Not really. There was never a really wintry spell modelled across the U.K. and there still isn’t. What there was was a cool northerly blip on Sunday and another one a few days later. There still is. An overdue taste of autumn with a risk of frosts and some wintry showers for the Scottish mountains.

The chart above is one of the more “extreme” ensemble options and does not represent the overall outlook, just one somewhat unlikely possibility.

It's a bit of a no-lose situation, really, as at this time of year only very elevated positions would get any real winter conditions from pretty much all set-ups. If the whole set-up does move to the east, we get more influence of the high, which I'd probably rather have - 'mellow fruitfulness' would be reet.

Someone actually said that it is about time we had some cold weather. I mean it's been 17-20c for the past week now! Measured a max of 20c again today. Absolutely remarkably warm for end of October.

All very pleasant for the foreseeable thanks to high pressure in residence close to our shores. The drop in the 850Hpa's will briefly remind us that we are nearly in November with the temperature returning back to average with the risk of a ground frost early Monday before the milder atlantic air wanders back across. 

Looks like November could start on a mild note for a few 

And now that has vanished from GFS 

After years of looking at weather models I would have thought that you would know not to put too much faith in models at a week to ten days out!

The more extreme options are rarely the one side that verify. It will be more seasonal in the middle of next week based on current charts but if you were suggesting/insinuating wintry weather was being shown and has now been removed then that is not the case.

The northerly influence overall is less strong than it was a few days ago but what do you seriously expect at that range?

Generally more seasonal after that milder bump has gone through and a little more unsettled to as we head into November.

Before and after from GFS as it gets rid of the early November northerly one reason why I prefer to stick to UKMO

In that great mild mush fest of 2015 the models (all of them) were just showing unrelenting mild zonality as far as the eye could see which led me to my infamous write off of winter in mid November and my call for a record warm December which is exactly what transpired.

I see absolutely no sign of anything similar this year and a slow steady decline into winter looks far more likely than a long term zonal train this year in my opinion.

Yes quite. I just thought maybe one day just for once one - that the GFS will forecast a northerly and keep it and for this to turn out it correctly and that we will see a northerly in autumn or winter.

The problem has always been HP rising to our south perhaps?!

We know from long experience that GFS loves to plot deep northerlies over the UK at long range, and we also know that 95% of the time they will be watered down by becoming (a) less tight, (b) more NWly than straight northerly and (c) further east than originally modelled. It's a flaw in the model that really should have been addressed by now, after several new versions.

I wonder how many times I will have to point out that some for me of northerly looks likely both on Sunday and on the 2nd before the message sinks in.  No one (that I know of) was stating the GFS’s more extreme scenarios were the most likely outcomes?

To comb8ne the most recent data into one chart, here are the ensemble mean data for Sunday and the 2nd Nov respectively from the 06z GFS run:

 http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/run/gens-21-1-48.png?6

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/run/gens-21-1-150.png?6 

Both show a predominantly northerly quarter to the flow. I suspect the individual members will show all sorts if I trawl through them.

Two very unlikely scenarios for these two time points would below level snow and very mild weather. Beyond that, who knows.

P.S. I also very much agree with Rob’s post above!

1http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/run/gens-1-1-156.png?6 

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/run/gens-6-1-150.png 

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/run/gens-7-1-150.png 

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/run/gens-9-1-150.png 

http://modeles7.meteociel.fr/modeles/gens/run/gens-10-1-150.png 

I hope people get the point (and is after having looked at fewer than half the ensemble charts for that date). If I was a forecaster I would go for a slack northerly flow, feeling fresher with a small risk of showers (wintry in mountaintops in Scotland) with a large caveat that things could change at this time scale. In short most people may not even notice...but give it a few days before being confident about any one scenario!

Very wise. I've.not deleted an account for a few weeks and am getting itchy fingers. UIA seems more promising at the moment but I am keeping a close tab on things here.

UKMO has shifted that low further east compared to the 00z thus we have a much lighter northwesterly 

Except that’s not a like for like comparison. You would need to compare the 144hr 00z chart with a 132hr 12z one. The low is moving eastwards and will therefore be “12hrs further east” 12hrs later (which may be what is shown above).

The Meridional Overturning Circulation and the Hadley Cells and the Rossby Waves, are all doing very well indeed.  It is often a case that High Pressure from the SE, South and SW often controls our weather sequence we have to wait until mid December that is when the Azores High weakens.

So much High Pressure And so much cold pooling but for the UK we end up just checking the ducks are able to wander around and we carry on not seeing any exceptional cold snowy weather.

N. Ireland, Wales and N England plus Scotland will have to wait until we get to Mid-November et all this Autumn to imagine any chance of winter weather coming into the 3-5 day range.

I keep checking the charts, Greenland and the NE Canada and Arctic Svalbard and Iceland to Central Norwegian Sea has been often seeing numerous cold and wintry Low Pressures and cold pooling, Semi-Polar Vortex setting up in last few weeks, this cold air gets to Iceland and persists in N and NE Canada and Greenland a lot, and the Mid Lattitude High’s are often locates in West and NW Atlantic as well as across SW South Central UK West Europe, with N and NE N Europe away from the UK currently expected to see a very cold Low Pressure NNW SE cold flow of cold arctic Sea air migrating to East and NE and N Central Europe.  But Milder weather returns to West and N Central Europe as Low Pressure moves east on Wednesday Thursday from Iceland through North Sea and Low Countries and Denmark NW Germany.

 Yeah Michael I can make sense of that.

Very much to the point!.

And such is the challenge of reality v perception, and the propensity to use whichever mode of output that suits. I’m as guilty of anyone of choosing a stunning operational run when it fits the agenda, whilst accepting that discrete OP runs at range are unlikely to verify. The mean is a far better tool with trends, and I’m increasingly using it to define confidence from 5 days out. 

The debate about median, mode and clustering can wait a bit 😉

Oh go on, you know you want to