There was some talking about cold HP over Scandinavia and now seeing the forecast for Lapland very cold with sub -20 to -30C a massive improvement from last year near snowless and less cold temperatures which when we get an easterly we got lot of rain and mild temps,. hope this time if tap to this to get Feb 1991 type.

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?geoid=48656&model=gfs&var=201&run=0&lid=ENS&bw=1

Green lines out of order so have to work out myself as it will be stayingj cold with snow tonight and Tuesday night to Wed.  

GFS Op 0z - agrees with FAX, and places a deep LP 970mb N England Fri 9th, almost deserving the appellation 'dartboard low'), with an extended trough to the north. This dips into the N Sea and fills quickly, to be replaced by LP hanging around near W Ireland 980mb Mon 12th That in turn runs across to the N Sea and fills. Then W-lies for a while before a reload of the trough off Ireland Sun 18th which this time runs S-wards as HP Azores and Scandinavia link up Tue 20th. 

ECM - also agreed to Fri 9th but at that time the northern end of the LP complex dominates 985mb near Iceland while the southern end  is still developing and running along the Channel deepening as it goes. The LP on Mon 12th runs further N, past N Scotland, but as for GFS then introduces W-lies. Pressure then drops more quickly than in GFS but again runs S-wards and is already running across N Spain by Sun 18th.

GEM - intermediate between the above as regards the storm on Fri 9th, but the LP Mon 12th is deeper and larger in area, though filling quickly.

AIFS - London, slow recovery of maima to 3-5C this week, then milder 10C Sun 11th, before a steady decline to 2C Mon 18th, rain Sun 11th onwards. Edinburgh, maxima rising to about 3C Thu 8th and staying there (a cold day Sat 10th), a lot of rain from Sun 11th onwards.

GEFS - mean temp rising to norm Thu 8th, then mostly just below norm (up and down in the S at first), lots of rain from Wed 7th onwards, esp in S & SW. Snow row figures indicate that some runs on some days are cold enough for snow almost anywhere, but only really probable in the north in the first week.

But on the 45 B side of her latest hit

“you never really know” 🙄😁

EC Sends the low much further south wintry mix as mentioned, control looks even further south mean backs both up

gm has something similar nasty little feature there but does hold hope as we head into the latter stages

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/geme_cartes.php?&ech=126&mode=0

BTW

We don’t want some of those major storm on some of those

https://www.meteociel.fr/cartes_obs/gens_panel.php?modele=0&mode=1&ech=126 

Intense cyclogenesis off the east coast of America/Canada coupled with a northwards-ridging AH, as always, seems better be the spanner, cutting off the cold flow from the north.

From such a promising position of potential heavy snow at times during this week (I was hoping for Jan 10 on steroids!), we've descended into the abysmal wet mess this morning's output shows.

I'm surprised you're surprised. The day I will be surprised will be the day the charts showing " a good dumping of snow" for place x, y and z (choose your own personal location to suit) actually produce a significant snowfall down here! So far pattern is "same old".

To much attention on the GFS it's now the 7th best model behind the new AI models . ECM and it's ensembles firming up on a snow event Friday morning for the SE.

GEM also has it again.

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=20&model=gem&var=25&run=0&time=132&lid=OP&h=0&mv=0&tr=6#mapref 

Indeed, and the "strongest block in 45 years" has proved anything but....and is blown away with ease as usual. Hardly seen a flake from this spell, and zonality looks to be resuming normal service in the next week! 

The storm is showing on most models and has potential to be quite damaging. Beyond that and dependent on the track still looks as if we will have a more mobile pattern and wet especially for the south. North Wales northwards has potential for a very wintry spell!

Out of reach for my area unless that low moves couple of hundred km further east.

Yes it does look bleak and the Strat forcast isn't great either and looks like fueling the purples wrong places...Best hope is some transitional cold zonality at best.A cold block can't hold back a warm Atlantic anymore.

The model output thread would be a bit boring though if we just dismissed the output based on climatology, even though it's often an irritatingly accurate way of ignoring colder charts at range 😂😜

Not that it makes any real difference down here but a look at the ens suggests a slight lowering of the milder peak around 8th/9th albeit it's just to a bit mild rather than notably mild. FWIW MOGREPS is back to quite a lot of snow falling spikes on the London set, although very few members bring lying snow. (Not sure what it does on that front though, if you look at some of the Scottish locations it also shows a lot of snow falling and not settling much or at all which suggests it's a bit pessimistic up there at least!).

There's still something of a signal for a Scandi HP in some of the output, although ECM op says no today, GEM is a bit more positive and brings in some colder uppers from said HP to parts north at the end of its run. Something to keep half an eye on for me but nothing to suggest a colder Scandi interlude is anything other than an outside chance at the mo. A straw to clutch maybe though, along with toyed strat warming on GFS although no signs of an SSW or even a noteworthy drop in strat winds on ECM charts when I last looked.

All in all a more positive move towards encroaching LP angle/track bringing milder upper air back to the south although deeper in FI the scatter is mostly +5c to -8c so it's not nailed on as milder than average and as yet we're not looking at anything unusually mild showing up. Further north (Scotland mainly but maybe the far north of England too) the GEFS for example still look chilly throughout, with far more of the members below the LTA than above. They're not as cold as they have been but still wintry at times in FI (obviously they're still cold in the reliable term!). 

Taking a quick look at the dartboard LP on GFS at circa T120 - looks like it's only GEM op and GFS that are developing it that much so TBC on that. *If* GFS 6z op is right though it'd be a stormy spell for southern parts and likely to cause some disruption. On the 00z GEFS there was only very limited support for a deep LP, so may be a case of the op having gone off on one. 

Still tonight's little feature which could bring a covering for some (I prefer UKMO as it has snow IMBY!):-

At T57ish with have the first developing LP moving through Scotland bringing a spell of snow for some, rain on the western and southern fringes:-

Then for T96 we have a weak band of rain crossing the country, turning to snow as it does so (all north of London, with a little feature developing to bring rain down here):-

Then the dartboard LP at T120ish with a mix of heavy rain and heavy snow along with very strong winds:-

Thereafter the snow/wintry stuff is increasingly confined to higher parts of Scotland but the zonality is cool enough for some further interest throughout (not IMBY) and deep FI ends with another deep LP with strong winds and snow for NW England, parts of Scotland and parts of Wales.

It's not as good as what the models were suggesting we could have won but it's not 'dire' and if this pattern popped out of the blue in an otherwise mild zonal interlude I suspect it'd be greeted with a fair bit of enthusiasm. 

I think this current ECM snow chart shows how useless ECM snow charts are. 

That's the 06Z I think, but here's the TWO 00Z version at approx the same time for comparison.

 Between 5 & 10 days they are all as bad as each other, especially in winter where some complex synoptics are at play. The variations are so vast. You can rank them all but I don't find much between them all. 

I just love looking to see which model spots the pattern change first 

GEFS 6z are relatively cold and an improvement. Is it the first model to pick back up on a colder mix or will be the odd one out and another model picks up a different pattern

I've been surprised at how quickly temperatures have responded during the day with this cold spell. Despite -7.1C last night. Now up to 3.4C 

Under -10 850s, I thought might be nearer 0C, given virtually smack middle of winter 

Both completely wrong in these parts anyway.(Or though perhaps more accurate for you with your dusting?) There is no snow in Yorkshire away from the coastal areas. Makes it seems like York has more snow than almost anywhere else in England! 

Yes definitely more scatter towards a colder outcome in the latter reaches compared to the 00z.