Daniel*

Car thermometer displaying 14C never have I seen it so late in the year, you could say it is unprecedented this time last year it was seasonal with frosts courtesy of slack flow HP. Awful flooding in northern England, there seems to have been little to no respite meanwhile it has been drier than average in our region. It looks to turn either v. wet or v. snowy further out with Atlantic wanting to compete with cold pool from the east. The latter would be preferable with the flooding woes aplenty, interesting model output nonetheless.

At least 7C above the average maximum right now, staggering how far this has stretched.

Looks eerily similar to what happened a few weeks back - what is the chance of that? Cumbria taking the brunt once again.

The WAA takes place within that timeframe and the block to the NE this is already one hurdle out the way a big stepping stone. So I do not find the eyecandy outrageous at all, conceivable certainly. Although going by the Met Office this doesn't have a solid enough footing/support at this present time.

More amplification on this run! 12z 18Z

Dreamy: The snow drought would become a distant memory.

A corker of a run ECMWF 12z, very snowy. T+240 would deliverer a decent snow event 10cm plus widely - and what would lead thereafter is tantalisingly good. Christmas Day gifts, albeit a wait on the delivery?

I'm not seeing it........

In reference to this "if there are straws for the coldies to clutch they are invisible to me." Well you can choose to turn a blind eye I'll give him that.

Lovely photos Malcolm - Merry Christmas from back home in Blighty. No sunshine here a drab, December, Xmas day one for the bin. Another injection of warmer air incoming...the app shows it to plateau at 14C from 1600 this late afternoon to 1500 the following day, one thing I can't stand is the lack of diurnal temperature variation. Edit: it would be nice if more faces contributed in this regional.

Very misleading knocks the northern hemisphere profile is being reshuffled, consequently there's a greater affinity to cold for British Isles - the vortex looks to be in a precarious, seriously disturbed state out in FI.

Without doubt probably the snowiest run I've ever seen, however it is a big outlier. The convection would be out of this world, I know we have got the wrong side of the dice MANY times, once and so often we get it. I feel the time is prime. For many of us in here - it's coming up to 3 years since our last proper snowfall. Oh boy, we earnt it! Merry Christmas folks

Knocker will be needing some blue crayons.

The GFS 12z is a gift. Right on cue the new year! I'm glad to see I've stuck to my thoughts. Anxious times ahead.

Battleground UK. Stunning synoptics the good old GEM may have been onto something! This is not far from getting into a reliable timeframe, what exciting stuff.

Nice day it turned out to be following the earlier rain, nice to see it at a more seasonal 9C. to add - Happy

An absolute snow fest no marginality there for lowland Britain, there's a good reason I bookmarked post the new year, that is a salivating chart. The North Sea & English Channel SST are above average to a significant degree east of Thames Estuary, courtesy of this balmy December. With any frigid easterly sourced flows such as above, there could be epic lake effect snowfalls, heavy snow showers would penetrate well inland giving some areas a real dumping. Kent in particular would be pummelled, things are looking up somewhat. http://ghrsst-pp.metoffice.com/pages/latest_analysis/sst_monitor/ostia/anom_plot.html?i=34&j=2

Not good, is it?

You have been on this forum for over 8 years - you should know better. Well there's always the 'safe' option and that typically gives us such.

Such as? Does it look powerful on that chart? Leaving its resident home of Greenland potentially giving way to HLB? with the PV paying the UK a visit with some very wild weather, if you've been paying attention to strat guys it is not going undisturbed the PV is not indestructible. Nor do we need to rely on its demise for anything of note, I expect the vortex to gradually dwindle from now on a way to go. I'd say a delayed Spring is likely we may be experiencing that Spring now! Trying to offer some optimism here and I don't think it's far fetched. January is most definitely not lost - Mid January onwards is what I'm looking at. I cannot deny it has been a ugly start to the winter but nor can I see it lasting...

Hi, Early February is statistically the coldest part of the winter, there's a lot of water to under the bridge, clearly it will come in the latter half of the winter - which is not anything unordinary, early cold/snow pre new year is extremely rare. Some folk cough, are very inclined to write the month off and it's not even began using 16 day anomaly charts likely to suit their agenda, which is mad - ironically if coldies did they same they'd be flogged. We're experiencing quite an usual El Niño pattern but I believe, typically it does wane the deeper into winter. The PV has reached its peak potency for the winter which is reassuring, but still a mammoth journey to go here Glacier Point's post from yesterday did sound promising on this front. There are solid indications of Euro slug diminishing & jet stream taking a more southerly course, so seasonal weather returning towards end of 2015 into 2016 perhaps stormy it will feel like winter! And from there we have a better platform to a sustained wintry outbreak. Merry Christmas.

Unbelievable, it is sunny! We've not had a day like this in I don't even know... Still mild, 12C

Indeed: Absolutely belted it down for a minute or two.

Are you God? The GFS is well known for spotting a change of norm.

There's a large divergence in outlooks between the ECM and GFS the GFS giving seasonal weather the ECM giving blowtorch southwesterly winds, implying much uncertainty. It is not a done deal in the slightest.