^^^^^^^

Yes I remember that well  , my Dad was putting a base down for a shed in the garden , the ground was harder than the road , a great Month 

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I take issue with some of those on that list.

2002-03 wasn't a front loaded winter, December 2002 was actually mild following the very mild November. There was a poor man's easterly mid month but it was snowless for many parts that December.

2003-04, I would call that a mild winter with each month contain short wintry episodes, they were no sustained wintry spells. 

2004-05 had a white Christmas but it was fortunate the short blast occurred at Christmas, in actuality it was a mild December. The only sustained wintry spell came at the back end at that winter.

Recent Decembers have been a throwback to the Decembers of 1970s and 1980s.

 

Don't forget December 00, where we had a cold snap with snow late in the month. Not a classic by any means, but it was over the festive period, and in a prolonged period lacking any even moderately long cold and snowy spells, it felt like winter wonderland.

The only other snowy spell that 'winter' came in the March (here, at least) and that was brief. 

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Don't forget December 00, where we had a cold snap with snow late in the month. Not a classic by any means, but it was over the festive period, and in a prolonged period lacking any even moderately long cold and snowy spells, it felt like winter wonderland.

The only other snowy spell that 'winter' came in the March (here, at least) and that was brief. 

Yes I remember that! A short but sharp northerly and then easterly gave us snow flurries and dustings boxing day 26th Dec 2000. However this didn;t last but left a trace/smattering! Again my point is that whilst this wasn't front loaded winter like 09/10 and 10/11 it still gave HLB with cold and snow at some point in December!? - Something we haven't had since 2010.

 

 

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CFS monthly charts show a notably cold December over much of Europe, but not the UK.

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfsme_cartes.php?ech=2&mode=8&carte=0&run=10 

January looks very mild for just about everyone. Certainly nothing very wintry on the charts for the UK on these maps.

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CFS monthly charts show a notably cold December over much of Europe, but not the UK.

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfsme_cartes.php?ech=2&mode=8&carte=0&run=10

January looks very mild for just about everyone. Certainly nothing very wintry on the charts for the UK on these maps.

You could still have 10 days of Artic weather and the other 21 be very mild Rob but the above are the same as the charts Tally and I have posted - JFF 

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CFS monthly charts show a notably cold December over much of Europe, but not the UK.

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfsme_cartes.php?ech=2&mode=8&carte=0&run=10

January looks very mild for just about everyone. Certainly nothing very wintry on the charts for the UK on these maps.

 

If you look at the pressure chart it looks like anticyclonic dominated conditions, ie surface cold, with the U.K. on the NW flank and therefore still under air masses from west/south.

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If you look at the pressure chart it looks like anticyclonic dominated conditions, ie surface cold, with the U.K. on the NW flank and therefore still under air masses from west/south.

Valid point indeed and February shows a strong high of Greenland - those charts aren't as bad as they look

Dare I use the word potential ?

BUT too far out to really be taken seriously I'd say 

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Gavin always said to focus on the pressure and it's the height anomaly not temperature the heights/mean pressure is more important than temp. Even with blocked pattern and easterly the long range models will still go for average or above average temperatures. 

November and December show a blocked pattern with potential easterly with ridging up towards Scandinavia!?

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Gavin always said to focus on the pressure and it's the height anomaly not temperature the heights/mean pressure is more important than temp. Even with blocked pattern and easterly the long range models will still go for average or above average temperatures. 

November and December show a blocked pattern with potential easterly with ridging up towards Scandinavia!?

Height anomaly maps can be highly misleading though. Higher anomalies to the north, for example, may just mean that high pressure zones may be situated just slightly further north than normal etc. 

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Just checking the strength of zonal winds at 10hpa over the N. Pole - Does anyone know what this is about the purple CFS Bias corrected, BETA!? Is this to do with TS Beta!?

Anyway, they all show a weaker zonal flow.

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CFS monthly charts show a notably cold December over much of Europe, but not the UK.

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfsme_cartes.php?ech=2&mode=8&carte=0&run=10

January looks very mild for just about everyone. Certainly nothing very wintry on the charts for the UK on these maps.

Rob those CFS monthlies are top of the chocolate teapots. If you save a run of successive 6hr outputs you’ll see them wafting from hot to cold and all shapes of kitchen sink.

I looked at a weeks worth for Jan20 back in Sep last year and they ranged (for the UK) from -5 to +7 anomalies for 2m temp. If you take any seven day series for three months ahead you’ll get a fuzzy smoothed mean of around zero I reckon.

In other words, no quantitive value - not even an ‘idea’.

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Just checking the strength of zonal winds at 10hpa over the N. Pole - Does anyone know what this is about the purple CFS Bias corrected, BETA!? Is this to do with TS Beta!?

Anyway, they all show a weaker zonal flow.

Its a version of that algorithm which is under test conditions (beta test state).

I like your suggestion though. Maybe we could have a GFS Teddy run 😂

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https://photos.app.goo.gl/cLAXJHU89aMpYh4L9

This was Cluny Drive in Edinburgh, November 30th 2010. The city had 5 weeks of snow deeper than 12" right down to sea level.
No traffic could move and the army was brought in to clear roads

This is a link from my google photos, hope you can see it

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https://photos.app.goo.gl/cLAXJHU89aMpYh4L9

This was Cluny Drive in Edinburgh, November 30th 2010. The city had 5 weeks of snow deeper than 12" right down to sea level.
No traffic could move and the army was brought in to clear roads

This is a link from my google photos, hope you can see it

 

I've got similar ones!

 

I had a WW1 style trench system going on linking the pavement, the front and back doors and the shed

Just checking the strength of zonal winds at 10hpa over the N. Pole - Does anyone know what this is about the purple CFS Bias corrected, BETA!? Is this to do with TS Beta!?

CFS has very big biases (systematic errors), so at best it's only worth looking at its bias corrected forecasts. 

 

CFS has very big biases (systematic errors), so at best it's only worth looking at its bias corrected forecasts. 

So is the purple line a new thing and I should follow that on the graph!?

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Rob those CFS monthlies are top of the chocolate teapots. If you save a run of successive 6hr outputs you’ll see them wafting from hot to cold and all shapes of kitchen sink.

I looked at a weeks worth for Jan20 back in Sep last year and they ranged (for the UK) from -5 to +7 anomalies for 2m temp. If you take any seven day series for three months ahead you’ll get a fuzzy smoothed mean of around zero I reckon.

In other words, no quantitive value - not even an ‘idea’.

This CFS 12z runs for next January going from 22nd September back to 16th September

 

 

What is the point of these CFS charts? They have little value, IMO, so why are they available? 

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Well, it's good that they're available in the sense they allow us to see how thoroughly useless seasonal forecasts based on extended model runs are.

That applies equally to the ECM and GLOSEA models. It's just that the latter don't let us see the mess that goes into the final ensemble result. They just give us an unjustifiably precise final average of all these wildly differing runs.

Most of the different tools for coming up with a seasonal forecast (analogues, sunspots, hawthorn berries, QBO, etc.) have some thin strand of logic to them, which makes them worth exploring.if you have time on your hands. But model output beyond day 15, never mind week 15, is the one that definitely needs binning.

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If it's snow you want tally then the highest hill's of Northumberland ate forecast for snow over the weekend. Or you could head to the Highlands where again snow is on the cards for the highest hill top's.

All just for fun of course - it would happen as we head into the start of Spring!?

https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfse_cartes.php?ech=3774&mode=0&carte=0&run=1

 

 

 

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