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Just for fun at this stage but the CFS looks interesting for Boxing day Even -16c uppers a few days later! 1962 anyone?

Morning all, had an interest chat this morning with our portal forecaster about the possible deep cyclone that could develop next weekend in the vicinity of Southern Britain. Feeling are that the situation becomes quite fluid in 5 days time as the Eastern Atlantic trough moves into NW Europe. A baroclinic zone becomes established towards the North Sea, not surprising really when you see the 144t 850mb forecast temperature chart below. Very cold air getting established to the North and meeting pulses of warm air moving poleward through Eastern Europe, hence the North Sea could see fairly rapid cyclonic development. However, at this stage the positioning , deepening and potential cut off low formation is still showing a degree of uncertainty but defo one to watch. Their own model tends to show a bit more of a southward positioning and could change very quickly over the coming days. We have a snow alert for tonight, not a lot but fine mesh model predicting 5 cm in the village as the freezing level gets down to 1750m tomorrow morning.

Indeed Frosty whilst I understand some enthusiasm from those looking at blocked Winter CFS charts that is a nice October set up for an Indian Summer. The real indication for vortex development will come towards December when zonal winds tend to really increase. I am quite happy to see that continental high wafting warm southerlies over us for another month until we have a better chance of Winter weather.

Not too much to add this morning. Therefore, just a little focus on the possible storm this weekend. The 00Z GFS (both 135 hour and 144 hour charts used): 00Z ECMWF at 144 hours: 00Z UKMO at 144 hours: GEM at 144 hours: 00Z ICON (like GFS, both 135 hour and 144 hour charts used): 00Z NAVGEM at 144 hours: You can see they all show variations of a similar theme. It looks quite likely a Low Pressure system will affect the UK this weekend with some rain and showers. But it’s only really the GFS and the NAVGEM which shows the Low being a bad boy (stormy). The GFS has it affecting a wider area of the UK, particularly Eastern parts, where there could be some vicious gusts towards the East coast. The NAVGEM, on the other hand, has the Low taking a beating over Northern U.K. Most other models keep the Low Pressure system as a shallower affair and generally towards the Southern portion of the UK. Particularly the UKMO! The ICON, though, when you look at its 135 hours chart, is somewhere in between with the isobars of the Low tightly packed towards the Southern part of the little cyclone, so maybe some strong gusts towards the South coast on that chart. Just an example, these are what the wind speed gusts are like on the 00Z GFS during Saturday: Could be some angry gusts down Eastern parts with high tides, so would think carefully about taking the deck chairs with you to the beach! ? (not to mention the fact it could be chilly in those Northerly winds on the GFS). Obviously I imagine things will keep changing from run to run regarding the Lows track and intensity. And knowing how models like the GFS handled that pervious storm over the weekend, would be cautious of its outlook for now. Personally expect the Low to not be that moody at all with a shallower feature more likely. It may even be possible that the Low may not affect the U.K. at all and track well to our South. Still wouldn’t ignore the grumpy Low... just incase!

Last week’s weather in Colonsay was very disappointing with non-stop wind and frequent horizontal rain only interspersed occasionally by brief, very brief, sunny intervals. The temp remained an almost constant 11-12C. Consequently, many of the places of interest (most on Colonsay require a bit of a trek) were not visited. The neighbours:- By contrast, this morning back on the mainland, it was still and cold at 7C but not unpleasant. Loch Feoch Passed two gritting trucks at Crieff this afternoon. One had a shiny spruced up snow-plough attached.

Extremes for this transitional time of year - Summer clinging on in the SE True Indian Summer after frosts

@Frosty.& @phil nw.,Some nice looking charts there and i think everyone is thinking that we are at the end of Autumn and trying to usher winter in too quickly(me included)and i will repeat what has been said that if we get a nice indian summer so be it,why not cos there's plenty of time for winter to arrive and the latest means and anomoly's show a good waft from the S/SW quadrant and here is the latest from the ecm mean at day 10 and the gefs ens mean at day 14 with the latest 6-10/8-14 day 500mb outlook from the cpc underneath reflecting the former http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf.php?ech=72&mode=1&map=1&type=1&archive=0 http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gefs_cartes.php?code=21&ech=192&carte=1&mode=0 http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/500mb.php http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/500mb.php just looking through the 20 perturbations at 300hrs,there is quiet a few with mid-highland blocking,so there could be a good standoff between the atlantic and the Scandi block http://www.meteociel.fr/cartes_obs/gens_panel.php?modele=0&mode=6&ech=300

Is that all you ever drone on about, the impending doom that is autumn/winter? Over the last week you've mentioned your dislike of the upcoming seasons at least 4 times, its getting a bit boring. I don't particularly like summer and warm weather but I don't complain about it!

Nice to see early winter pictures from Spitzbergen with freezing temps and snow cover taking a hold. C

Bit harsh. It works both ways. Throughout the glorious summer just gone, there was endless moaning on here on a daily basis and it just went on and on, which was very annoying from the perspective of a warm weather lover. Everyone on here is a weather enthusiast, doesn’t mean we should all have to like wind and rain, or indeed the same things. Anyway, a beautiful sunny day here. Lovely.

I'm not even a coldie but seeing those charts at the end of December would make me very excited as well

Pure perfection for October - lets' hope it verifies Frosty! This evening's ECM not quite as good sadly...

GFS a little on its own tho really with its high over the uk pulling up very warm uppers . Here's the ECM and GEM at day 10 . There pretty similar with the alantic working its way in . It ties in with the METO update really . More unsettled mid October with something more blocked towards the end of October with possible frost and fog . Proper autumn weather .

The threat of very unsettled weather affecting the east at the weekend reduced on the 12s, UKMO and GFS at T120: Following weekend GFS still ramping the surge of warm air from the south, look at this at T300, shown up on a fair few runs now: Thats 14C uppers over well pretty much all of us. Indian summer! I'd certainly welcome this before the search for cold takes over - for me after the clocks change.

Yep. 1993 and 1987 also had 4, but 1986 had 10 such days.

Looks like the final value is 13.7C https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_mean_2018 A downward correction of 0.16C, from 13.88C to 13.72C.

The pattern is still favouring a NW/SE divide but of course this does not rule out frontal incursions further south and one such is indicated on the 500mb and surface analysis at midnight. A fairly clear and cool start to the day, the odd shower still around the Norfolk area, and it will stay sunny in many areas with perhaps some cloud popping up in the west. But the low east of Greenland is tracking east and the associated fronts will bring cloud and rain into the western Isles by mid morning. The upper cloud already showing on the midnight sounding at Valentia. The fronts and rain will sweep south east during the day and evening, the rain tending to be less intense as it goes, reaching the south coast by late evening Behind the fronts showers and sunny intervals The low continues east to be north of Scotland on Tuesday thus the northern half of the UK in a strong showery north westerly whilst the south languishes in the warm sector with cloud and patchy drizzle and thus also a quite marked temp difference. Meanwhile a wave is forming on the cold front which trails way back into the Atlantic and this tracks north east through Wednesday to be south of Iceland by midday. This forces the front across Britain and Ireland, albeit it is very weak in the south where the ridge is influential, thus any patchy rain confined to the north. Warming up a tad with the temps a little above average. By Thursday the low has deepened to 981mn west of southern Norway with the cold front across central Scotland which means windy and showery in the north and much cooler than the south where there are light winds with temps above average. A very marked temp differential. By Friday the front has slipped further south so a generally cool day apart from the far south but complications are arising to the west. An upper trough is tracking east and another wave is forming on the front which still trails all the way back to TS Leslie. How this develops is interesting but outside the remit of this thread. And the NH profile at T120

go and watch Gav's weather on youtube he has just posted a whole video looking at past solar minimum winters plus all the analogues for the winters just before and at true solar minimum

I don't think we're done with warm weather yet..the Ecm 12z ends potentially very warm with a long draw southerly as we see high pressure to the east and low pressure anchored out in the atlantic.

The Gfs 12z operational turns on the heat pump or at least the warmth pump in the run up to mid october with air sourced from way south..a recurring theme with strong height rises to the east and stalling atlantic lows...there could be more very warm weather for the time of year on the way.

Would be threatening some records if the flow from the south isn't too slack. We've seen three days of this type of chart all over the extended ensembles. Can they hold out, unlike last month?

Another great sunset!

finished on a cold cloudy note here in Edmonton...the month has ended at 5.6c which is an incredible -6.1c below normal..wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't one of the coldest Septembers on record

Hi Malcolm, I can see why some might be a little confused by the ambiguity in the term "current", but I posted more to dispel the idea that it was an attempt to generate a sensational headline or that it was in any way a form of spin. Misunderstandings are only human but, as I'm sure you've noticed, lately in general science or political discussion, but especially in climate science, there's a tendency for a certain side of the debate to link everything to ploys, conspiracy theories and "fake news". The Arctic ocean and peripheral seas make up the measurements of Northern Hemisphere sea ice, which is often just called Arctic sea ice. The map below shows roughly where the different regions are, though there will be slight variations depending on who's doing the measurements.

1st October 2018 and some decent snowfall arrives in the Alps, accumulating over the next 36 hours. It won't last at this time of the year, but nice to see!!

My husband has been sent back up to Aberdeen and I was swiftly told to “stop complaining about the cold, you should go to Aberdeen then your know what the cold is like” he has a way with words my husband. I have to say that yesterday all day And again today I’ve been cold all day, had a hot water bottle in bed last night. I’m like an old lady it’s been a dreary day with nothing much to report. There has been lots of cloud about. Tonight moon is beautiful though.

Of course. I'm not saying there's no impact, I'm just not convinced it will have a massive impact unless the expected period of low solar output is protracted and deep. I do think the expectation that if it happens we'll have bitingly cold winters needs to be re-considered. Having looked at the historical weather, it shows that peculiar weather patterns happened, very wet weather was as common, if not more common than cold. Not sure that fills me with much joy.

It won't be long now! And to wet our appetites for the upcoming winter a great photo of the first snowfall at Moraine Lake, Banff, on 14th Sept. https://twitter.com/attila_thefun/status/1040740567670353920

Another chilly/frosty night last night. Quite a few we've had recently

Frost on my lawn this morning, and ice on the car. That's pretty early in these parts.

Another air frost this morning. That's 2 for September and 1 for October

I think the issue lies with the word currently. I read that as the same as "for the time of year", where as I guess other may not. But I think given that he provided a nice clear graph of the ice with the current extent highlighted with the big red dot should help with the confusion.

Decent build up in Canada and Eastern Siberia over the weekend

Cold and dull all day with rain when I woke around 8am. Managed around 13C max, currently 9.3C. Been more than a little off-colour so didn't make the journey to the leisure centre but started adding to my heating bill with my living room temp. set for 22C.

I suspect this is true. For me the changes in arctic sea ice, and energy that is now stored at high latitudes for much longer than used to be the case with knock on effects on polar pressure patterns, makes the past truly a thing of the past. We can still read the spikes in pacific driven AAM and predict when we will see a more buckled jet and consequent height rises, but how this interacts with polar air masses to the far north is now a new game altogether. Anything much before 2005 is working from a different background state, and analogues are going to be off. Curiously I wonder if the strat vortex is likely to be perturbed more often in the new state of the world. We are seeing some very persistent blocks these days, and it might be that, while the world warms, our extremes of winter weather increase. Since 2009 we have had a series of quite extreme weather phases through winter, and some stratospheric events that have created significant impacts. March 2018 was extraordinary...but my gut is telling me that we might well have seen a fair few "extraordinary" events in our winter timeline by the time we reach 2030.

Yep , day slid of a cliff by lunchtime ,another Diane f××k up this weekend

Can’t speak for others but not the best of days up here. cloudy throughout with hardly any sunshine and showers on an off since late afternoon. i suppose it is autumn though.

Quiet today! Feature worth mentioning re next weekend, GEM hits and GFS doesn't next Saturday: GEM hits and GFS doesn't. Moving on, heat pump on the GFS T300, Similar direction to the GEFS mean 6z at T240: Finally,it seems no post is complete without one for winter, here the CFS 18z at T2592 showing the first easterly of the season, I'd have hoped of one sooner! Hey ho!

Everyone is slowly coming back !!! They must be smelling SNOW

Another lovely day, barely any wind and nearly clear skies.

Another lovely day after a cool start, very warm in the sunshine. Last of the house Martins have gone from the valley and the spiders are coming into the house. I used to call them Ethels, but I gather that over 70% of them that comes in are males, hmm ethelberts?

Absolutely stunning day! Taking various dogs out for walks and bluest of blue skies, as a backdrop for the turning leaves and masses and masses of Rowan, holly and Hawthorn berries.

This might interest some of you Snowfall of 30 November into 1 December in this area.doc I have lots of photos and a couple of videos but all are too large to put out here

Correct. Next coldest since 1963 was the 31-day period beginning on the 1st February 1986 (-1.0C). So it wins that by a large margin. Also the coldest 31-day period to have started in November on the entire record. It crushes the competition; the next coldest such period was the 31-day period beginning 26th November 1878 (-0.9C).

27th November -27th December 2010 CET: -1.5C The coldest 31 day CET period since early 1963 I reckon.

There was a few inches on Blakey Ridge. Photos taken from the Lion Inn pub website. http://www.lionblakey.co.uk/photossnow.htm

Here's one from around Snowdonia from winter 2010. You could hear a pin drop with temp around -15c and no wind.

Definitely the best winter I have lived to see, better than anything I remember from the 90s and 00s. Had best part of 2 weeks of snow on the ground and snow showers and streamers, days on end of ice and in the minus figures and nights below -10/15 which I'd never seen in the 15 years I'd lived in that house. Amazing, can only but dream to see something like that again in my lifetime. I've found a few photos of back then and the endless icicles that were hanging off the roofs, the snow streamer we had one night which had hours of lampost watching, and the amazing views that came with a true winter wonderland!

There was an article about the surprise thaw overnight 27th/28th January 1996 shortly afterwards in the "Weather" journal. Even at Cleadon near the east coast the thaw was unusual (the snow only thawed quite slowly when it was sleeting that evening, then disappeared completely overnight after the sleet cleared) but the rapid thaw that some inland and western parts saw despite temperatures close to freezing was particularly unusual. It reminds me of the rapid thaw that north-east England saw from a dry easterly flow on the 10th January 2010, with surface temperatures of 3 to 5C but dewpoints well below freezing (not normally a combination conducive to rapid snowmelt). Perhaps a combination of the very dry air and strong winds might have assisted sublimation on both occasions.