January Snowstorm

Removed until properly verified.

Quite rough here already, well ahead of the warnings. I think the storm is going to be ahead of schedule

Red warnings now issued by Met Eireann for the Northwest of Ireland!! Galway, Mayo, Donegal

I don't agree, Donegal and the North maybe. The majority of Ireland looks like severe gales which isn't unusual for Jan. Just my take. Yes maybe serious for NI alright

Which of course will keep changing and provide quite the headache for the Met Office!

Yes a definite hint this evening that the flip to zonal might be short lived.. its another chase, are we up for it....just about! -6 here last night with frost lingering all day! Last time that happened was 2018 and 2010

No snow in December, check No snow in January, check It's all going to happen in February Of all the Winter months over the last 25 years Feb is the one that delivers the most..

Ecm @ 240hrs, deep purples over Greenland and the ever present Iberian high in situ

That's one angry looking pv on the ecm at 192hrs!! Stormy looks to be the outlook as far as is reliable!

The far reaches of FI remain predominantly mild / very mild! We could see a lot of rain from the charts below.

Ireland is already under milder Southwesterlys by Thursday night. The mild weather seems to be coming about 12 hours earlier than was predicted this time yesterday. Quite the change out West

To be fair considering the significant amount of support for a cold spell it's surely normal to feel deflated. It's not every day all the background signals inc Met Office long range was going for significant cold through Jan. This is more than a mild blip, its a 360° change which came out the blue.... It is up there with the epic fails of the past, indeed it could top them all. For me there is no doubt Strat musings and background signals are over exaggerated as to their influence. To call next week the event still happening when we barely get 48 hours of a Greenland high....for someone who grew up in the 80s what's around the corner is comical. I would love to here from the Met Office as to what went wrong with their own thoughts. Not to criticise but to understand what their feelings are on what went wrong. Because wrong it did go imo

The ecm @ 216hrs shows a very mild flow over the UK and Ireland. It really will be quite the change after this weeks cold spell. We have come accustomed to temps of 3 to 6, anything up around 13 or 14C really will feel very mild!

There is 100% agreement across all models that Northern blocking will not be taking hold in the next 10 days. After that is FI as this week has re taught us. Of course we will get more chances of cold in February, it happens almost every year. But for now it's a waiting game, one we are used to.

Worth bearing in mind that the Strat and it's effects being a relatively new Science certainly haven't helped in predicting the weather. Maybe too much credence is given to it. You can't beat a bit of experience of how our islands behave and react during the Winter months. The Met Office themselves seem to take a lot of notice now of Stratospheric developments too. Has it helped them be more accurate? Certainly not.

Just wanted to say very well done to John Holmes who marked our cards a few days back that Westerly winds were imminent while the rest of us were drooling over charts. How right he was!! All change for end of week as the Atlantic takes over again. Positives are the musings from the Strat that things still look favoured for further blocking. For me and going by experience it's at least 2 weeks back from chart below

I see some of the regulars have vanished tonight! It's kind of surreal to think we woke every night at 4am to eventually end up with this for dinner. It's more of the same really next week cold or very cold but dry. Must be the longest chase in NW history with little to show for it. We didn't even get frost this week just unpleasantly cold..

Awesome charts this morning with the depth of cold upgrading big time!! Ice days and widespread snow now becoming more and more likely!! Fair play to Met Office again! Widespread disruption likely by as early as Tuesday!!

We've been at that stage for 3 weeks . My opinion is taking all models that we remain cold if not very cold with very little ppn right through next week. Not what I want but I know some want a drying out so that's fair enough

No

What surprises me is the Met Office more or less went for the low pressure to be further North. Its almost certain now that won't happen

Didn't John Holmes suggest earlier a westerly trend??

And that's the headline really, the block all but gone by Day 11!! All decent cold spells must maintain heights either over Greenland or Scandi/Iceland... still it's day 11 so all can change

No heights to our North means any cold will unravel from here imo

Yes as I said last night even if it's just 1 or 2 runs and isolated ignore any run at your peril