Highly unlikely though it is I'd take that passing snow shower IMBY on my birthday!!

  Birthday snow for a change, instead of rain!  I might be in with a shot this year!  Good luck and happy birthday for Saturday!  

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There are some opportunities in the 0z GFS. However milder spells are also shown

GFS looks like developing an easterly at the end.

Of course by this point there isn’t much deep cold to tap into.

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Para GFS run still showing eye candy Scandi high and deep cold, with lots of snowy opportunity its at the colder end of the runs, so JFF but possible.

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Start of February looking more interesting on the GEFS this morning.  Temps also lower for this weekend about-7c for awhile 

 

 

 

 

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Fascinating ECM at day 10 this morning.  +15c 850s to our SW and -15c to our NE. The UK right in the middle. Hard to know where it goes from there but slider lows and copious snow is an option.

 

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten.php?map=1&model=ecm&var=2&run=0&time=240&lid=OP&h=0&mv=1&tr=24#mapref

 

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Yes. Everyone still has a ticket in the draw. It remains an interesting winter.

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http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/temp4 shows cooler weather being confined to N Europe but not really deep cold. The most sriking map of the suite is the soli moisture - the UK is absolutely sodden already compared to the rest of europe, and that's before this week's rain.

GFS - Storm Christoph featuring until Mon 25th but by then filling and moving off to the E then a period of W-lies before LP crosses the UK 970mb Sat 30th bringing down cold N-lies by Mon 1st - they don't last and there's a brief ridge of HP from the S before another LP moves in from the Atlantic 995mb NI Fri 5th.

GEFS - see Ally's post above - cool to Tue 26th, mild to Fri 30th, with quite good agreement to that point; then cool again but with quite a few very cold runs. Similat pattern for Scotland though less mild in the middle period and agreement between runs breaking up earlier, Rain quite general in the S (but note the snow row hitting 18 in Ally's post, for one day only!), Scotland gets a brief respite around Sat 23rd.

ECM handles the departure of Christoph differently - the main centre moving off but leaving a trail of shallow LPs running across S England to Sat 30th. FAX also likes the idea of weak Channel Lows as Christoph decays but brings them in earlier i.e. from Fri 22nd

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Well, if this winter tells us anything, it is that the sort of synoptics we believe will deliver winter heaven to the UK, don't have to.

The PV can be polaxed and we can have genuine height rises over Greenland, but the weather gods just laugh their jolly little socks off and can still machine gun fire Atlantic LPs across the UK and NW Europe.

I give up, I really do. If we were in a zonal winter and saw FI charts like the synoptics we currently have, we would be drooling with anticipation, but because the Azores HP won't sod off, we still get the LPs and mild incursions, they just travel more slowly than usual causing flooding problems.

God I hate the Atlantic - if I could, I would drain it completely and pour the salty water down the throats of all those media weather presenters who utter the most horrible phrase in the English language: "at least it will be mild".

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Looking at the GFS today and over the last few runs the trend at present has been to nudge the 850s down slightly in the upcoming chilly/cold spell and to slightly lengthen the duration so we're now approaching 27th Jan before warmer air moves in down South. The milder hump is being eroded so that 'mild' is more likely than 'exceptionally mild' although the twin peaks of mild are still there, more notably the second one as the next LP moves through.

Thereafter there's signs of the jet moving back south and LPs taking a southerly track through North France rather than through the Midlands and a reoccurring theme on some of the Op runs/members in deep FI is for heights to rise over Scandinavia and the Atlantic to get stopped. There's decent agreement of temps being lower than average at the end, which is unusual at that kind of range. Be interesting if that signal is maintained and starts to move towards the vaguely reliable.

ECM is similar and if anything has shown a slightly greater reduction in 850s down here from what it was showing for quite a few days. The ECM ens have been showing the same milder bump as GFS for a while and a reduction in 850s towards the end of the run too, albeit with the usual mix of mild/avg/cool. 

Near term and the GFS op has less extensive snowfall from the current LP than it had shown at range IMO but there's still a decent area that's projected to get heavy snow from the system. Parts of Scotland look set for further snowfall and over the next few days presumably from showers once the LP moves off somewhat. Even down here there's still the chance of some snow falling at least over the weekend, with that slight nudge down in 850s hopefully verifying and making this a touch more likely.

Leaving aside the snow potential interest the next 10 days are still looking wet for many, with a lot of rain for parts of Wales and generally between 40-80mm across the whole of the UK (bit less for some in the East as you'd expect given the direction the LPs are coming from).. Certainly enough for some more flooding problems and if nothing else even the smaller amounts further East will mean the ground remains saturated and streams high, so any one off heavier rain events will quickly lead to problems.

Certainly an interesting outlook with the potential for a chilly start to February just to confound the LRFs

 

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With the models showing the cool/cold theme continuing I really feel sorry for the Scottish ski industry. What cracking conditions they have but need to remain shut. My guess would be once they can reopen we will get very mild south westerlies!

Well, if this winter tells us anything, it is that the sort of synoptics we believe will deliver winter heaven to the UK, don't have to.

The PV can be polaxed and we can have genuine height rises over Greenland, but the weather gods just laugh their jolly little socks off and can still machine gun fire Atlantic LPs across the UK and NW Europe.

I give up, I really do. If we were in a zonal winter and saw FI charts like the synoptics we currently have, we would be drooling with anticipation, but because the Azores HP won't sod off, we still get the LPs and mild incursions, they just travel more slowly than usual causing flooding problems.

God I hate the Atlantic - if I could, I would drain it completely and pour the salty water down the throats of all those media weather presenters who utter the most horrible phrase in the English language: "at least it will be mild".

There a way to lower the Atlantic levels by open pipe channels to flow water to the deserts regions and flood it then let it evaporate over before flooding it again and again this way the sea levels will drop a lot which came make a difference to the climate and there mountains under the mid Atlantic that will rise above and will protect UK from mild weather and cut off gulf stream.  There are many deserts that need water around and it need to be something to stop the sea levels rising and our climate had gone wetter and milder in winters and cooler wetter summers nowadays.

The Pacific are better as they allow heatwaves and snow storms in Vancouver and Japan.

Well, if this winter tells us anything, it is that the sort of synoptics we believe will deliver winter heaven to the UK, don't have to.

The PV can be polaxed and we can have genuine height rises over Greenland, but the weather gods just laugh their jolly little socks off and can still machine gun fire Atlantic LPs across the UK and NW Europe.

I give up, I really do. If we were in a zonal winter and saw FI charts like the synoptics we currently have, we would be drooling with anticipation, but because the Azores HP won't sod off, we still get the LPs and mild incursions, they just travel more slowly than usual causing flooding problems.

God I hate the Atlantic - if I could, I would drain it completely and pour the salty water down the throats of all those media weather presenters who utter the most horrible phrase in the English language: "at least it will be mild".

There is too much heat in the oceans nowadays so the jet is fired up. We were lucky this winter to at least see some snow, compared to the previous two where we hardly had a frost down here

 

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There is too much heat in the oceans nowadays so the jet is fired up. We were lucky this winter to at least see some snow, compared to the previous two where we hardly had a frost down here

 

Yep has felt like Winter in the South. But sadly it,s been a Winter akin to getting a bakewell tart with no cherry on top 😞

 

There is too much heat in the oceans nowadays so the jet is fired up. We were lucky this winter to at least see some snow, compared to the previous two where we hardly had a frost down here

 

On the western side of the N Atlantic yes but a large area of the eastern N Atlantic have anomalously cool temperatures at the moment. You can clearly see the La Niña ENSO state but this continues to wane to neutral.

https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/anomaly/

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Yep has felt like Winter in the South. But sadly it,s been a Winter akin to getting a bakewell tart with no cherry on top 😞

The cherry is in Scotland, snow lying since the 23rd December, best winter for a long time 😋

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The cherry is in Scotland, snow lying since the 23rd December, best winter for a long time 😋

Some parts of Scotland 😜

With the models showing the cool/cold theme continuing I really feel sorry for the Scottish ski industry. What cracking conditions they have but need to remain shut. My guess would be once they can reopen we will get very mild south westerlies!

Yes, I was thinking that. It's a bit of a busted flush anyway these days. I was up in the Cairngorms a couple of years back and it was looking a bit neglected. I think it is more individuals than an industry these days but I could be wrong.

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There is too much heat in the oceans nowadays so the jet is fired up. We were lucky this winter to at least see some snow, compared to the previous two where we hardly had a frost down here

 

Still no snow lying here so in danger of making that three years. In fact except for one day in February (the Beast, the rest not strictly winter) it is more like 8 years in S.Essex.

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There a way to lower the Atlantic levels by open pipe channels to flow water to the deserts regions and flood it then let it evaporate over before flooding it again and again this way the sea levels will drop a lot which came make a difference to the climate and there mountains under the mid Atlantic that will rise above and will protect UK from mild weather and cut off gulf stream.  There are many deserts that need water around and it need to be something to stop the sea levels rising and our climate had gone wetter and milder in winters and cooler wetter summers nowadays.

The Pacific are better as they allow heatwaves and snow storms in Vancouver and Japan.

The big difference is that Japan is on the eastern edge of a large land mass and the western edge of an ocean. So the northern island of Japan could be thought of as analogous to New England. I don't think that Vancouver's winter climate is that different to the UK's, though it does have an advantage in not having the North Sea to its east and also in having Alaska not too far to its north.

I sometimes fantasise aboput what the UK climate would be like if the Earth span in the opposite direction.

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There a way to lower the Atlantic levels by open pipe channels to flow water to the deserts regions and flood it then let it evaporate over before flooding it again and again this way the sea levels will drop a lot which came make a difference to the climate and there mountains under the mid Atlantic that will rise above and will protect UK from mild weather and cut off gulf stream.  There are many deserts that need water around and it need to be something to stop the sea levels rising and our climate had gone wetter and milder in winters and cooler wetter summers nowadays.

 

I know such schemes have been mooted (to flood parts of the Sahara that are below sea level for instance) but I can't see it having any effect on sea levels. The evaporation would just lead to more rainfall which would go back into the ocean eventually.

 

Anyway closer to home I am starting to get a little more optimistic about the prospect of finally seeing a bit of snow down here over the weekend. As ever the parallel is more bullish about settling snow in the south but I think its parameters need adjusting as it has quite a lot of settling snow in the NW from the current system.

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