You said cold not snow? Plus the ECM is useless for snow wherever you are in the UK

ICON is the best for forecasting snow and the areas it is likely fall, I find. 

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The ECM is as good as it gets for early Dec, the importance is the height rises in the GIN allowing stability of the block and reduces the chances of the it getting toppled by the Jet.

https://wetterzentrale.de/maps/ECMOPEU12_240_1.png 

Another week of those synoptics and it would be very frigid indeed as the air is drawn from the east, with the high SSTs in the North Sea too plenty of opportunity for lake effect. The Atlantic is just dead in the T240, with a textbook split PV. I've not checked the strat forecast, any sign of SSW?

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Agree, Dec 2010 was cold but largely snowless down here. January 2010 on the other hand…

Agree. Dec 2010 was almost a non event here as I've said before. Very different to mid December 2009 to mid January 2010 when there were 3 heavy falls of snow.

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ICON is the best for forecasting snow and the areas it is likely fall, I find. 

In the short term its decent, but any snow risk is 7 day + atm. 

We're so lucky these days to have access to so many models, I find it best to view all of them and go with the mean and your own judgement they can all be hit and miss in tearms of snowfall even @ -24 hours. 

Big spread on MOGREPS.

 

Also interesting to see the GEFS 2m temp data tables looking a little less cold than some of the recent updates despite the apparent trend towards lower 850s.  

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/premium/gefs-tables.aspx?run=12&fv=tmp2max&loc=london&lat=51.5&lon=0&p=&cty=

 

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I think detail is a long way off still but it is starting to look odds on for a seasonal few days at least with some high pressure and hopefully crisp frosty conditions rather than grey damp ones.

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Certainly some tasty charts about tonight 😀 

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https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gfse_cartes.php?&ech=282&mode=0&runpara=1 

Shift the pattern 1000 miles West and it whould be epic. 
If and a BIG IF  the chart materialised as shown, we would be on corse for the best start to Winter we could hope for. 

I think the some of the charts we are seeing just now are the most interesting we have seen in late autumn/early winter since 2010. I certainly cannot easily recall another year since where there has been this level of interest in the model output at the start of the meteorogical winter.

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I think the some of the charts we are seeing just now are the most interesting we have seen in late autumn/early winter since 2010. I certainly cannot easily recall another year since where there has been this level of interest in the model output at the start of the meteorogical winter.

Ageed David. Who knows what we'll end up with come 7-10 days time, but the signals are there for a potentially cold Easterly in early to mid December. 

Run to to run there'll be flip flopping but there's strong signals for the general pattern. Even made a mention  the BBC 10:30 p.m. weather forecast tonight!

Many might end up disappointed, but stacks of interest this early Winter for sure.

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depends where you lived bar 1 big snowfall wasn’t remarkable in the SE

It was in the context of this century, even in  the S.E. Damned by faint praise maybe, but that's the way it is now.
 

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It was in the context of this century, even in  the S.E. Damned by faint praise maybe, but that's the way it is now.
 

I don't really understand that opinion. The 21st century has been far better for snow round here than the late 20th was, and especially the period from 2008 onwards which have seen several epic snowfalls. Admittedly the last two or three winters have been poor but even 2021 had lying snow in January, February and April. 

Anyway back to the models and GFS seems to have changed its tune on the shape of the northern blocking although the parallel run does go a bit 2010. 

ECM looks pretty poor for cold this morning compared to previous runs with the block much too far southeast. 

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In recent years, where I am, we have typically seen snow falling in November, December, January, February and March. Snow 5 months of the year. At this point I'm greedy for the bigger events. Fingers crossed.

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More of a messy affair in the output this morning but still a general consensus of some kind of monsterous anticyclone to our north east in about 10 days. 

Agree. Dec 2010 was almost a non event here as I've said before. Very different to mid December 2009 to mid January 2010 when there were 3 heavy falls of snow.

Whereas we had not a single snowflake here in December 2009.   Agree that Jan 2010 was good for snow though, though even that didn't produce the regular top-ups as good as we saw here in the run up to Christmas 2010.    Nor, indeed, the record  temps (lowest I have ever recorded - both by day and night )

Of course, we (the country and the people living therein, with a few exceptions) need a repeat of that like we need a zombie apocalypse.   Although in the case of the latter, we could at least burn the bodies to keep warm ....  

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The parallel/soon to be operational GFS run is rather wintry this morning.

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WX temp chart shows the )C isotherm retreating from E France to E Germany, but leaving quite a cold area behind. First (tiny) patch of 0C for Britain - the Scottish Highlands in week 2. Also a big development of sub -16C in E Russia in week 2. Atlantic rainfall retreating though still a weak patch from NE Scotland up to Norway, but the real action is all the way through the Med.

GFS Op - current LP off NW Scotland being squeezed into a shallow trough down the N Sea between HP to the SW and NE Mon 28th. The HP over Scandinavia intensifies and takes over with Britain on its edge and under SE-ly influences to Tue 6th, when the HP retrogresses W-wards to mid Atlantic, and a cold trough appears from Norway to France with Britain under N-lies Sat 10th. But the HP re-loads strongly over Finland 1060mb Mon 12th.

ECM - similar distribution of pressure to GFS though Scandinavian HP  stetches out further towards Iceland, and a cold pool over France flirts with England from time to time. 

GEFS - a pulse of rain for the SE at first, then mostly dry everywhere for 2 weeks, temps at or a little below norm (the latter most marked around Sat 3rd and Sat 10th in the S) but with ens members increasingly divergent after Sat 3rd. 
 

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One of the many parameters that could be used to formulate a winter forecast, NH snow cover, has moved from about normal to record levels in the last two weeks:
https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/snow-extent-northern-hemisphere-highest-56-years-winter-cold-rrc/?fbclid=IwAR1fsDKY0FqWct7bZKxzi9FiQCL0FCDdl0-9at0dLl-exFhMKAgmbNuc4Ag 

The link is greater snow cover, higher chance of positive SLP anomalies and colder surface temps. But as I say, it's one factor of many.

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Seems to be strong signs of a very big high pressure area forming in about week to 10 days time.

Quite how strong, and where it is centred is rather more vague, somewhere roughly between Poland, Moscow and Southern Finland seems to be suggested.  Rather suggests could get a North Easterly, but could be winds from East or North too.   Wind direction will obviously determine how cold and where (if anywhere) gets snow that settles.

Alas, many might just see some wet snow or sleet, which is not really any more fun than cold rain.
 

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Key feature being the departure of the omnipresent Azores ridge on the output. This would indeed tip the balance of favouring a marked pattern change across Europe . As always the devil's in the detail..Makes for good output observations

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