GFS Op - the current HP finally moves off into the Atlantic on Sat 16th allowing a deep LP 975mb C Norway to start sending N-lies across Britain. A secondary dragged into this off the Atlantic brings stormy weather and likely snow for higher ground in the north 975mb E Anglia  Tue 19th. The N-lies then resume but another S-ly tracking LP 990mb Channel Thu 21st implies more pptn but not quite as cold as the first one. The main LP moves away from Norway E-wards to Russia and there is then more activity and milder weather from the Atlantic, introduced by LPs 990mb Mon 25th Ireland and a larger area of LP 985mb Rockall Sat 30th (at which time there is a dartboard low sitting in mid-Atlantic)

ECM - the N-lies are less directly from the Arctic than in GFS and tend to be NW-lies at times. The LP Tue 19th is present (985mb Wales) which deepens, generating its coldest flow on the 21st, moving to the N Sea and finally merging with the main LP over Norway, with winds definitely NW-ly by Sat 23rd. The other LP shown by GFS on Thu 21st does not appear.

GEM - agrees with GFS but brings back the Atlantic a day or two earlier, Sat 23rd, only for this Atlantic LP to combine with LP still over Norway and promptly bring back the N-lies by the end of the weekend

GEFS- temps dropping to 6 or 7C below norm from Sun 17th for a week; then one by one the ens members get milder and by Tue 26th are mostly back above norm (a very few ens members cut the cold spell short, and conversely a very few prolong it, these mostly in the N). A lot of rain/snow everywhere from 17th - expect floods in the south by 24th. Snow row figures not as dramatically high as one might think for most of Britain - typically low teens (out of 33) for lowland stations around the 19th, but unusually these figures also appear all the way south to the Channel.

I'm here. Watching quietly on. 

I haven't had much time to post here recently. 

Probably a relief for many of you, but my dad has been diagnosed with cancer and I'm back and forth to hospital with him a lot, so haven't had a huge amount of time to post here.

Safe to say, though, this early cold spell is fascinating model watching, and the atmosphere seems to be in a different "mood" this year to previous ones; so hopefully over the next few months everyone will be in the game.

Sorry to hear about your dad, mate. Hope he recovers.

Best wishes to your Dad.

I hope you're right about something different this year

At the same time we dont want to end up in the Spanish situation displaced further north. Lows crashing into the south and cyclogenisis generating large rainfall 

IMBY rather looking forward to the wind direction as do very well in a cold NW flow.

Next week is looking fascinating for sure.

I might get a bit involved in these shenanigans as I’m in Leicester Tuesday and then Edinburgh from Weds for work. 

A fabled channel Low Neil 

I hadn’t noticed 😂😉

I was going to say "south of the M4 largely misses out" but then I kept watching!

That characteristic squashed flat shape of the isobars through the Channel reminds me of charts from late Dec 1978 although that was a deeper low. https://modeles3.meteociel.fr/modeles/reana/1978/archives-1978-12-31-0-0.png

Many tweaks, twists, turns and tribulations to yet I feel.

Tee hee and all that, just kidding, happily there's a lot more of interest in the charts than desperately reviewing deepest FI for glimmers of hope and it's nice that it's a case of having to scour FI for signs of mild returning.

Must admit I'm a little ambivalent about the upcoming colder weather - the charts look nice and *if* they verify reasonably close to what some of the runs have shown there's likely to be some decent falls of snow for some but IMBY I do struggle to get excited with not overly cold northerly flows in November. By which I mean the 850s are low but not that low down here and moderation from sea etc. usually mean maxes of 4-6c outside of organised precip in my little bit of the UK although if the pattern persists for long enough you'd expect temps to drop away even in the far south.  Hopefully we'll get some crisp weather out of this though and if we do get lucky with any LPs rolling through as per the 6z op, then I'll take it as a very pleasant bonus, transient though it might end up being. 

Leaving aside my IMBY rubbish there's no denying that the projected general pattern is a cold one for late November and it is very likely to lead to notably cold weather for some folks for the time of year. As it's starting to look unstable, forecasting depth of cold and snow is a bit of a gamble outside of the usual 36-48 hour window IMO but unless the models backtrack then somewhere is quite likely to get a decent drop of snow. Those LPs rolling through are very much high risk/high reward set ups - a tweak south and not a lot happens outside of wintry showers for prone areas and a tweak north and milder air gets pulled over larger chunks of the country and the pattern fizzles out. The LPs do also have to act in a way to stop HP re-establishing south so small changes in track can have disproportionately large impacts. 

As it stands though, a colder spell is looking very likely and there's the potential for it to be snowy for some, which is a welcome place to be heading in winter. I don't think we're past the risk of a few small tweaks collapsing the pattern to one of transient interest to the North only, so will stay in interested but pessimistic mode for a few days yet. Others I'm sure will have a more optimistic and less IMBY view of things!

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?model=ecm&lid=OP 

Yes it started yesterday.  Slightly discombobulating for us weather nerds. 

I was just about to post I wonder who will be the first to mention the M4 corridor this winter. You win! 😀

I discussed it yesterday. See 

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/Posts/m1609749-Model-Output-Discussion 

It's on TWO here out to t+360:

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/ecmhr.aspx 

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/ecmhr.aspx?run=00&charthour=0&chartname=gh_na&chartregion=uk-region&charttag=500hPa%20/%20MSLP 

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=20&model=gfs&var=25&run=12&time=111&lid=OP&h=0&mv=0&tr=3#mapref 

The 6z  was much better:  

Indeed , it's not great compared to the 6z . Goes Pete Tong soon after as well.