lon=-0.12574&runpara=0&type=8&ext=1