It's tempting to start copy and pasting earlier comments on the various GFS ops to save time

Minor wobbles around where the HP sits and how much influence it'll have as a result aside, the 6z op is generally very similar to the 00z etc.

The op picks back up on another temporary colder shot around 28th Jan which has been signalled in the ens on and off for a while and shows in the ECM ens to varying degrees. 

As other's have mentioned there's no signs of a cold spell on the horizon and all the while there's a never ending conveyor of strong jet streaks heading just to the North of the UK I doubt there will be either. Whether the jet will relent in February and something more interesting will pop up is TBC - given the tendency for HP to slink a bit further south with time there's probably more chance of some unusually warm weather in  early Feb than there is anything cold. (Not something that's been shown generally as the HP is a bit too far West most of the time so whilst we get some mild air it's somewhat modified by the time it rolls around the flanks of the high. Sink the high a little further south east though and we could get some very mild stuff).

All in all, disappointing from a snow POV but at least the outlook is generally dry.

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I agree it currently looks poor for Feb. My view (and I know many either won't like this and / or think I'm over simplifying ) is that recent climatology is as good a guide as anything. When month after month is  coming in above CET you're on the back foot to begin with. 

Yes and the frustrating thing is that many other parts of Europe and the world can get and or experience extreme cold and snow but it always appears to be the case that the UK misses the cold and snow. This year is another example - today the cold air and snow is 100 miles east and over Scandinavia and in the north sea. Despite 850hpa uppers in the south east of -7.0c at 850hpa the daytime temperature is still +7c in central London at 12pm which is average and even though we may have got a few frosty nights under weeks of Anti-cyclonic weather we saw no freezing fog or ice days and every few places saw much if any frost due to cloud and it has actually been feeling rather pleasant during the daytime in the light winds. If the cause of our milder weather is due to this Mid Atlantic ridge - then what is the cause of that ridge to stick around there and for weeks and weeks?

Anyway, I digress - but after a mild December and exceptionally mild end to the month and start to January - it now appears that it will be a mild end to January and start to February: - This winter is a write off WIO. Sorry someone had to say it! So disappointed I really am - after last years teaser and all the background signals for cold -more notably the La Nina and Eastern QBO etc we could have a snowless winter and as much as I despised the winter of 2019/20 as the PV of doom at least there were colder incursions and Scotland saw snow if transient snow and there was weather to talk about. So far we have had nothing of interest to talk about in terms of cold and snow. We have to look back to Autumn at Storm Arwen which occurred at the end of November for any interest.

Furthermore, the PV is strengthening and not weakening and temperatures are cooling at 10 and 30hpa not rising!

AS you rightly mentioned Brian we had such a warm Autumn with well above average CET's throughout September, October and November etc. Perhaps this could be the new norm of warmer Autumns and Winters but colder Spring and Summers!? I would dread to think that but I do recall April and May last year and it was cold - not to mention snowy early April.

Meanwhile back OT - look's like January will end just how it started -(On a milder note).

I do wonder if this could turn out to be the mildest winter on record?

 

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Yes and the frustrating thing is that many other parts of Europe and the world can get and or experience extreme cold and snow but it always appears to be the case that the UK misses the cold and snow. This year is another example - today the cold air and snow is 100 miles east and over Scandinavia and in the north sea. Despite 850hpa uppers in the south east of -7.0c at 850hpa the daytime temperature is still +7c in central London at 12pm which is average and even though we may have got a few frosty nights under weeks of Anti-cyclonic weather we saw no freezing fog or ice days and every few places saw much if any frost due to cloud and it has actually been feeling rather pleasant during the daytime in the light winds. If the cause of our milder weather is due to this Mid Atlantic ridge - then what is the cause of that ridge to stick around there and for weeks and weeks?

Anyway, I digress - but after a mild December and exceptionally mild end to the month and start to January - it now appears that it will be a mild end to January and start to February: - This winter is a write off WIO. Sorry someone had to say it! So disappointed I really am - after last years teaser and all the background signals for cold -more notably the La Nina and Eastern QBO etc we could have a snowless winter and as much as I despised the winter of 2019/20 as the PV of doom at least there were colder incursions and Scotland saw snow if transient snow and there was weather to talk about. So far we have had nothing of interest to talk about in terms of cold and snow. We have to look back to Autumn at Storm Arwen which occurred at the end of November for any interest.

Furthermore, the PV is strengthening and not weakening and temperatures are cooling at 10 and 30hpa not rising!

AS you rightly mentioned Brian we had such a warm Autumn with well above average CET's throughout September, October and November etc. Perhaps this could be the new norm of warmer Autumns and Winters but colder Spring and Summers!? I would dread to think that but I do recall April and May last year and it was cold - not to mention snowy early April.

Meanwhile back OT - look's like January will end just how it started -(On a milder note).

I do wonder if this could turn out to be the mildest winter on record?

 

I'm pretty sure there's not much chance of this being the mildest winter on record as January will come out not that much above average.

But agree with Brian that we seem to be in a warm/mild pattern since about last June. In my experience these warm/ cold runs tend to last around 6 months. For example the first 5 months of last year were generally cold, now we have had around 6 months of warmer than average. I remember the first 6 months of 2013 were very cold and the last 6 months being warm as another example.

So we must be due to come out of this pattern at some point maybe it will be March.

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I agree it currently looks poor for Feb. My view (and I know many either won't like this and / or think I'm over simplifying ) is that recent climatology is as good a guide as anything. When month after month is  coming in above CET you're on the back foot to begin with. 

I think as recently as a couple of years ago you would have been pilloried for making that statement in the middle of January but most dissenters have now realised that sadly it is pretty much a statement of fact.

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I think as recently as a couple of years ago you would have been pilloried for making that statement in the middle of January but most dissenters have now realised that sadly it is pretty much a statement of fact.

Not so many years ago I would be one to criticise such a statement, but there's no denying the climate is changing and the old rule of thumb that over a year the means normalize out is sadly no longer true and you can't say 'next month will be cold because the last three have been warm' anymore. The evidence is there to see.
I wonder if and when the next cold winter will come.

Still, stranger things have happened (March 2018 for instance)

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www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/GFSOPEU12_234_1.png
Hurts to see the potential but know the reality

 

It certainly would be!

I think it is fair to say that that record will not be challenged anytime soon! 

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I'm pretty sure there's not much chance of this being the mildest winter on record as January will come out not that much above average.

But agree with Brian that we seem to be in a warm/mild pattern since about last June. In my experience these warm/ cold runs tend to last around 6 months. For example the first 5 months of last year were generally cold, now we have had around 6 months of warmer than average. I remember the first 6 months of 2013 were very cold and the last 6 months being warm as another example.

So we must be due to come out of this pattern at some point maybe it will be March.

Agree with this totally, though I think any cooling won't occur until at least the 2nd half of this year. The last warm phase peaked in summer 2018* and after that, there was a very gradual cool down that eventually bottomed out in early Summer 2021. Only going by stats for over here, but would imagine it would be a similar story in the UK. 

* that should read early Summer 2019

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Not so many years ago I would be one to criticise such a statement, but there's no denying the climate is changing and the old rule of thumb that over a year the means normalize out is sadly no longer true and you can't say 'next month will be cold because the last three have been warm' anymore. The evidence is there to see.
I wonder if and when the next cold winter will come.

Still, stranger things have happened (March 2018 for instance)

I can remember during the winter of 2006/07, which was a very poor one for coldies and was also my first winter as a member of TWO, that many people were asking on these threads if we were ever likely to get a reasonably long-lasting spell of notable winter cold in this country again, let alone a notably cold winter season. Given what that winter was like and the one after that, many would have been forgiven at that time for thinking the answer to that was a pretty definite 'no'. Little did any of us think then that only 3-4 years later, we would see two winters on the bounce with major month-long cold spells and a sub-zero CET month in the second of those winters.

I agree that recent climatology is generally a good guide, but at the same time it should never be taken to mean that a notable cold spell of sustained length can't or won't happen again. Some of us thought that in the mid-noughties as noted above, but we had something of a rude awakening for a time at the end of the 2000s/ start of the 2010s.

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Think we need to see a negative AMO develop before any meaningful winters verify. As back in 70s/80s..although with a warming climate we may not see one as definitive as they were..

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Hope springs eternal ...

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten.php?map=1&model=gfs&var=2&run=12&time=102&lid=P29&h=0&mv=0&tr=6#mapref

 

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Think we need to see a negative AMO develop before any meaningful winters verify. As back in 70s/80s..although with a warming climate we may not see one as definitive as they were..

One never knows what might happen. As I noted above, we managed to get a sub-zero CET month in December 2010 for the first time in nearly 25 years and that, if memory serves me well, was the first sub-zero CET December since 1890 or thenabouts. Also worth noting that that also happened during the current period of a positive AMO. This was also only a year after Scotland in 2009 had its coldest December overall since the freezer of 1981 (the freeze in December 2009 began a week before Christmas, IIRC).

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 One never knows what might happen. As I noted above, we managed to get a sub-zero CET month in December 2010 

2010 is a world away now bearing in mind what has been happening since 2013. 

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2010 is a world away now bearing in mind what has been happening since 2013. 

IIRC 2010 was right at the end of the last solar minimum, which is where we were last year.  I must admit I was hopeful for this winter based on that, even though it’s just one piece of a puzzle.

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Hope springs eternal ...

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten.php?map=1&model=gfs&var=2&run=12&time=102&lid=P29&h=0&mv=0&tr=6#mapref

 

Did somebody mention spring?

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Not so many years ago I would be one to criticise such a statement, but there's no denying the climate is changing and the old rule of thumb that over a year the means normalize out is sadly no longer true and you can't say 'next month will be cold because the last three have been warm' anymore. The evidence is there to see.
I wonder if and when the next cold winter will come.

Still, stranger things have happened (March 2018 for instance)

I fear that with each passing year - the chance gets lower. In my short lifetime on this planet, the change is massive - globally 1 degree c - since the 60s. Suffolk County Council stopped paying for annual snow drift fencing in East Anglia in 1996. back then the showers we had today would have been “East Coast Snow Showers” but instead it was 4 degrees C max, and cold rain. If you want snow, you need to go up a mountain. I am off to the Alps soon, as I have just got fed up waiting for a flake at home. 

It’s perfectly possibly to get snow given the right Synoptics, but getting those gets harder and rarer with each year. Interestingly (sadly) the low air flights have reduced global dimming, meaning that the more of the suns energy is now being trapped by the CO2 and methane. So its warmer since the pandemic. The only hope is short-term that the Gulf Stream will shut down from the rate of Fresh water melt Ice. This would be short-term, but might give a few cold winters, fr a decade perhaps, but experts consider the melt water is not sufficient to effect a shut down. Perhaps the Tonga volcano will seed the oceans with ironised dust and create a short-term algae bloom in the oceans, absorbing CO2, like 1995 and Mt Pinatubo.

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2010 is a world away now bearing in mind what has been happening since 2013. 

Point taken, Steve. That said, and as I posted earlier, we were having broadly similar discussions on this forum 15 years ago when I was a newcomer to this place about whether or not cold winters and notable spells of cold in the UK were effectively consigned to the history books given what had occured over the previous 15 or so years. Very few, if any, of us at that time could have foreseen what was to happen in two successive winters only a few years later.

Also, as I think was mentioned previously, there doesn't seem to have been a lack of cold in others parts of the globe this winter. It seems to be that for whatever reason(s), the synoptics in our part of the world haven't played ball even though it seemed we were close to a cold spell according to the models in mid-December.

Back in the mid-noughties I did believe within myself that cold winters were still possible and a few years later I was proved to be correct, and I still have that feeling now. The 2020/21 winter overall wasn't exactly mild in my part of the world although I appreciate it may have been different elsewhere. I honestly don't believe that so much has changed in the last 8-9 years (very little time in climate terms) which makes our chances of cold winters very much less than was the case in 2013 and prior to then.

 

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Looking at the GFS ensemble options, around a third of them produce quite a sharp cold snap around two weeks ahead, driven by deep low pressure diving down to our east.

Equally there are other options on offer, including continued high pressure dominance.

The ensemble mean at T+300 shows a high pressure cell west of Iberia at 1,030 mb and low pressure just off the northern coast of Norway/Sweden; 850hPa values from -6c to 0c, north-east to south-west.

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I fear that with each passing year - the chance gets lower. In my short lifetime on this planet, the change is massive - globally 1 degree c - since the 60s. Suffolk County Council stopped paying for annual snow drift fencing in East Anglia in 1996. back then the showers we had today would have been “East Coast Snow Showers” but instead it was 4 degrees C max, and cold rain. If you want snow, you need to go up a mountain. I am off to the Alps soon, as I have just got fed up waiting for a flake at home. 

It’s perfectly possibly to get snow given the right Synoptics, but getting those gets harder and rarer with each year. Interestingly (sadly) the low air flights have reduced global dimming, meaning that the more of the suns energy is now being trapped by the CO2 and methane. So its warmer since the pandemic. The only hope is short-term that the Gulf Stream will shut down from the rate of Fresh water melt Ice. This would be short-term, but might give a few cold winters, fr a decade perhaps, but experts consider the melt water is not sufficient to effect a shut down. Perhaps the Tonga volcano will seed the oceans with ironised dust and create a short-term algae bloom in the oceans, absorbing CO2, like 1995 and Mt Pinatubo.

There is a ‘triple whammy’ in play: the Arctic is less cold, so the air mass starts its journey slightly less potent; then warmer sea surfaces mean greater modification of the lower layer; then higher CO2 levels make surface air temperatures just slightly higher.  

Then, on top of that, there’s the changing climatology, as shown by Brian recently, where pressure to the south has risen a little. 

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There is a ‘triple whammy’ in play: the Arctic is less cold, so the air mass starts its journey slightly less potent; then warmer sea surfaces mean greater modification of the lower layer; then higher CO2 levels make surface air temperatures just slightly higher.  

Then, on top of that, there’s the changing climatology, as shown by Brian recently, where pressure to the south has risen a little. 

That is actually very interesting and I thank you for that explanation. It makes a lot of sense to me. All rather a sad state of affairs, but apart from my driving an electric car and eating less meat, both of which I do, I cant do much about the rising CO2, and will just have to find a mountain once a year. We might get a March blast of transient snow - who knows.

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