Model output discussion - into 2018

[frosty ground]

@Steve Murr expected an 80% swing from the GFS towards the other models i would say that was a good call but its the other 20% swing from the other models that have killed the cold chances.

As for which model won.... well if its cold vs not cold then the GFS won but if you actually examine it then you can see that the GFS struggled the most but as i and a few others have stated there was always going to be a convergence 

Edited January 4, 2018 by frosty ground

[booferking]

1 minute ago, Frosty. said:

Seriously, if we can't have a proper easterly I would rather see stormy cold zonality with snow at times from a westerly flow such as the Gfs 00z shows..

I have to agree with this give me that any day it has delivered plenty this winter already without fail to many amen.

[comet]

7 hours ago, ArHu3 said:

That was a pretty memorable day, never experienced such intense cold, it literally  just took my breath away, on the surface the temperatures even got lower than those 850s

But we never experienced that depth of cold. That chart was just a run from the ECM that never materialised. The deep cold never made it to us unfortunately. Uppers of -10c only made it as far as eastern England.

I remember it all to well.

[warrenb]

There is no victory for GFS or ECM or METO or gem. The models are converging on the solution as data changes and time shortens. They are performing exactly as they should. Makes me laugh when people look at charts 7-10 days away and say they are correct. People have to remember that the starting data is changing all the time (today's for example last minute yellow for gales). So subtle differences in the short term multiple with time. So the data a few days ago pointed to a good block, and now it doesn't. That is the weather

[Johnp]

I can understand the disappointment, however if you gave me this as a position at the mid winter stage I would have taken it with both hands.

[nick sussex]

1 minute ago, terrier said:

Well a lot of back slapping over the gfs this morning. But how can it be correct over something that hasn’t happened yet. I’m sorry but I will withhold putting out the bunting and balloons for the gfs just yet. And stick with what the likes of Steve murr nick Sussex have been telling us over last few days. Still expect few more twist and turns yet.

Very funny!

If we had just seen todays ECM without the previous runs then people would think that's interesting. Taken at face value the ECM is fine , it has lots potential in terms of battle ground snow.

The GFS does have a flat bias so we might still end up somewhere in the middle. The UKMO probably looks best at T144hrs with the high extending further north but is a little bit flatter upstream than the ECM at that point.

I do think we have to wait to tonight to see  what happens then, one run alone isn't sufficient to see whether that trend will continue. Sometimes models can over react and over flatten so best we just lower expectations but not be surprised if things pick up again.

What I would say if we're not going to get that deeper cold easterly its better to have a battle ground scenario at least you don't need the level of cold to produce frontal snow.

[Seasonality]

2 minutes ago, comet said:

But we never experienced that depth of cold. That chart was just a run from the ECM that never materialised. The deep cold never made it to us unfortunately. Uppers of -10c only made it as far as eastern England.

I remember it all to well.

@ArHu3 is Dutch though....

[Dancerwithwings]

2 minutes ago, Frosty. said:

Seriously, if we can't have a proper easterly I would rather see stormy cold zonality with snow at times from a westerly flow such as the Gfs 00z shows..

Some parts of the UK have seen such scenarios happen namely in Dec and twice....bring it on I'd say.

[ArHu3]

 

GFS is forecasting some incredible cold for the Kara and barentzsea and the Atlantic between Norway and Greenland, if some nice ice forms there I'm sure that will help future cold outbreaks from a more northerly direction 

[Frosty.]

1 minute ago, Dancerwithwings said:

Some parts of the UK have seen such scenarios happen namely in Dec and twice....bring it on I'd say.

Yeah, a good battleground followed by cold zonality..that would satisfy me if we can't get a deep cold powdery snow Easterly..what I don't want to see is the uk in no mans land with nothing going on!

[Ali1977]

It’ll be interesting to know where the latest ECM sits within the Ens, that could always be a mild outlier just like the GFS was within its ENS this morning. 

[offerman]

8 minutes ago, warrenb said:

There is no victory for GFS or ECM or METO or gem. The models are converging on the solution as data changes and time shortens. They are performing exactly as they should. Makes me laugh when people look at charts 7-10 days away and say they are correct. People have to remember that the starting data is changing all the time (today's for example last minute yellow for gales). So subtle differences in the short term multiple with time. So the data a few days ago pointed to a good block, and now it doesn't. That is the weather

Absolutely spot on. Brilliant post! 

[ArHu3]

7 minutes ago, Seasonality said:

@ArHu3 is Dutch though....

Yup and @comet we got even more cold than that forecast just a few hundred km east of your location, I would hardly call it a failed easterly, even if the cold did not get imby (but it did ?) 

Edited January 4, 2018 by ArHu3

[tight isobar]

28 minutes ago, Severe Siberian icy blast said:

I think there's so many people that are completely obsessive over the annalysis of every single run, nothing outside t96 will be nailed, and when talking about upper air temp it's more like t48, 

All I see every single day, is " huge ecm coming, critical set of runs etc etc" 

Why is it critical? For a whole 4 hours until the next set of runs come out? 

All we know is we have a bitter northeastst wind this wkend, followed by an easterly next wk, how cold we don't know yet, but it's looking likely we will see attacks from the southwest, which could well mean snow for some, 

But the models are still trying to get to grips with the situation and it's not done with yet, 

But it makes the forum incredibly difficult to read with so many knee jerk reactions to every single run, it's actually painfull at times and it seems to me that one mild ecm run has the ability to ruin your day?  

If your that emotionally driven by a set of computer models then maybe it's time for a break!!

Like a broken record 'again'.. it isnt one run...its a compaction of many...to which the gfs has stuck to its output guns..

And again the other mods are leaning towards it!!..so knee jerk reactions, there not.

So its more than worthy of note!

And tbf, if its deep cold via an easterly quadrant...and convective impactual snow...

Then id personaly be the one taking a break from all data...until early/mid-next week...

Lets have some mediation here!

Edited January 4, 2018 by tight isobar

[Dancerwithwings]

1 minute ago, Frosty. said:

Yeah, a good battleground followed by cold zonality..that would satisfy me if we can't get a deep cold powdery snow Easterly..what I don't want to see is the uk in no mans land with nothing going on!

Yes! yesterday's 12z ECM at 240h would suit me and you just fine then Frosty, oh! yes can't leave out the hundreds on here of course.

And who's to say it won't 

[snowspotter]

I don't post much these days as haven't got the interest to comment every 6 hours and live and die by every model twist. Did the met office tweet something a few days back saying large shift and much colder conditions with significant snow threat?. If so I will stick with this (if its still current!) as their models are hugely superior then the dross we get to look at. The one thing I am absolutely baffled by is people saying 'GFS won' . Really its been woeful. The area of high pressure that forms south of Iceland wasn't even picked up by this model until about 72 hours later than all the others. We'd still be in a westerly flow by weekend . In my books that is enough for it not to ever be trusted in easterly set ups, pitiful performance . Personally I am looking forward to some dry and cold weather maybe snow later on

[shaky]

Ah well lets see what 06z brings!!my post from last night pretty much came true!!

Edited January 4, 2018 by shaky

[The Eagle]

 

By 10 am this morning I predict ICON to be the world's premier model (replacing GEM from yesterday).

 

[Ali1977]

It’ll be interesting to know where the latest ECM sits within the Ens, that could always be a mild outlier just like the GFS was within its ENS this morning. 

[blizzard81]

The ecm ops over the last few days look to have underestimated the energy in the Atlantic. This morning's run seems to rectify this. It is a move towards what the gfs has been showing for a while now. I don't think anyone can deny this. Anyway, I will just look forward to some 'hopefully' dry weather next week. Catching the bus to and from work this week has been atrocious - incessant wind and rain day after day. 

[bluearmy]

Drifting towards a pretty wintry blended solution - if it weren’t for the lack of cold uppers early/middle next week !!!

Funnily enough in December when the Scandi ridge was being touted by the telecons (before the xmas MJO drop) - we were warned that a lack of cold pooling to our east might be an issue. 

And before some of you tell me that the pattern is too far to the east to be wintry, even with embedded cold - if we had a cold block in place then the Atlantic would be a couple hundred miles west of where it shows this morning and the trough would be forced more se.   imo , it’s the lack of low uppers that causes the problem in not seeing a wintry conclusion to the upcoming pattern next week. 

 

[northwestsnow]

Just now, blizzard81 said:

The ecm ops over the last few days look to have underestimated the energy in the Atlantic. This morning's run seems to rectify this. It is a move towards what the gfs has been showing for a while now. I don't think anyone can deny this. Anyway, I will just look forward to some 'hopefully' dry weather next week. Catching the bus to and from work this week has been atrocious - incessant wind and rain day after day. 

I think on balance thats a very fair post.

EC  has underestimated the Atlantic - I wouldn't say it has been a victory for GFS but its certainly not been a victory for EC either-

Still, the outlook remains fluid, i have to confess GFS has performed much better than i thought it would so far.

But , there could be swings in this yet

[northwestsnow]

3 minutes ago, bluearmy said:

Drifting towards a pretty wintry blended solution - if it weren’t for the lack of cold uppers early/middle next week !!!

Funnily enough in December when the Scandi ridge was being touted by the telecons (before the xmas MJO drop) - we were warned that a lack of cold pooling to our east might be an issue. 

And before some of you tell me that the pattern is too far to the east to be wintry, even with embedded cold - if we had a cold block in place then the Atlantic would be a couple hundred miles west of where it shows this morning and the trough would be forced more se.   imo , it’s the lack of low uppers that causes the problem in not seeing a wintry conclusion to the upcoming pattern next week. 

 

Yes, i think thats another excellent post-

Like i posted tho Blue- i think there are swings to come yet

[mountain shadow]

5 minutes ago, blizzard81 said:

The ecm ops over the last few days look to have underestimated the energy in the Atlantic. This morning's run seems to rectify this. It is a move towards what the gfs has been showing for a while now. I don't think anyone can deny this. 

I'll deny it.

The GFS didn't even want to give us a block in the first place because it always overestimates the Northern arm of the jet, always, always, always.

And of course the Atlantic will always win at some point and the GFS will be correct by default.

Edited January 4, 2018 by mountain shadow

[supernova]

58 minutes ago, nick sussex said:

Not a great start to the day and it could get ugly in here !

Two issues flatter upstream and lower heights to the north stop the high from shifting nw which lessens any trough disruption.

The ECM is better than the GFS but we have to be blunt and say the latter has got more right than wrong in the current set up, it did briefly start moving towards the more amplified solutions but left the party early which means we now have to survey the wreckage and try and find some crumbs of comfort!

I think we need to put whats happened in a box and move on and just take todays outputs at face value rather than spend the whole day in some slug fest between supporters of either the ECM or the GFS.

The problem is when you've been promised a trip to Monte Carlo and then end up finding out instead your going to Skegness its a bitter pill to swallow! Apologies to anyone from that region but its early and I couldn't think of anything else at this time!

So we've swallowed the pill and need to move on.

Now this is where I go into emergency crumbs of comfort mode!

The models still want to disrupt the trough to the west and pressure still remains high to the east, still some uncertainties about what level of cold will be on offer ahead of any fronts moving in from the west as that trough disruption occurs. Its clear overnight the other models picked up on that flattening upstream. The question is whether this trend will continue tonight in which case it could get uglier or whether there was some over reaction.

Trough disruption and where the energy goes is always a difficult juggling act for the models and so I think its best to take the view of being in a holding pattern today of reducing expectations but not throwing the towel in completely.

Wait for tonight and see what happens then.

 

Yes Nick, it’s scraps on Skeggy seafront (in more ways than one!) rather than seabass in the south of France if GFS turns out to be nearer the mark but the op is on the milder side of its ENS throughout the period that’s caught our interest over recent days and which remains some way in FI. Besides, Skeggy’s as good a place as any to witness an Easterly if one does eventually arrive!

 

 

Edited January 4, 2018 by supernova
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