While the outlook doesn’t look great the glimmers of hope refuse to disappear entirely. 

The last cold spell the mean kept dropping each run to the point of near -11 so not sure why they are refusing to drop it for some reason as Lp move SE this coming week.  I just asking the models to allow us some entitlement to join the deep cold and snowy weather since many other places had done so far.   6z soon so the mean need to drop sharply and continue further runs.  Don’t want further push backs as they did recently as the original landing date was yesterday to today date.

GFS Op - similar to FAX but the main LP is situated further west so winds are straight S-lies. This theme continues through the weekend (wind a touch more SE-ly) then on Tue 3rd the LP moves off the Atlantic to 980mb Irish Sea where it fills. The next LP moves in to take its place 975mb west of Ireland Thu 5th but soon fills as the next development is LP from Scandinavia which feeds some rather cold air into N Britain. Mon 9th This never reaches the south as it is prevented by yet another Atlantic LP 980mb W Ireland Wed 11th with S-lies..

ECM - again a variation on FAX as the LP giving wind and rain this week moves into N England, filling Sat 31st, but a new Atlantic LP takes up station W of Ireland and by Mon 2nd this chart looks like GFS. It then however diverges again with this LP moving to Iceland Thu 5th. There is then no cold outflow from Scandinavia but by Mon 9th a shallow LP to the SW generates weak but not cold SE-lies for all of Britain.

AIFS - London maxima either side of 5C but with some frosty nights Fri 30th and Fri 6th. Rain Tue 27th and w/b Sat 31st, wind between S & E. Edinburgh, maxima either side of 4C, more cloudy around the 30th with a little rain at that time, bigger diurnal variations around the 6th, wind always SE-ly.

GEFS - in the S, mean temp at or a little below norm, .most ens members close to mean, any outliers on the cold side and some very much so, heavy rain now, smaller amounts to follow (but always heavy in SW).  Chance of snow less than 30% except in the NE. In the N, mean settles to about 3 C below norm but this disguises one group of ens members near norm and another group much below (esp in N), not many close to mean. Small amounts of pptn at any time better than 50% chance of snow in the N.

After thought: Optimism. It is very close though! 

As long as that limpet atlantic troughing sits there and is pumped up again by the jet we are stuck. So frustrating that as close as +72hrs there is an easterly trying to ridge west but it can never make it.  

Ian Brown's train is stuck in Berlin for the past month!

Not sure why they refusing to move the LP and there debate in the NW about 11k flights cancelled in the USA might had give models poor inaccurately, lack of data so they decided to keep the LP stuck instead since no further data feeed in.  

You could well be right, far less optimism in the ECM ensembles, which is worrying given the extra members it has compared to GFS.

Good point Jiries. News media states 14,400 grounded flights over there. This must have a bearing on the accuracy of the output.

One wonders what the relative importance to the overall picture is of aircraft observations, satellite observations, land-based surface observations, ship-based surface observations, and meteorological balloon flights. Was there a noticeable dip in model accuracy when almost all flights over the North Atlantic were suspended about ten years ago because of that volcano erupting in Iceland?

https://modeles16.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/runs/2026012606/gens-5-1-144.png 

I’m afraid that’s all we have at the moment - cherries from a tree that is otherwise not really producing ripe fruit. The deep cold pool will linger until mid-February, get blown away by a week of rampant Southwesterlies and when the strat split encourages a strong Scandy high late Feb we’ll be left with a coolish waft from the east.

This is not a definitive forecast by the way, just a likely outcome based on past experience 😉

Trying to bring the cold air in on Thursday.

As an aside it's actually nice to have us so close the average instead of above and when actually outside a slight nip in the air.  

Jam tomorrow.

I give up already! 

I think the last chase has left some deep psychological scars. Understandably so, but there's still over 33% of meteorological winter to go and charts like that above just refuse to disappear. 

Will the wider viewership experience wintry nirvana as payback for their efforts? Possibly not, but it does remains a possibility whilst the eastern superblock continues to hold steady. 

Even a small change in jet orientation could bring about a dive in the midterm ensembles, this is something I'm certainly watching for over the next few days. 

I guess at least it isn't boring?! 😅