Leaderboard

If its good to have a debate, then here is another side to it I really don't know where "dignity" comes into this. Who, exactly, loses dignity by attempting to identify evolving weather patterns based on the best data that is available to them? I will speak just for myself here, but the only really significant optimism I have expressed this winter, at least since the early promising signals dissipated in late autumn, only began in late January. Such that TEITS was kind enough to mention the other evening Objectivity should always apply to model discussion, irrespective of outlook, but fortunately late January supported a cold(er) synoptics to evolve - and a colder synoptic pattern that wasn't apparent in NWP at the time. So it was fortunate because it meant that forward thinking could jive with the mood of the thread. As I found earlier in the winter, its very much harder to post and appear to move against the general mood of this environment, appearing as some kind of kill-joy, when individual thinking is not the same. Many on this model output discussion thread root for a similar outcome, very much including myself, but I would suggest the premise of some of these protest and frustration posts work the other way around - and it is not those who try to understand the chaos of the weather patterns who need to reign themselves in to retain "dignity" but maybe instead its the case that some sections of the audience should temper their expectations to the science of meteorology which does not evolve weather patterns soley to accomodate the wishes of that audience (which I tried, and failed, to suggest yet again yesterday evening) I wholeheartedly agree that the surface conditions are a disappointing reflection of the synoptic pattern, but I'm increasingly often at a complete loss at what some people's expectations are on this thread sometimes. If the expectation is to never let the audience down by not only seamlessly reel in a freeze to t0, but to also ensure that the delivery optimises deeply cold uppers and unstable convective snow showers piling in from east to west (or north to south) to satisfy everyone to no exclusion - then frankly this thread should be closed down from November to March Its always the so called "analysts" or alleged messengers of a given weather pattern that are wrong or who need to go back to drawing board when the weather outside the window doesn't mean those lofty expectations. Its not just the weather that is cursed at the end of a frustrating winter in the UK, its also the messengers. From the ordinary member on here, to the qualified analysts of weather organisations, right through to national institutions like the METO There are ways of venting understandable frustration, and frustration I share at what could be, but their are much less emotional and blame driven ways of doing so. In that respect I look forward to the longer days. The virtual in-house bias turns to warmth rather absurdly like the flick of a switch once meteorological winter is finished, but even the UK's unerring ability to deliver cool showery weather around the longest days of the year, and which meets with the summer equivalent of winter ice and snow starved stamping feet, is at least relatively easier to manage.... Edit: If anyone wants to read a good attempt at deciphering the loss of expected amplification and HLB signal related to Pacific progression of tropical convection, then @Singularity has I think made some worthwhile analysis in the technical thread

To be honest Phil my model watching reserves are almost depleted! Its been a long mainly fruitless winter and trying to get everything to come together to produce a decent UK wide spell of cold and snow is fast turning into the search for the Holy Grail! But I will remain on duty till the end of the winter!

All well and good blue although it's not a good synoptic pattern though is it? This wkend aside I mean. We have a compact vortex moving to siberia, and one massive euro high with southerlies. It's been an epic fail yet again and people use the same old words every time "potential" I would say the only bit with potential is this wkend, yet the only day with meaningfull instability is the day milder air floats over from an easterly. You litterelly couldn't make it up in this country it's by far the worst place in the world given our latitude for snow and the more time I spend here the more frustrating it's becoming. 4 years now with no snow which in itself is actually laughable and easily worse than any of the milder snowless winters in the past. It's been a lot worse even than 2006-7 when the likes of Ian Brown made his theories up. But now I'm thinking he was probably onto something because bar that group of winters between 08-13 he is right. Anyway this will last 2 minutes in here like everything else does that that is slightly controversial why the hell have a weather forum if we can't have a proper debate occasionally.

This is a classic easterly! Watch how the cold air mass from eastern Europe and beyond, crosses the UK today, easily seen on the meteociel 850 ThetaE chart, as highlighted - In two days time, the air mass is over the mid-Atlantic - And by next Tuesday it reaches Newfoundland, Canada! - The trajectory plot at that time shows that for St John's, air just above 850mb (1300 metres) crosses Scotland today, after coming from northern Ukraine - air a little higher at 1350 metres has come from the steppes of southern Siberia, near Kazakhstan! - The upshot is that for northern Newfoundland, the temperatures go from below -30°C this weekend, to positive territory with heavy rain and sleet into Wednesday next week - Damn these mild easterlies! (Just a bit of fun )

I have always found it amusing how some talk of the Euro or Azores highs as if they are sentient entities which do as they please - but of course I have no quarrel with it as they are indeed manifestations of forcing from elsewhere so in a sense they can be used as indicators of the background state. The tendency of the Azores/Euro high to interfere with events is a reflection of that for tropical forcing to spring up in the Indian Ocean at relatively short notice - and not only that, but in the wrong areas for each month (eastern IO would not be so bad this month but no, it had to be western - arriving there having taken form over W. Africa). 12z GFS running and there's better ridge to the west of the Icelandic trough thanks to the upstream low being held back more. I've seen a few GEFS members which suggest that this could feasibly lead to a decent ridge up to Greenland a few days later... well, I have to chase something of interest, no matter what the odds Okay... the game is on again! Let's try and get at least something from the phase 8 MJO prior to the interference setting in. That's a key message here - the whole IO interference buggery is not relevant to next week; that's more to do with a lag from phase 4 GWO which should be overridden as the MJO moves through 7/8 such as it is now doing.

Best news of the night - ECM monthly rock solid above average temps till mid-March. Going by its form this winter, get those sledges back out of the loft!

Well said Tamara. Stick at it. Invariably I've found your broad theme forecasts more accurate than not, especially with respect to patterns, and have managed my own expectations as a result. I'm grateful for your input on here.

I can certainly understand the disappointment in current modeling from coldies pov. I think many of us were wary of getting much out of this easterly because of the way the high orientated with low pressure never establishing far enough east under the block ie around Italy so,as successive runs showed,the cold air from the east was limited and the block would sink. Sure enough this morning's charts continue with this trend-just the UK at T96hrs for illustration as they all go the same way so a gradual warm up towards average after the weekend as we import less cold air from further south. It really has been frustrating a Winter for cold lovers with probably more exciting day 10 charts than i can remember and many garden paths trodden eventually leading to at best dry and cold conditions under mid-latitude blocking.

OOOO look what i have, 5 min walk from the beach

Eventful morning here after a temp drop to -3.4C and an accumulation of all of maybe half a cm on last nights damp roads. Our morning started as follows.. Wife (to daughter) - Stick on the main roads this morning, don't go the back road. Daughter - I'm no doing that, I'll get stuck at the Haudigan Roundabout. Wife - Oh well, suit yourself but you'd be better staying on the main roads. 5 mins after she left...Ring...Ring..Ring... Panicked Daughter - I'm stuck on the hill going past Castle Fraser, the car's sliding back down, oh no there's a car coming towards me out of control...it's ok the've stopped and are stuck now. Me - Just try to carefully reverse or roll back down the hill to the junction, turn round and take the bloody main roads like you were told. Daughter (eventually) - I've managed to turn round, OK. 5 mins later...Ring...Ring...Ring... Daughter - Now I'm stuck on the little hill coming back...oh, there's a big truck stuck in the verge...oh, that car's just slid off the road... Me - Oh, bleeping hell! We'll come and get you. Wife and I hastily throw some clothes on and jump in my car (4x4) and 2 mins later are at the scene of carnage with 2 large lorries stuck, several cars and a van or two but luckily nobody has actually hit anyone else. I pull through a gate into a field and park up. With the application of some grit (always handy to keep some in the car) and much man/woman power we all manage to extract daughter, and most of the cars from what, to be honest was a very slippy slope. The trucks were waiting for the police to turn up as they weren't going to try to move until all the cars were gone. If there had been more snow it probably wouldn't have been as bad, but a small fall on icy roads and it polished up nicely to a shine. Anyway, eventually got home and off to work, but slowly as none of the roads had been gritted. Very unusual for the council around here as they are normally pretty good at at least doing the main ones through the villages etc. Maybe they forgot it was winter, but it was forecast to get cold and snow overnight so someone has messed up. Edit: She's getting a set of winter tyres for her birthday this year.

I don't think his forecasts have been that great to be honest. He originally went for a very mild and wet November then modify it to being cooler but was still nearly 1.5C out. December was far drier than predicted and predictions of the Atlantic dominating the rest of winter in early January have proven incorrect.

All three big guns looking to build heights NW at 144. Hope we will see this trend develop over next couple of days: UKMO ECM GFS I'm still holding out for some late Feb snow.

Just home from work and there's an actual sprinking of actual snow. Amounts to pretty much nothing but the kids managed this little chap - a snow guinea pig apparently!

By all means, start a thread and debate away ,,,,,,,,,,The bit about 'slightly controversial' is incorrect TBF, there's big difference between having slightly controversial views and being off topic for this particular thread This thread though is for current model output discussion, nothing more, nothing less.........anything else belongs in a different thread, so I hope that clarifies things

Photo @Ravelin style on the way up to Carrbridge. Time tae light the fire and crack open a beer.

Well an improvement in the ECM and our crumb of hope might become a bit bigger. The big 3 all have differing views of the upstream pattern at T144hrs as to which of those lows is the main one. After this mornings truly horrid output from a cold perspective its a bit better. We'll see in the morning whether this gathers pace or whether its a fleeting crumb. Further to my earlier post re the correct MJO signal, I've just read from a certain place beginning with T that someone well known in MJO circles has just said the MJO is heading for phase 8, no mention of the VP200 which looks uninterested and wants to circle the COD and head into phase 1. Also cold for the eastern USA which normally means some troughing there, that normally means a ridge ahead of that so its bizarre to see what the models have been doing.

How can it be GW??...when for the last few weeks/months, vast majority of EUROPE...even ASIA...and at less frequent times ( for a change the ) USA has been in a deep...even brutal cold!! We are in a unique position in the north Atlantic that's in the path of the jet stream, which dictates for at least the best part of our weather!! It as without question, to me anyway...this winter as been cold, even very cold ( like yesterday and today ) at times!! And as felt like a 70's winter, as in cold n dry...90% including me want SNOW and the holy grail winter, like 47, 63, 78 and Dec 2010...but for me it's patterns and ONE will happen sooner or later... that's without question!! Before 2007, a professor said on TV programme...would the uk/western Europe ever see SNOW again...( what an idiot ) we've had more in the last 10yrs...than in the 25/30yrs before 2007...I'm no were near as knowledgeable as the TAMARA's, STE MURR's, TEITS, GP and BB62/63 in this forum world ( 1% I'd say, if that...I mean me ) but from what weather history we have to read about, it's patterns all the way...there were mild, very mild, cold, very cold, xtreme heat to brutal cold...so they went through the same...even the above winters had mild or mildish winters before and after...so one will happen, it's the WHEN!! we can't PREDICT No matter the weather, it's good reading and learning on here...and no one including the professionals...NO WHAT'S ON THE HORIZON!! Especially this winter

I've been keeping an eye on these and it has to be said that the trends do not match the model output when applying the theoretical hemispheric responses; the U200 has adjusted more toward phase 8 from 1, and the U850 is less into 1 than it was, while OLR remains indicative of C Pacific activity, all of which suggests HLB is more likely than not to crop up to the N or NW of the UK - yet the models have moved strongly away from this over the past 24 hours. However, if we look at experimental MJO-filtered products we see a different picture of tropical signals, suggesting that some other tropical phenomena are interfering with the classic Wheeler-Hendon diagnosis; There you have the upper wind signal into phase 1, and the centered plot actually reflects this more than the OLR progression. It's puzzling that such strong phase 1 could follow phase 8 like that without being some kind of E Pac signal in disguise, but looking at Hovmöllers it seems as if the W. Africa-IO signal is independent of the Pacific developments (is it really though - if anyone knows for sure please do let me know, thanks). This raises the major question - could this have been foreseen back in late January for example? All I saw was uncertain projections and disagreement between models masking the true picture at that range so my take on the answer is quite simply 'nope!' So it seems there is still much important work to be done when it comes to understanding what periodically can be among the most major driving forces behind the global weather patterns - and one which has knock-on effects on how the stratosphere evolves as well!

Yes Gavin, a welcome early taste of spring from the models next week, should see some snow..drops!

At least Frosty offers something model related, unlike some of the one line emotive posts, commenting on disasters or horrifying runs, which add nothing but to feed @alekos hobby. Don't mind a bit of realism but some kind of model discussion around these one liners would be appreciated. Let's leave the emotive headlines to the express. We still have a couple of days for surprises to pop up for those in favoured areas for snow, before the next pattern encroaches and who knows what will happen after that because throughout this Winter episode, it seems no pattern wins out for more than 6 days, so lots of time for hope.

I love Frosty's unerring optimism! But I think one look at this tells it all: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/warnings/#?tab=map&map=Warnings&zoom=5&lon=-3.50&lat=55.50 No weather warning for ice or snow anywhere. That tells you all you need to know - nothing to see here folks. It'll be a slushy drizzle fest for a bit, and that's about it. The last snow event a few weeks ago had warnings at least. Best pin our hopes on a late winter spectacular, because our time for winter 16/17 is just about up now.

It's snowing

Azuroslug high has indeed scuppered any chance of anything decent this winter. A part of me is really wishing it is still in situ for the summer to give us a scorcher.....I bet it will have packed its bags and scarpered by then though.

Looks like a very similar evolution high up. Given the zonal flow is weaker than last time to begin with, I wouldn't expect anything coming from the strat to interfere too much with whatever is driving the trop at the time. In any event, for us in the south, march is generally not a month to bring lying snow and I would rather have spring than slush! Sad for coldies that this promising synoptic scenario is going to deliver so poorly., given its potential. I guesss we've done well to get a pseudo cold pool to get here but it's origins are not great and it doesn't pack a big enough punch ire depth of cold uppers or lowness of thickness. maybe this weekend sums up winter 16/17 pretty well - no luck for the UK coldies!

Any of yea want to borrow my telescope for the snow grain lamp post watch its help me catch a glimpse of a few tonight.

Newsflash. The ant family living outside in the crack in my patio appear to be in trouble. A drifting snow grain has left them trapped in their abode.

My life! We have a decent dusting on all surfaces! Can even see it 'glowing' on the rooftops in the streetlight! Winter 2016/2017 you are amazing!!!! 2 settling snow events with a sum total of 1.5cm ish!!

Yes a flicker of interest from that ridging Nick,Whether anything comes from it we will have to see.Still some hope perhaps in the medium term for something colder from the north.Models continue to show a large chunk of the vortex moving across towards the Siberian side hopefully this leaves a window to our nw for some better height rises. Can we build on this and get a Scandi trough dropping south i wonder.

Depth really building up here The positive is its now sub zero

You never know - the movement of lows suggested by the arrows is what ECM was going for up until yesterday's 12z and I wonder if the idea actually lives on after all.

Get up early, get the kettle on, you might have some visitors!

this weekend is two days when it could have conceivably snowed a lot had things gone in our favour. The sypnotcis look broadly v good. Thereafter is the issue re the arcing upper ridge. That really isn't something you could have envisaged at the outset of this. How it would go all the way from the Azores around to c Europe and the Iberian trough would sit there and then retrograde rather than push east towards Italy to support CAA. This is the point - it was sypntoically v promising at the outset and yet will deliver almost nothing of notable wintryness re snowcover. anyway I sat on my fence from the beginning as something didn't smell right to me. I would rather be on the white side of the fence but alas it's just damp on both sides now although next week may be quite pleasant in any sunshine. As for debating the balance of your post in the model discussion thread, there is a model moans thread which may seem more apt? i get your frustration by the way - I dread to think how many hours I've spent chasing potential cold solutions on the nwp this winter with pretty well no return. shocking productivity !

Well there we have it. The worse possible chart possible as we head towards winters end. Looks like most models heading this way now. Maybe time for a another chance of cold but will need a quick flip in MRFs. Although we have had extensive cold periods in Central Europe, very little snowfall and that's the way it looks for the next 10 days here. Sorry for you snow lovers back in blighty , its drawn blank again for most and very frustrating considering the lack of zonal Atlantic flow this winter. Anyway hope some of you see a bit of snowfall during the next 48 hours. Defeated and deflated yet again for lovers of real deep winter cold and snow of course! C

Well it doesn't get much better than This .

Light snow and it's settling. At this rate we may get 1mm!

Very few showers over Firth this morning but they pepped up later in the afternoon at sunset. Mostly sunny today and temperature rose to 3c currently 0c

There is a Climate Science forum on here - crying out for some interesting debate from new contributors - this is not the place for it, but just regarding the part of your post I have highlighted. http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/cp-2017-8/cp-2017-8.pdf @sebastiaan1973 Low solar influence on European winter temps reanalysed over a 350 year time span - only 10% fit into that category! There's no reason to suppose one of your good winters can not be replicated in the not too distant future since those occurred during and just after last minimum - another minimum fast approaching.

More than enough to build a snowman!

This is the road out of the village, not the one the daughter got stuck on, which was much worse. Hastily taken and didn't have time to take any more, or better ones.

Anyone in any doubt about how poor a winter snow wise it has been, consider this. The Greek Islands have had more snow than us. Benidorm has had more snow than us. Even the Sahara Desert has had more snow than us. See you next time folks...I'm done. This failed weak a$$ easterly is the straw that broke the camel's back.

Whoo white out here lol. Not even enough to make it worth while going outside to photograph my finger

Seems Fife caught the lion's share of what little was on offer.

One good thing I found a £5 note this morning, which if we had 6 inches of lying snow I would not have seen.

I'm just going by what the Gfs 00z shows..which is some snow and frosty nights

Ah well I'm ready for spring and the sun to have a good kip in a few years. Theres just too many variables for humans to understand(in the big picture,covering everything)internal and external inluences for me and don't think we'll ever be able to nail a season fabulously. For everyone who attempts using different methods,hats off but this has been a winter that's shown how far we have to go to even get near nailing a season. Personally the sun having a massive sleep will aid us re,cold winters.No scientific backup,just history. As I think this is the main driver to set things in motion. Re the models,been a pretty dire winter for them imo and wouldn't suprise me to keep flip flopping.I think you can only make a safe call if you cover all bases. I personally like it when people forecast through past experiences and a little explanation as to why but each to their own. Thanks for everyone's input this season as I'm off to enjoy lamppost watch the snow grains and bid you a safe time until I'm back next October because I'm totally drained,mentally and physically lol. All the best.

Not bad! Keep on going please. Getting s covering on rooftops, some of the pavement and especially the grass and cars

Current situation

At least there isn't really any further the models can go now - it's downhill all the way for cold prospoects from here! It can't get much worse for coldies than this - D16 on GFS, the dreaded Canadian black hole anomaly: Outlier? Er ... no ECM D10 - a perfect polar vortex Why, though, do I have this feeling that come the time, that Scandi ridging will return, giving us something like this Low-teens in any sunshine, chance to get the BBQ out. The best hope for cold is that the ECM D10 chart leads to the Atlantic trough pushing through rather faster, combined with an SSW and MJO phase 8 nuking the vortex, producing a north-Atlantic high in its wake. A whopping great 1 out of 22 GEFS members go for this idea: Might get some spectacular driving sleet from that!!

Ooo had to pop back to report .. heavy snow shower, big flakes and trying to settle. Brrrr. B.

I ordered some extra coal on the basis of the forecasts issuing a few days ago. Seems I needn't have bothered. As far as I am concerned roll on some nice warm weather so I can get outside and do something useful. As far as the sad cases wanting cold weather for months to come I say two words. One of which is off.