As a teenager in the 60's, and living in the Yorkshire Dales I can say I saw my share of deep drifting snow in that period, wonderful days. I can also say that there were many, many times when we had raw, miserable, cloudy, wet, windy weather that was just a tiny bit too warm for snow, or started off as snow, got a good blanket laid, only to hear the dreaded drip, drip drip of a slow but constant thaw and all that lovely snow and effort wasted! Temps would then stay between 3 and 6c for several days. Miserable. And just for balance...some of the summers were abysmal in the 60's. Days of cloud and 13c as the max. 22c was a heatwave.

Ecm means look very very poor plenty of flooding and little snow .

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=1&model=ecm&var=2&run=12&time=216&lid=AVG&h=0&mv=0&tr=24#mapref

 

 Looks almost identical to the GEFS mean at the same times (216 and 240) in terms of 850s and very similar in terms of pressure too.

I'm happy enough with the GEFS ensemble in terms of chances of cold weather so the ECM is more of the same.

Remember that the day 9 and 10 period is the absolute highest point of the mean on the GEFS too.

Here for comparison at T240:

GEFS mean:

ECM mean:

Allowing for the different map projection, the track of the 0C and -5C lines is almost identical. The ECM one "looks" milder because the WZ chart uses yellow for the >0C temperature but on Meteociel it's green and doesn't go yellow until 8C.

 

 Looks almost identical to the GEFS mean at the same times (216 and 240) in terms of 850s and very similar in terms of pressure.

I'm happy enough with the GEFS ensemble in terms of chances of cold weather so the ECM is more of the same.

Remember that the day 9 and 10 period is the absolute highest point of the mean on the GEFS too.

Yes both ECM & GFS have both followed a similar path for a few days, it's the logical solution with the jet going under the retreating heights to the NW. But we may be seeing a trend for the Iberian High to be less influential, only minor changes are needed to get some or all parts on the colder side of the PFJ.

 

 Looks almost identical to the GEFS mean at the same times (216 and 240) in terms of 850s and very similar in terms of pressure too.

I'm happy enough with the GEFS ensemble in terms of chances of cold weather so the ECM is more of the same.

Remember that the day 9 and 10 period is the absolute highest point of the mean on the GEFS too.

 

Here for comparison at T240:

GEFS mean:

ECM mean:

 

Allowing for the different map projection, the track of the 0C and -5C lines is almost identical. The ECM one "looks" milder because the WZ chart uses yellow for the >0C temperature but on Meteociel it's green and doesn't go yellow until 8C.

 

There both pretty rubbish if u like snow say south Birmingham . Not sharing the optimism I'm afraid. The colder spell at the end of the week looks to marginal for the south and then it gets even milder. 

 

The jet is already becoming very active this week - whatever happens the SSW has probably saved us from a zonality on steroids spell.

With wet weather last week and more this week you would not know the difference. It's as zonal as it can get as far as i am aware - despite a lot of Northern Blocking and negative AO/ NAO.

 

With wet weather last week and more this week you would not know the difference. It's as zonal as it can get as far as i am aware - despite a lot of Northern Blocking and negative AO/ NAO.

Agreed as it been very wet regardless zonal or not but only way out is to get this horrible winter done early and hopefully drier warmer Spring and very dry summer to make up for it which stand a better chance since unwelcome Greenland HP on the models had been there since Dec will not last to summer.

 

With wet weather last week and more this week you would not know the difference. It's as zonal as it can get as far as i am aware - despite a lot of Northern Blocking and negative AO/ NAO.

Im not an expert in meteorology but I can definitely say this period of weather has not been anything like zonal. 
im sure someone here can give us a correct definition of the term.

 

There both pretty rubbish if u like snow say south Birmingham . Not sharing the optimism I'm afraid. The colder spell at the end of the week looks to marginal for the south and then it gets even milder. 

 

If the GEFS is the trendsetter though then that is as mild as it gets. The 0C isotherm should rapidly head south again from that point onwards (and may never get that far north anyway, with all the scatter).

 

Don’t you just love acronyms...

Especially TLAs.

By the way, was there an answer to what QTR stood for?

 

 

By the way, was there an answer to what QTR stood for?

Quick Tropospheric Response

Back to the models... Getting better:

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?model=gfs&lid=ENS&var=2&bw=1&geoid=49069

P8 is a cold outlier early on, it somehow picks up a blob of very cold air in that satellite low  to the north and spins it right across the UK 

Not very likely I would say!

By the way, was there an answer to what QTR stood for?

Quite Tired of Rain, in my case.

 

 

Im not an expert in meteorology but I can definitely say this period of weather has not been anything like zonal. 
im sure someone here can give us a correct definition of the term.

I am not an academic expert but I understand that the best analogy is with radio frequency. The longer the wavelength the flatter (more zonal) the flow. The shorter the wavelength the more amplified (meridional) the flow. The meridional flow shows greater oscilation. We never see perfect versions of either as there is always some oscilation and there is always some zonal fluidity. The best way to ascertain the presence of one or the other is at the 500mb height where you can see the main flow of the atmosphere that drives the weather systems.  The flow will follow the contours in similar fashion to SLP charts. Those more learned with me are welcome to add or correct.

GFS Para delivers snowmaggeddon deep into FI - with PV displaced to Denmark - this set up would top trump 1987 - obviously JFF eye candy. , but otherwise - business as usual...

Some colossal rainfall totals over the next 10 days especially for northern England.  Limited snow opportunities away from northern hills. In fact its mainly mild in the south.

http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/prec4 copious rain for the next two weeks, not just the amber warning for the north on Wednesday; and the Siberian cold has wimped out.

GFS = LPs moving across from the Atlantic, particularly deep 960mb NE Scotland Fri 22nd with a brief spell of N-lies to follow; then back to the Atlantic conveyor throughout (the most S-ly of these LPs runs across the UK Fri 29th 985 mb NI).

FAX shows LP this week a day earlier i.e. Thu and deeper 950mb with lots of frontal rain preceding it.

GEFS - mild now (near norm in Scotland), cool Thu 21st to  Tue 26th with good agreement. Thereafter a suggestion of mild at first and cooler later but much variability in different runs. Rain throughout -yesterday's forecast dry slot ca  Sat 23rd has been squeezed out at least for the S.

ECM - similar to GFS at first but inclined to keep N-ly flow for longer after Fri 22nd, perhaps as long as Wed 27th

Some colossal rainfall totals over the next 10 days especially for northern England.  Limited snow opportunities away from northern hills. In fact its mainly mild in the south.

Morning, I think that’s a tad pessimistic, I think snow will get down to lower levels this weekend in the north and showers may be driven well inland with a westerly vector to the wind. A snapshot from GFS shows this quite well. 

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/GFSOPEU00_120_1.png

GFS Para delivers snowmaggeddon deep into FI - with PV displaced to Denmark - this set up would top trump 1987 - obviously JFF eye candy. , but otherwise - business as usual...

That would be a cracking position to be in at the start of February for sure. Pressure rising to the North pulling in deep cold from the continent. Lovely.