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Gosh Fatigue is strong this morning. I think some might need to take a step back for a few days- I’m not sure that restating how disappointing everything is every.single.run. Is necessary/healthy? We get it. It’s not snowing. The output isn’t showing what anyone wants and you feel cheated because we were ‘promised cold’ It’s the weather. You can’t complain to Atmospheric customer services on twitter about not getting what you were ‘promised’. If your post involves a moan about cold being pushed back/the SSW not working/ how bored you are it might be better for the general chat threads OR your innner monologue?

Any chance we can get this show on the road ! Watching the models is like waiting for an elephant to give birth ! How long is this cold gestation period going to last ! My patience is wearing extremely thin and I’m sure I’m not alone .

Gefs have also ditched raging cool zonality on the mean ....... heights and pressure rising in general .....the flatter atlantic pattern that appeared over the last few days on the eps and before that on gfs seem to be getting the heave ho pretty sharpish ..... see if the trend to high Atlantic heights and the scrussian ones backing slowly west continues on the 12z ..... the eps spreads at day 10 say that the ridge pretty well holds against the Atlantic around the meridian .... my less than informed punt is for the 12z gfsp from yesterday to have some validity through week 2.

People do realize that the digging upstream trough scenario route to cold does involve a trigger shortwave downstream ! OMG !!! We’ve seen these set ups many times and lived through the trauma ! A word of caution don’t follow the GFS in this type of set up , it struggles badly in these set ups . The reason the scenario normally ends up in an epic fail for the GFS is it normally is last to develop the jet cutback towards the Low Countries . Effectively what happens in these types of evolutions is the upstream trough elongates and digs south , the response of the limpet high to that is to be pulled further nw , a piece of shortwave energy runs clockwise around that and cuts sw with the jet loop . This then runs under the high which then ridges towards Scandi . The shortwave helps to develop low heights to the south to support the high and then the cold air floods sw helping to develop your Genoa Low in Northern Italy . That’s the plan anyway !

Can we have some sort of function where your posts get read out in Brian Blessed's voice?

No..we need a long period of dry powdery snow!!..still waiting for the models to show it!!!!

It's not pedantic though, is it? The METO definition is simply an arbitrary thing to make it easier to classify the weather in neat little chunks, it's more of a record keeping/filing system thing. The weather isn't influenced by a filing system, but because their filing system dictates that winter starts on December 1st, people's expectations are that 'winter is here' when it very rarely is. The METO definition has simply added another 3 weeks in which hope/expectation of cold, snowy weather is high, when in reality, it's actually the end of Autumn. Physical things, such as the length of day, do influence the weather so astrological dates are (in my opinion) more relevant when applied to the weather we can expect. People often complain about the endless, tedious autumn weather, 'when will winter kick in?' because of the METO arbitrary date. But if you look at the things likely to lead to winter proper starting, such as day length, sea temperatures, soil temperatures etc, December 21st makes far more sense. Winter is but 8 days old, we're not half way through winter with dwindling prospects of cold and snow, we're at the start of winter with promising signs that it will kick in with a vengeance soon.

Well it would appear Mogreps is with ECM for next week, meto RAW now dropping temps like a stone for my location wed onwards with temps 2-4 daytime and sub zero at night.. Not backing GFS..

Finding the misery on here a little stange .... only problem I have seen for today for coldies is the ecm mjo forecast and that’s proved pretty unreliable for amplitude thus far and the 46 had it Into the COD in any case. The gefs broadly looking excellent with a neg AO response growing when you you would expect it to produce if you are expecting six weeks of snow and ice I think you need to move to a diff country ........ a couple of ten day cold spells with decent snowfall would make it a good winter for coldies ..... and there is no reason to think that isn’t possible ....

Can we stop this astrological/March is colder rubbish and keep to the models chasing the cold. It went on for most of last night and is still going now.... The models should start to pick up on the actual SSW from Monday hopefully

Definitely starting to like the look of the ensembles now! Progressing nicely got a distinct tight bunch of members going cold from around D9/10 watch that grow

Well if we can't have snow, at least let us have some frost..I am Frosty after all!!

Well this morning's clusters are not without interest. First the short term - the current D5 charts are very similar to what they were predicting 8-10 days ago - nice job ensembles! Could be some nice surface cold there (if you like that): Onto D10; clusters 3 and 5 are very interesting, with possible undercut to the SW or from the east: Now these are minor clusters at the moment, but already twice since November the ECM has latched onto what was a minor cluster at D10 which allowed more of an easterly influence. Other clusters favour the UK high with jury out on a cold high or a westerly influenced mild high by this stage. Perhaps the main thing is that the Altantic looks far less active than was being predicted 48 hours ago. Onto D12/D13: Interesting again, on both clusters: Cluster 1 looks like a continuation of blocking local to the UK (again, a shift from unsettled clusters being prominent) - potential for the high to be positioned a little to the west, too. Cluster 2 looks like a potential battle between east and west - probably with the Atlantic winning but again could result in an undercut. By D15, the signals go totally fuzzy and no forecast is possible on this alone: So mid-Jan looks like it's going to be a struggle for the models. But before then, quite large changes in the D8-D13 period, with genuine cold options now back on the table.

Well there you are. The blocking across the UK isn't swept aside so easily, and this allows it to continue supporting a stratospheric ridge over the N. Atlantic sector, which stops the Canadian vortex from scooting across to the Siberian one and in doing so leaves the door open for the split to propagate right down to the troposphere by D16. A significant adjustment within a week's range that has a major impact on how things evolve afterwards. This is why you can't take GFS seriously beyond about 5 days range when there's major forcing from the stratosphere, tropics, or - the current situation being a case in point - both. Now, the main caveat is that we're not yet entirely sure that the split will actually propagate down nice and cleanly - but the past 36 hours have seen a lot of positive progress on that front.

Has anyone noticed today's AO compared with yesterday's Almost complete flip from a forecast positive to a negative Rare you see that Now let's wait for the models follow with hints of northern blocking in the coming days

This should keep the hunt ticking along

That's a split Technical SSW for 01 Jan and continues until end of the run where we continue to see warming artefacts in play vs the parent vortex. Can't recall seeing a W2 plot like this in terms of its progression to here on this run. Looks odd. Interesting output ahead...especially with MJO about to join in the fun..

Gefs Mean slp over the pole at T312 now up to 1030 mb but nothing to see here .... no response to the ssw in sight .........

Surely summer is two warm days in June followed by a thunderstorm, and winter is one morning in late February. The rest of the year being Autumn

I know it's not PC to say it in this demand it now get it tomorrow world but patience is the key attribute required from forum members looking for cold and snow ATM. The current rolling high scenario can be boring but the weather isn't run by Amazon.

Well that was exciting ! Lets not book the mariachi band just yet but an improvement on the earlier GFS run. Whether this is a response to the SSW or the MJO or a combination of both doesn’t really matter as long as we see some changes upstream .

lol even frost is tedious, we need snow, it's winter, you can't build frost men and throw frost balls

After 16 years on NW, I still can't understand the fixation with AO-/NAO-values; surely you can see from the charts, everything you need know about them, including whether the expected setup will be east- or west-based...? I'm not trying to be awkward, but, to me, it's a bit like my needing to get 'official' confirmation that the outside temperature is sub-zero, when everything outside is either knee-deep in drifting powder-snow or festooned with 10-foot-long icicles... I can only assume that I'm missing something?

As per yesterday my message to you all is that your still too depressed. GEFS still splits the tropospheric vortex by the 11th and has a solid -AO signal by the end. GEFS (P) is actually more agressive. So long as this continues to move closer, we are still looking good for mid month.

Just to remind folk that this thread is purely only for 'Model' Hunt for cold.. Lot's of posts are more suited to the Winter thread. Please make sure you are posting in the correct thread before clicking 'Submit reply' or posts will start to magically go missing. Thanks.

How about the astronomical winter only started 8 days ago, all to play for. That's positive. That should counter balance ,with patience is the key winning the day. .

you can put put a cross in half of january xs well,so that six weeks left to see this HLB ,that the meto office and other seasonal models were predicting was going to be the most likely outcome during the winter,off course you wouldn’t expect it solid for 3 months,but we had hardly seen any at all. Time to consign these longe range models to the shredder,still miles away from able to predict months in advance.

Here's Gavin's latest video: You can see that (as 2001-2 clearly demonstrates) SSWs do not always give us what we want; and, you can also see that Steve Murr's contention, that the GFS's rampaging zonality will almost certainly be kicked into touch, looks spot-on!

Lack of rain? We've been flooded 3 times in 3 months! We need a long dry period as the ground is saturated but a bit more sunshine would be nice to see

Looks very high pressure dominated into January on the GFS12z which I don't mind at all after weeks of rain and gales in South Wales.

HMMMMM

Hello..... For those wanting to understand a little more A negative AO and weak vortex … allow intrusions of cold air to plunge southward into North America, Europe, and Asia.

Mate to be honest I think they are just as clueless as all of us. The SSW has started give it another week to show its hand and then we might get a better picture because currently the models have no continuity just like the experts on Twitter and the Met and so forth. No one truly knows what will happen imo.

Thanks for that Interitus. It's interesting that the reversed zonal winds at 60N rarely propagate down below 150hPa. And as you say, to be noted is that any zonal mean wind speed measure is (as the name states) a mean of the winds at that latitude around the globe and there will be regional variances from the mean. But that wasn't what I had in mind with the musings in my post. I had in mind the downward propagation more generally at higher latitudes, as nicely shown by the ECM ZMZW chart from last February's SSW which shows the reversed winds from the top of the stratosphere to the bottom of the troposphere from 70N to the Pole. A chart of beauty if you want a negative AO and lots of high latitude blocking: It's good to see that yesterday's (28th Dec) ECM for 7th Jan is a marked improvement in this respect, not quite as good as last Feb's but plenty good enough for high latitude blocking opportunities I would suggest? Here's the charts for 28th Dec and 7th Jan highlighting the progress: Just a final question please. Is there a better (or alternative) chart available for showing downward propagation of a SSW? Charts Berlin University. Click on latest date and look for Zonal Wind. http://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/en/met/ag/strat/produkte/winterdiagnostics/index.html

I remarked on this last week, how many D-J-F long range forecasts had copius Northerly blocking in our sector. With D a bust and the first half of J looking ropey, then for these long rangers to be right then the second half if J and F will need to be 1947/1963 like.

Very interesting potential development this morning, GfS Op and UKMO may be underwhelming but within GFS ensembles there are several members that want to drop a trough down from Iceland sliding down the E flank of the ridge around 120 through 144 This has the effect of greatly sharpening up and amplifying the pattern. Let's see if any the other models go for it. Below are a a trio of examples but there are quite a few to suggest this a very plausible new development - just the timing and positioning is a little different but the upshot is always a more amplified pattern. Not sure why there is a sudden willingness to drop troughs S/SE rather push them more E/SE but if it is a trend it is good news.

Which one is the GFS 18z?

My personal thoughts are all the models are struggling with the SSW and until they get a grip with the down dwelling, these runs will look odd/implausible.

Regarding the much less impressive upper-level wave-2 days 9-10, could it be that when downwelling occurs, the patterns associated with the wave-2 are mostly wiped out by the processes involved in the downward propagation? As far as I understand it, a normal feature of downward-propagating SSWs is a recovery of the polar vortex at the highest levels of the stratosphere immediately afterward. It then comes down to the blocking response patterns as to how long the lower stratosphere can sustain negative zonal wind anomalies via trop-strat interactions sustaining a disconnect between the upper and lower stratosphere. While we were seeing those major impacts late Feb this year, I remember noticing that the vortex at 1 hPa was quite organised and intense. Not that my memory is faultless, mind...!

Indeed, 1 snow flake would do for starters..really frustrating period we coldies are in at present..surely the only way is up..unlike in fawlty towers when the game was up..well a bit of game pie anyway..there is still plenty of winter left but I hope it starts showing soon!!

P17 will do nicely to cheer us all up.

OMG the 6z is vile..where is the cold and snow we crave?...still no sign!..the hunt for cold goes on..and on..and on..shockingly poor output..give me cold zonal and I will be happy..no chance!..abysmal is how I will describe the current situation!

Looking at the GEFS 6z mean, high pressure eventually is replaced by this..a chance of snow..wouldn't kick this out of bed!

I thought they generated their forecasts predominently using the ECM. Imagine this is based on the EC46. Their track record of being correct is not great judging by the ever-changing nature of the BBC forecasts these days.

Probably the best yet at day 8 and looks like another push down coming day 10+. FI model eye-candy incoming soon methinks.

That's certainly promising, good to see the Met standing firm at least. On a separate note, can posters please refrain from calling members 'moaners and 'negative just for voicing what the models actually show! Maybe a bit of a split showing attend of the ensembles...or straw clutching??

Because it's the only way the GFS can ever be considered "top line" past +144h Excellent progress in the output as the zonal onslaught is at the very least abating in the medium term and with it come improved prospects for cold. Still very much a case of wait and see where the cards fall post-SSW though; would love to see the verification stats of the models historically through these events to highlight how much our old friend shannon entropy goes haywire throughout such period - experience tells us all that following anything other than trends is as enlightening as a mirror in a dark room... Stark differences at +240h, but enough to offer encouragement GFSP showing a blocked setup that with some adjustments could lead to retrogression up Greeny-way, ECM taking a slower route but is perhaps looking more favourable post day 10, while our *ahem* favourite model NAVGEM throws us a stonker at +180h. Meanwhile, the GFS/JEM/JMA didn't get the memo at all and show an atlantic profile flatter than that bottle of beer I just found left out from Christmas... Let's see where this takes us, but for now, savour this...

Latest fax chart for next weds - first day back to work for many, including me.The cold, seasonal feel with frost all day and possible freezing fog will make the return to work more bearable for me Also an impressive surge of cold into mainland Europe. We will be very grateful for this a week or so down the line.

There aren’t mods on here 24/7.. believe it or not we have lives too. Also, it’s Friday night. If anyone is in any doubt, It is a lot easier if you can report the post(s) you are concerned about rather than posting that you are concerned about posts. This sends us a notification but also allows us to look at the specific post and then sort them out, rather than deal with the problem posts and all the posts saying that there is a problem post. Scrolling through, I saw a comment about Moderating consistency. Sorry it’s not to expectation, small thing called Christmas holidays happening and unfortunately my three year old requires far more moderating than you lot do.....