I may have jumped the gun a bit on Sunday's possible snow-to-rain event as the 12z run brings the snow risk further South again. Either way it will turn to rain very quickly and the Met office automated forecast shows absolutely no sign even of sleet for Sunday in my location.

Next week could be somewhat interesting with a very changeable pattern and substantial day-to-day changes in the weather based on the GFS 12z run.

I saw this on Twitter earlier. Pressure anomaly from the beginning of December to date. If you had shown us that at the start of winter we would have thought it was going to be a classic. Reality has been rather different.

https://x.com/SnowbieWx/status/2021227329230442535?s=20 

lets hope so. but I fear the weather gods are conspiring against us, even heat and sun fans and we still get stuck under a trough and more rain!  You couldnt make it up. All you can do is laugh at the UK about everything, Politics and Weather

I've seen them throughout December and January, and there was a small bee flying around yesterday.

I'm mildly surprised at the lack of interest on here for Sunday, as there remains a decent risk of snow for some - just not really down here (where we may, if we're really lucky, get an air frost or two). 

To be fair you are right - but with elevation. If you are above 500 ft you should see wet snow. For me at 28ft - not a chance. 

Not a Scandanavian source but the 00Z's keep it fairly chilly or even cold for the next 10 days or so.....in Scotland at least, which stays mostly on the N side of Lows.

I'd find sunny intervals and 'wintry' showers with night frosts far better than the utter filth we have endured for a month. 

GFS Op - tales that Icelandic LP and swings it SE-wards over Scotland 985mb Mon 16th. Then another ridge of HP before another mobile LP, this time from the SW, crosses N England 985mb Thu 19th. Mobile theme continues, narrow trough for Britain Sat 21st, a larger LP 965mb Fair Isle Mon 23rd, finally a more significant ridge of HP 1030mb N France Fri 27th. The Scandi HP in all this has departed for SW Russia and presents no block.

The jet stream waving around, still with a strong core, but tending to move N-wards from its present position near S Spain to taking aim at England from Thu 19th and finally N of Scotland Fri 27th.

ECM - like GFS develops a more mobile pattern. But note that instead of a flabby LP (GFS Thu 19th) this model puts in a storm 975mb Wales Wed 18th with colder N-lies to follow, and a ridge of HP for Sat 21st. For the following week this ridge becomes a significant block 1035mb W of Ireland extending to cover Britain, light W-lies here from LPs moving from deep depressions on a track from Greenland to N Norway.

AIFS - London, from present mildness to a week from Fri 13th at 5-7C then back up to 10C, significant rain Wed 18th, bits and spits at other times, winds mostly W-ly. Edinburgh, maxima mostly 3-5C until Thu 19th then milder 9-10C, rain at intervals with dry slot midweek Wed 18th, after the first few days, winds generally W-ly. 

GEFS - In the S, dipping cold (6 or 7C below norm) Sat/Sun 14th/15th, recovering milder immediately and mean staying there with good ens agreement to Thu 19th. Mean temp then drifts upwards to ca 3C above norm by Fri 27th, quite a big spread of ens members with any outliers n the mild side. Mainly dry for the cold weekend, some chance of a little snow, else Rain at times in most ens members slowly decreasing in frequency and intensity in the SE, this is less noticeable in the SW.  In the N, the colder  weather starts now but again is over by the end of the weekend, with slowly rising mean temps thereafter. Snow very likely with arrival and departure of the cold spell, otherwise rain in small amounts at any time in the E, rather more but not excessive in the W.

Lets hope this morning ECM is correct and high pressure can build in after that, otherwise we are in serious trouble.

Until then, at least 2 periods of wet snow to get through so some interest!

The best policy. Some of the goodies come into a more credible time frame but we are all scarred by the 7 to 10 day mirage effect of 'the Winter of 26'

Looks like this one is 4 days late.

https://images.meteociel.fr/im/12/22201/iconeu_uk1_42_90_0klm2.png 

https://images.meteociel.fr/im/58/12352/90_779UKqie0.GIF 

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=20&model=gem&var=25&run=12&time=93&lid=OP&h=0&mv=0&tr=3#mapref 

So what's going on? I think it must be the "bunching up" effect that the ICON has showed for a couple of days now, whereby the cold boundary layer gets compressed and, with nowhere else to go, moves upwards enough to keep things wintry for longer. This was especially visible on one of the runs yesterday, I think it was, where a thin line of -6C 850s appeared in the general -4C 850 area as the front moved eastwards, with even a couple of -8s popping up as the whole thing moves eastwards. A fascinating low-level profile, anyway, and yes - I will be watching for sleet, but hoping for snow! That's the plan for now, anyway, Sunday is still a long way off...

https://modeles14.meteociel.fr/modeles/ukmo/runs/2026021112/ukmohd-46-99-0.png?11-17 

All snow charts are not equal, GEM and ECM are ridiculously generous and should be ignored IMO (the T +0 is often ridiculously wrong close to "expected snow") UKMO is generally conservative, which makes the above surprising. 

Link 

Over 9 million "mode S" obvs in a random 6 hour period - amazing, frankly! The ECM, by comparison, had 3 million aircraft obs in its 06z run today, of which 2.9 million were "mode S" obs. It seems these "mode S" obvs are far more frequent than the other aircraft data sampling methods, and of course all that extra data can only be a good thing.

I'm not convinced. Since OS 47 went live on 21 January (the press release went out this week because they waited for it to be considered to be in a stable state, I understand), the Met Office models seem to have been spraying snow around more liberally. There was an issue with the UKV data feed, rather than the raw data, which impacted some charts, as I noted at the time. However, even since modifying the chart-generation scripts, it still seems very keen to me.