WX charts - although the really cold area remains well to the N and E, western Europe is cooling down quite widely in week2, with freezing areas appearing over high ground, not just the Alps but small patches in N Scotland, N Germany and N Spain. The pptn chart has changed, still wet on the Atlantic and inland to France and Germany in week 1, but a large dry area becomes established over W Europe with rain pushed NW on the Atlantic clear of land, and also SE to the Adriatic.

GFS Op - three phases (1) the usual zonal W-lies with LPs moving past/across Scotland to Sat 14th (2) the last of these LPs dips into the N Sea and stays there for a period with cold N/NW-lies to Fri 20th (3) pressure then rises, moving up from the SW to establish over S Norway 1045mb Wed 25th with SE-lies lasting to end of run Fri 27th.

ECM - like GFS at first but the trough in the N Sea dips further S to an LP centre in the Channel 975mb Tue 17th looking very wintry for a couple of days; then the HP stays out to the SW with NW-lies continuing

GEFS - temps up and down at first esp in S then cold to Fri 19th after which mean is near norm but sitting in the middle of  a wide range of ens temps. Peaks of rain Thu 12th, Sat 14th and Tue 17th,  then irregularly in some runs mainly in the W

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Much has been written, and there have been many comparisons, but that short but brutal spell remains the winter highlight at least for me here in Deep South. Mon 12th Jan in isolation was as good as it gets - a NE gale, -6C max and blowing, drifting snow. What a day!

Yes remember it well on the south coast  in worthing at the time coldest day of the century . Was about as severs as it can get in some ways comparable with Jan 82 which was less severe for the SE than elsewhere.   In the 87 spell the Meday towns had at least 2 fwet of level snow  incredible lake effect snowfall . Sussex didn't have falls that heavy but a foot was pretty widespread in the East of the county 

Barring a 10 minute snow shower, it was bone dry IMBY. Watching the news of snowmageddon (no doubt it being the SE being most affected that guaranted extensive headlines...) then looking outside prompted feelings of confusion and disappointment.

It was bloody cold, though.

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I really don't have any memories of Jan 1987, strangely. Yet I remember the snow of 1982 despite only being 4 then, and 9 in 1987!

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Latter stages of the GFS 6z do not look good, back to the mild South Westerlies after a brief cold snap next week. Let's hope the longer term outlook improves and starts to show signs of a more significant cold spell than what we are looking at next week.

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Can anyone remember the date of the “Kettley High” when only northern parts saw any cold after a brief promise that we might get Snowmaggedon

Can anyone remember the date of the “Kettley High” when only northern parts saw any cold after a brief promise that we might get Snowmaggedon

2001??

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Can anyone remember the date of the “Kettley High” when only northern parts saw any cold after a brief promise that we might get Snowmaggedon

Early Jan 2001 from memory.
 

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Latter stages of the GFS 6z do not look good, back to the mild South Westerlies after a brief cold snap next week. Let's hope the longer term outlook improves and starts to show signs of a more significant cold spell than what we are looking at next week.

The last few runs of GFS have still got the two brief Northerly bursts but have backed-off the idea of removing heights to the south alowing anything more substantial. I'm guessing the OPs might again be on teh mild side of teh suite and with GEM and to a certain extent EC remaining bullish this still has potential.
Tues 17th Jan is still presenting itself as a potentuial snow day for some areas.

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Can anyone remember the date of the “Kettley High” when only northern parts saw any cold after a brief promise that we might get Snowmaggedon

Feb 2001 from here I think.

Kettley high charts 

 

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Feb 2001 from here I think.

Kettley high charts 

 

that’s the one thanks Brian

Latter stages of the GFS 6z do not look good, back to the mild South Westerlies after a brief cold snap next week. Let's hope the longer term outlook improves and starts to show signs of a more significant cold spell than what we are looking at next week.

Does seem to be a certain amount of variability, pattern wise, with respect to the 7-16 day model output at the moment, so  may be.... just may be, a few surprises in store for the next few runs.

The op is at the higher end inGEFS for much of the later stages. But there is a potential cold snap in 5 days so will hopefully enjoy that. Think further out will be volatile and change many times as it usually does. I still believe there is a chance of more interest over Scandi before Jan is out

The last few runs of GFS have still got the two brief Northerly bursts but have backed-off the idea of removing heights to the south alowing anything more substantial. I'm guessing the OPs might again be on teh mild side of teh suite and with GEM and to a certain extent EC remaining bullish this still has potential.
Tues 17th Jan is still presenting itself as a potentuial snow day for some areas.

milder after the cold snap next week does also look to be supported by the ensembles at the moment though.

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milder after the cold snap next week does also look to be supported by the ensembles at the moment though.

So what you're saying is that we need to look deep into the unreliable FI time period for mild weather? Interesting.

The colder, potentially wintry,snap may not even happen given the timescale so guessing beyond then looks a bit pointless to me to be honest as only a few days ago it was mooted that it would continue mild throughout the entire month.

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Feb 2001 from here I think.

Kettley high charts 

 

On the Wednesday Farmer's update John Kettley famously forecast a much colder easterly setting in with snow across the whole of the UK. Helen Young, who was his senior at the time, presented on Thursday and basically changed the forecast to the easterly affecting Scotland only. The rest is history but a simple incorrect forecast has gone down in folklore.

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On the Wednesday Farmer's update John Kettley famously forecast a much colder easterly setting in with snow across the whole of the UK. Helen Young, who was his senior at the time, presented on Thursday and basically changed the forecast to the easterly affecting Scotland only. The rest is history but a simple incorrect forecast has gone down in folklore.

Close, but not quite right.

John Kettley left in 2000 to join a private forecasting company. He then forecast that very cold weather - cynics might say he was just trying to "outdo" the Met Office and garner attention for the forecasting company, but who knows.

The Met Office response, via the Beeb, was to rubbish him.

Loads more about this, including the Beeb forecasts, over on NetWeather:

https://community.netweather.tv/topic/72483-met-office-v-john-kettley-early-february-2001/ 
 

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So what you're saying is that we need to look deep into the unreliable FI time period for mild weather? Interesting.

The colder, potentially wintry,snap may not even happen given the timescale so guessing beyond then looks a bit pointless to me to be honest as only a few days ago it was mooted that it would continue mild throughout the entire month.

Tomorrow, if FI flips to showing cold for the rest of the month, do you think the poster in question will be back on here giving a cold forecast?

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milder after the cold snap next week does also look to be supported by the ensembles at the moment though.

Not really, in fact. There's the usual scatter but quite a decent number of perturbations keeping it cool to cold. 

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Not really, in fact. There's the usual scatter but quite a decent number of perturbations keeping it cool to cold. 

The ECM 10 day mean is pretty hopeless for cold though. So after our blink and you miss it cold snap, its back to normal service
Is there any point getting interested in this at all?
https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php?ech=240&mode=1&map=0&type=1&archive=0 

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