It was 1987; I remember it well having had two episodes of frozen pipes and water coming through the ceiling.

Happy Christmas.

Yes, it was a poor attempt at humour on my part. 

Happy Christmas to all. 

Happy Christmas/Holidays everyone :)

We may just about get enough upstream amplification from the recent spike in MJO activity to allow us to make something interesting of the mid-Atlantic ridge later next week.

The more poleward the ridge can be the better, as this helps disrupt the vortex and is our only decent defence against the more organised stratospheric vortex - though even it shows signs of easing up and displacing toward Europe.

Many recent winters we've seen a vortex displacement toward the US result in deep cold digging way south, yet during a displacement toward us the thermal contrast with the N Atlantic often just makes it stormy instead... we need either an exceptional displacement right down to C Europe or a split vortex with exensive HLB. Both look a bit of a long shot from our current standpoint but I never like to say never!

I'll take that for the end of the high resolution part of the run:

An important point! :-) 

Interesting though to see some easterly influenced charts now entering the high res. If this is still the case come Wednesday then I would say things are definitely worth looking seriously at

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2016122512/gfs-0-168.png?12

looks like a quick toppler so far

poor run for coldies

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfs/runs/2016122512/gfs-0-186.png?12

The 6z and 12z GFS have both looked odd with regard to the advection and displacement of cold air into the UK in such a relatively short space of time. CAA from the north followed by WAA from the south are both at play courtesy of a High pressure in the atlantic and then over southern Europe in a space of just 12 hours.

I'm thinking there is a data issue here. 

The data issues appears to have resolved itself now. 

Not just a butterfly at work here, more like a whole flock of pterodactyls..

Nice WAA...

And  rampant southerly tracking jet...

Back down to earth with a bump within a day or two perhaps

So every time there is a lack of data, the models lob a load of blocking in ...............just for good measure and to wind us up

Come off it

To be honest, I don't think a relative lack of data is going to make much difference in FI land - not that the naked eye will notice anyway. It isn't as if FI charts become more reliable with a full data set or anything.

Marcus not at all,I'm sure there have been a few Christmas periods in the past where the output was a zonal train, and even with lack of data it still remained zonal.  There is some lack of data at Christmas, that's a fact. 

In the meantime some frost and fog next week for parts of England and Wales, Scotland milder in a SW flow. 

ECM aircraft obs collated for:

12z 24/12/2016 - 131,846

18z 24/12 - 188,250

00z 25/12 - 152,127

06z 25/12 - 65,712

12z 25/12 - 85,310

so 5% (or far less) possible chance of disruption due to amended flight schedules. 

You have to laugh really.... the most amusing part is those using it in their favour for a mild/ cold ramp

Well I wouldn't like to attribute any weighting on those obs! Anyway forgot to link that data coverage:

http://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/charts/monitoring/dcover?time=2016122512,0,2016122512&obs=aircraft

There is a Toppling over the NW Atlantic being clearly evident around 1-2 January, the Newfoundland Low should knock over Saturday's retrogression N Atlantic High, that will push the brief Cold Northerly flow proved for New Year's Day Sunday as pressure from N Atlantic builds over the UK on 2-3 January et all.

GFS and UKMO and ECMWF show that Polar S Tracking Iceland Low hitting us for about 48hrs circa 1-2 Jan.... The Low over NW will export some mild air into the SE tracking N Atlantic briefly Retrogressed UK High as after it moves there from UK Sat. 31 December, the NE USA NF Lows tends to send the Main ColdCore of Arctic plunge over NE and N Europe NE ofUK instead at 144-168hrs et all.

We can still live in wishful hopecasting though.☀️🌥🌞❄️😂😆😎.

Laugh all you like, it really does make a difference. The majority of obs input into ECM are satellite-based surface data and not the upper air info which comes from planes. Although the number of plane obs is low in the grand scheme of things, they provide data we can't get any other way.

Losing half of that data input, as we do over Christmas, has a bigger effect than the overall percentage would suggest.

exactly, well said. no substitute for the ignorance of some I suppose.

I sincerely hope that this set up shown on the last frame of the ECM tonight is due to the 'missing data' issue