Matty88

knocker well he has a point - who wants a cold spring?!

Let's face it the persistant Iberian Heights have been the primary winter killer for most in Southern Britain - is this a by-product of El Nino? You suspect so.... If it wasn't for the Iberian High the cold could have dived much further South....

Oh dear it seems we are on the cusp of ringing the death knell on yet another snowless winter for most of us in EA/SE Roll on the new thunderstorm season!!! On the plus side it's going to feel very spring like over the coming days....

On a serious note, ‘IF’ the latest charts are correct in saying the prospects of the upcoming Scandi high have failed then I honestly feel, other than a possibility of a mediocre cold snap or 2, snow prospects will be very low and a strong chance of many in Southern England not registering a single flake through winter 2023-2024..

Cue those in the mod thread shouting ‘yes the runs aren’t good now but just wait until the SSW downwelling starts to take effect’…. 1 week passes, 2 week pass, 1 month passes - oooo yes we have an easterly! Oh wait - damn it’s too warm for snow now…. Cold rain for the east! gotta love it!

Summer Sun I wonder how the amber warning is playing out

I've seen quite a few (even senior) posters start getting excited about a 'real deal' SSW on the cards- however its getting to the time of year the vortex tends to start weakening anyway with spring on the horizon and a gradual surface warming. So it gets to the point that an SSW is no longer a headline/excitable feature surely? Anyway leading on - short term prospects beyond this week look quite bleak but I still think we will feel the effects of a West progressing European High set-up (potentially) into next week. I suspect it won't be as mobile as the GFS is taking it and things will settle down! It looks more likely we will draw a S/E'ly rather than N/El'y which would feel pretty damn cold but nothing too notable, frosts/fog etc..

Methuselah a good lesson to be learnt for others not to take what the met say as gospel - they too are not immune to lagging behind on pattern changes/shifts !! They've had more than a few humdingers this winter already

I'm with others on this I can't believe how unlucky EA/The South has been this winter in terms of snow prospects - we have yet to register a single flake here in Cambridgeshire. Thursday looks to be another frustratingly close miss with a transient wet snow/sleet event in the west of the region at best. Longer term prospects have turned rubbish for now too. Poor show

It looks very close to being yet another highly frustrating miss for EA/South for those that have yet to see a flake of snow so far this winter!!!!! Arghhhh!!!!!!!!

Alderc 2.0 the metoffice forecasts are nearly always gloomy - this never usually transpires. Its been like that for years, its a bit odd as you'd have thought they'd find a way to address this

@throwoff Yes - early-mid Feb looks of interest, the jet showing signs of diving South. This is still a good time of year for cold. Models slowly edging closer to a colder solution. Lets hope this time people don't mistake cold solutions for snowy solutions!! There is a big difference. A straight Northerly/North Westerly would be bad news for us in EA/SE.

Also... the met are very keen to name storms these days for one main reason.... it helps them bash the global warming/climate change drum ITV news last night for example .... asked 'are we seeing more storms?!' ... only for some bod from the meto to pipe up with a classic line 'a warming world means more moisture and more storms' - cringe

100% - this is spot on and there is something to getting early warmth in too early. The years this has happened we have usually had to endure a cold March/April. I am sure there are probably mechanics behind this ie the cold piling up and being locked in the polar regions via the strong PV, which spills out as soon as the PV starts weakening as spring approaches. The PV always tends to break down about Feb/March time (this is no surprise/big deal) - when it does we tend to be more prone to Northerly/Easterly insertions. One potential reason to be positive however is that this warm phase is occuring now - Mid-End January, if the PV weakens (which it will) sooner then we can still feel winters full force in Mid-End February. On that end I highly suspect we are not all done with a decent cold snap or spell just yet...

Sooo... after the dismal charts at the end of last week I thought I'd let the weekend pass and check again Monday. I've checked... it's still dismal lol All I can see is a powerhouse jet streaking across the atlantic at us whilst HP bases itself over France/Western Europe, slight improvement as it amplifies slightly North at the end of the month, then back to square one with Atlantic influence.... yay lol I have to say though, (if you want to be optimistic), the charts are not that great at long term forecasting in my opinion and this is across the board - they tend to always jump on the form horse and repeat that set-up until day 10+. The caveat in the bleakness is that a flip to something better is always possible/probable - Lets try and be positive (although it's extremely difficult at present!) .... Maybe check back again Friday and see if they've snapped out of Atlantic Jet Turbo mode!

A bit of Friday banter - still have the posts of 2 weeks ago in my head.... I’m confused…. - ‘’features and troughs popping up everywhere’’ - ‘’get the cold in first’’ - ‘’booom’’ - ‘’Game on’’ - ‘’People in the mod thread moaning at people complaining the setup isn’t good enough’’ - ‘’Best Synoptics I’ve ever seen’’ 2 weeks later - not one flake for 90% of the country I should write a book of these quotes really, happens every time

I was saying that it would be foolish to write off a snowless winter for us in EA bearing in mind its only January - but the charts are insisting on that same Greenland block high slipping off into Europe and anchoring itself - which ends up drawing up Iberian warmth and storms for the next 2 weeks at least... Honestly i'm beginning to wish this weeks set-up never happened!!! LOL I suppose I cannot complain we have had a week of -6 temps, bright sun and frozen ground? Sod it I'll complain!!! lol the snow gods are not looking down on us here in Southern England

You laugh.... there is honestly a 50/50 chance this could well happen and we end up with an early spring!! .... get the warm in first

Don't know about other areas of EA/SE however in Ely the night-time temperatures haven't been overly Cold this week - 0-1C, with minimal visual frost on cars or pavements. Due to the wind/breeze maybe? The worst thing about this weeks cold spell has been the bitter feel during the days with temperatures not rising much. Disappointingly for most other than the east coast there has been very little to talk about snow wise - the set-up has not produced this week which is a shame but not a huge surprise, NW'ly's rarely deliver for this part of the world.

Most of the charts showed the main precipitation missing the South Cost today, the excitement was only there if it managed to 'clip' the coast.... a far cry from the metoffice's snowmegeddon call last week haha Now on to next months potential moans - SSW I hear, it wont be long before the fabled lines of 'downwelling' start appearing on the mod threat, and 'get the cold in first'.... every chance it will go on to cause a cold dive into Eastern europe and blast us with a blow torch from Africa

History tells me that it would be foolish to write off snow chances for the rest of winter yet given it’s still January…. However next week is presently appalling for snow prospects in our neck of the woods However at least it’ll be sunny!!

Wasn’t it obvious? As soon as the met office started shouting about a major ‘’juicy’’ Snow event being highly likely in a weeks time it was game over…. that aside there is nothing about next weeks charts that excite me anymore - yes horrah we we have cold uppers they tell me …. but very little in the way of precipitation prospects (unless you live on the NW coast!) . What a load of transient rubbish. Even the senior posters on here are now looking at February prospects….

Too much energy floating around - craving a good solid Scandi High with no question of it budging, unlike gambling with a Greenland High - how many times have we seen prospects crumble when Greenland high's are involved??! Shortwaves, diversions, the high failing completely leaving Cold marching into Canada and leaving us with a blow torch jet? It has happened countless times.... and if it crumbles this time its back to square 1 with all the PV back over America and a mild, wet and soggy spell that could last weeks. Still some remaining swings I suspect though keeping the cold hopes alive .... but people would be wise not to get too excited

Charts again looking very mobile this morning - but - I think we need to keep an open mind and be patient, as amplification will surely return, likely in early January. There are already hints of this showing up, premature you may say? But with an extension of Westerly Mobility predicted to persist for a while I believe there will be a swing. The writing has been on the wall for Christmas Cold to fail - people forget that to bring decent cold to our shores we nearly always need some form of amplification/blocking, the signs earlier in December for increased amplification and blocking late December have failed this time round it seems. Also, relying on a LP dominated Northerly was prone to fail and it is highly looking likely to fail (again). Nothing unusual for December either, this happens quite often at this time.

Interesting signal for PV cold to get 'shunted' East for a brief period - which happens to coincide with Christmas. Albeit the over-riding pattern is quite a mobile one? So I cannot see this sustaining unless a ridge can build into Greenland causing LP to drop further East. This mornings run also adjusts all of this slightly further West - which is NOT what you want to see, it will end up firing up the Westerly jet and turning flat with the cold going into Canada. We need a reversal of this on the next run. So...the pattern being modelled can surely produce some wintry scenes if it sustains - however its highly liable to falter or even flop, brace yourselves for the next few runs.... have seen this fail before.