Christmas day is now looking very mild but is a change on the way for the New Year? 

Very mild Sunday close to the mid teens in the SE corner

Cooler air filtering down from the north on Sunday night

The cold air fights back - just wish it would put a bit more effort into going west, not south!

http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/temp4.html

06z very slow coming out

It cant move west thanks to the raging jet, "Modern winter" remember!

So do I assume the main talking point for Xmas Day is now the unseasonably mild temps and the damaging winds idea has been quietly dropped?

06z brings a nice change for the new year:

a brief toppler. A least a few colder days before the dross returns

The highest on Dec 25 2015 seems to be 14.9C in Bude. Whereas the record is 15.6C (60F) in both 1896 and 1920. Of course there is the issue of temperatures being measured in degrees F and rounded.

With any sunshine, out of the wind, 16C will feel pretty warm for the time of year. Another t-shirt xmas day to go with the long list of others...

Going to be nice down at the seaside.  Will go for a walk and take the shades.

Meanwhile a touch more amplification mid-term and GFS gets -10 very close to the SE. Another step in the right direction IMO and the momentum for at least a brief wintry snap is gathering today.

No post lol

Were they in the modern era?

lols. 

This thread is increasingly getting on my nerves. Has something changed with our weather? Yes, maybe/probably. But do we need to hear about it every other post? 

Is it too much to ask to have a sensible discussion about what the models actually show? At the moment, they aren't actually without interest.

Yes, a couple of very mild days over Christmas. Not worth creaming your knickers over though. 

After that the theme is High Pressure, giving us some decent clear and cold weather (ECM), or a flatter, milder pattern, with the potential for something colder later on (GFS). The chances of prolonged zonal weather have reduced markedly over the past week IMO.

Lots of hints at Atlantic amplification in the past few GFS runs. Will it happen? I'd say there is a fair chance of a toppler at the very least.

Clearly this year's December 2016, looks even better for those who dislike any wintry or cold weather.

The rest of this month next 8 days look set to be dominated by our Bartlett Azores High system.

Nice clear blue skies today.  The first 8 days this month the memory of widespread night frosts is since been replaced last 2 weeks by a good amount of fog, murk and mist and often cloudy skies.  There have been some sunny days that brought us many in UK less cold but mild weather and over next week SSW winds at times dropping very light could bring some chilly nights maybe chance of fog and frost, but a plume of mild air should mean mild days for much of the UK, strengthening West SW winds over the West and North UK during Thursday just fringing W and N UK by the look of it.  The GFS, ECMWF and UKMO.

😎😃.

Another dreary run from GFS  06h op.I,m almost getting to the stage of preferring zonal flow to Euroblocking, particularly if its a brisk westerly.

The GEFS  ens at Jan 1st show 60% HP:40% zonal so still some doubt over the outcome.

At 384h 7th January split is HP 55%:Zonal 45% so some doubts on the longevity of any cold spell. There  is no real claer clusterting of the HP ens at this stage,.

While both have HP to the south, the latest runs from GFS and ECM are quite different in that the former is showing a northerly and ridging to Greenland, while ECM has us in a slack southerly. Let's see what the 12z brings and if they align, in some way.

06z perturbations 5 and 12 have a similar evolution (to the operational) and don't topple (just to keep a bit of Christmas cheer):