Model Output Discussion - Colder spell ending, what's to follow?

[blizzard81]

I understand the frustration. A truly horrid year (for obvious reasons) combined with practically 10 years of winter free nothingness for the UK. I get it. However, I'm going to say what we were free to say many years ago.......... Man up! (now considered a sexist comment lol), get back up and grow some gonads. This is a decent mean chart for late December . 

[damianslaw]

Good words of advice, take a break from model watching, looking at every run is exhausting..and always leads to frustration, more so in the winter and summer if looking for a freeze/snow fest, or days of heatwave conditions. 

Always expect the unexpected..

Sometimes I too wish we didn't have access to all the models we have now, and wish for those days when watching 5 day Sunday and mid week 5 day forecasts is all we had. Ignorance is bliss! We've lost it today..

[BlueHedgehog074]

13 minutes ago, blizzard81 said:

I understand the frustration. A truly horrid year (for obvious reasons) combined with practically 10 years of winter free nothingness for the UK. I get it. However, I'm going to say what we were free to say many years ago.......... Man up! (now considered a sexist comment lol), get back up and grow some gonads. This is a decent mean chart for late December . 

That is a pretty reasonable chart that. Likely favouring Polar Maritime air more than Tropical Maritime, and the purples of the Vortex on the opposite side of the Northern Hemisphere

Edit: @damianslaw Indeed, I miss that too

Edited December 12, 2020 by DiagonalRedLine

[Allseasons-Si]

15 minutes ago, blizzard81 said:

I understand the frustration. A truly horrid year (for obvious reasons) combined with practically 10 years of winter free nothingness for the UK. I get it. However, I'm going to say what we were free to say many years ago.......... Man up! (now considered a sexist comment lol), get back up and grow some gonads. This is a decent mean chart for late December . 

Even at 336 hrs there is a decent ridge into Greenland.

 

[damianslaw]

I said on Monday this thread would make for tough reading for those looking for weather of a cold persuasion, and I was right it seems.

As I sometimes do, I will be back next weekend now as Christmas hovers into the semi reliable, as I fully expect this thread to be a preety trying read... in the days ahead! Others may take heed..

Edited December 12, 2020 by damianslaw

[SLEETY]

Some posters must have been on the wacky juice tonight. 

For a start cold weather with blizzards and towering snowdrifts! have never been common in December, since the keeping of records. 

It's always been mainly in January and February  only especially in Southern  UK when you have the greater chance of severe weather, and in recent years this has extended into March.

Glosea forecasting a mild winter, what's so special about predicting that,   most Winters are mild in the UK, the skill of a seasonal model would be in predicting when a cold outbreak might occur in a mild winter. 

Some of the coldest spells of weather in the UK have been in winter seasons that were milder than average. 

I'm sure SM will be posting frequently again  if we see some bitter outbreak being shown on the models again, like a few days ago. 

So see you soon, Steve! 

[Daniel*]

Maybe something like this from P10 is best we could get out from Xmas, I don’t think particularly outlandish we’ll be looking to the north for cold air clearly. 

 

[damianslaw]

Just now, SLEETY said:

Some posters must have been on the wacky juice tonight. 

For a start cold weather with blizzards and towering snowdrifts! have never been common in December, since the keeping of records. 

It's always been mainly in January and February  only especially in Southern  UK when you have the greater chance of severe weather, and in recent years this has extended into March.

Glosea forecasting a mild winter, what's so special about predicting that,   most Winters are mild in the UK, the skill of a seasonal model would be in predicting when a cold outbreak might occur in a mild winter. 

Some of the coldest spells of weather in the UK have been in winter seasons that were milder than average. 

I'm sure SM will be posting frequently again  if we see some bitter outbreak being shown on the models again, like a few days ago. 

So see you soon, Steve! 

Last word until next weekend, I never expect anything notably cold wise until late December at earliest, right now is when we see westerlies at their maxim and is the least likely time for colder than average conditions to sustain themselves. The last 9 years have delivered mild wet run ins to Christmas, not a jot of cold weather. March is far more likely to return colder snowier conditions nowadays..

[Snowman.]

GEFS are starting to look quite interesting later on, many giving it a good go at getting a ridge up around Xmas time with a return of that PNA ridge too, still plenty of interest not all is lost.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Snowman.

[blizzard81]

2 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Last word until next weekend, I never expect anything notably cold wise until late December at earliest, right now is when we see westerlies at their maxim and is the least likely time for colder than average conditions to sustain themselves. The last 9 years have delivered mild wet run ins to Christmas, not a jot of cold weather. March is far more likely to return colder snowier conditions nowadays..

 keep the faith. 

Edited December 12, 2020 by blizzard81

[MATTWOLVES 3]

Big shout out to the mods here for letting this forum run quite smoothly, especially considering some seem to have lost the plot.. I get the frustration but really... Its weather, not the start of World War 3...in all honesty I'm just happy that so far me and Family have so managed to remain healthy while so many have passed during these horrid times... Sometimes I feel guilty for posting information regarding Long Range output when it points to a lack of cold! But I never give in, because like others have said, it can be wrong... There are so many factors at play that can quickly change those outcomes... Regarding Big Steve M I think he feels a little deflated, because he most definitely puts his Heart into it. But hey Steve never give in, there's so much time left, I understand Family comes first and it's important they come first... Quite the opposite of me really.. I come on here to get away from mine, and they're bloody glad...

Top poster though mate, most definitely in my top 5.

And I tell you what I sense a little excitement in a few of tonight's ensembles.. Yeh Yeh it's fi again, but sooner or later one of these will count down, I most definitely like the last one I'm posting. I've got a funny gif for you all also... Cheers me up a treat... 

Have a great Weekend folks, and when your feeling down just think of me, and that should make you feel worse..

Edited December 12, 2020 by MATT☀️

[Allseasons-Si]

15 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Last word until next weekend, I never expect anything notably cold wise until late December at earliest, right now is when we see westerlies at their maxim and is the least likely time for colder than average conditions to sustain themselves. The last 9 years have delivered mild wet run ins to Christmas, not a jot of cold weather. March is far more likely to return colder snowier conditions nowadays..

Quite right Damian

i don't want to derail the thread but just a reply from me

many of the great snowy winters occurred after Dec and into Jan/feb

lets not forget this peeps,if it snows on the big day,so be it,it would be a bonus and it would be nice to see 

but i would just like to say that if we don't get snow on the big day i wouldn't be bothered if we get pummeled the month after and the month after that, seems more feasible.

we get more snow in the latter winter months than Dec,fact.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Allseasons-si
typo

[damianslaw]

Always a Dec 2004 christmas surprise can spring up out of a predominantly Atlantic set up. Indeed high chance, and with that I stay positive and will catch up next weekend!

[Duane S.]

Nothing particularly cold likely in the next 10 days. I think that ship sailed a little while ago to be fair.

We have a very non-standard hemispheric set up though, and all this negativity from so many members won’t dampen my interest as we head through December, particularly the last week of the month into January.

 

It could always be worse, look at this chart from 58 years ago a week before Xmas. Surely no good would come of that...
 

[Allseasons-Si]

Looking out over the Christmas week in the gefs ens there is quite a few northerlies,so not a done deal yet.

[BlueHedgehog074]

4 minutes ago, s4lancia said:

Nothing particularly cold likely in the next 10 days. I think that ship sailed a little while ago to be fair.

We have a very non-standard hemispheric set up though, and all this negativity from so many members won’t dampen my interest as we head through December, particularly the last week of the month into January.

 

It could always be worse, look at this chart from 58 years ago a week before Xmas. Surely no good would come of that...
 

To think that produced one of the most severest Winters in the UK of the 20th Century! A bitter day for Christmas it sure seemed to transition to. High heights in the Atlantic poking Northwards up to Greenland as well.

 

Another thing to point out that although it’s a few days earlier, in your first chart posted above, the Vortex currently is more fragmented than even that of 1962 on 17th December. 

Shows really that nothing is certain, and why writing off the whole of Winter wouldn’t be a wise thing to do.

Good to see some great pub run ensembles floating about tonight

 

[Geordiesnow]

I put it more down to some members firmly believing we are in for a cold December and now the models have flipped to a zonal mild outlook, the optimism has burst but its premature to write off winter because the outlook is poor for cold. 

I think the thing to look out for will be any Atlantic ridge which may link up to any heights up north. On a northern hemisphere point of view, we have seen much much worse so I would not rule out cold potential for December just yet but the signs are cold weather is a bit way off at the moment. Hopefully the Arctic high can somehow influence our weather eventually. 

[Cheshire Freeze]

A lot of doom and gloom on here tonight. Semi warranted but completely overboard in the sense that we have seen a setback rather than a cancellation of winter completely.

I said a couple of days ago that I was worried we'd miss the boat with this attempt- and we have. The upstream pattern collapsed flat at precisely the wrong time- some may say it's not bad luck but that's exactly what it is...bad luck. Any other Nina year and we wouldn't have had that issue. It is what it is.

Now moving forward, I completely agree with @Catacol in that we still have a window for something decent last week of Dec and first week of Jan. 

After that we need to look to any potential SSW.

I'll also just add that in 2006-2007 (lauded as one of the worst winters in modern times for snow) I got my heaviest and deepest snowfall I've ever seen here to this day. 

Edited December 12, 2020 by CreweCold

[northwestsnow]

Well after days of unrelenting crud GFS 00Z has decided to make Christmas a little more seasonal...

[Mucka]

Good Morning.

Personally I have been a little surprised by how little the Atlantic lows have disrupted and how quickly the block looks likely to be removed.

The Arctic high doesn't look as having as much influence as initially modelled and possible the lack of dense cold air over North and Western Europe hasn't helped with this.

On top of that the upstream pattern has remained flat which was one my biggest concerns for any cold pattern developing.

This has allowed energy to continue to flow into the trough W of Britain and maintain the "bowling ball" lows that wear the block down and erode positive height anomalies to our N

 UKMO/GFS 144 

The positives there are the Arctic high and Southerly jet. The negatives are pretty obvious as well.

From 144 it looks as though the trough that has been stalled to our W will finally begin to push through which will bring unsettled and milder weather for a time until winds eventually turn NW on the troughs Eastern flank.

That is going to take us into the run up to Christmas so it looks at the moment as though any hope of pre Xmas snow in the last few days will be more likely to the NW and only then if enough cold air can get in the polar maritime mix.

All that said, none of this has actually happened yet and there is always room for surprises when looking so far out and I certainly don't think we are doomed to a wet and mild Xmas period just yet.

There are FI signals that the Atlantic sector will finally amplify somewhere just before or just after Xmas, so if no surprises turn up in the meanwhile then that is where my attention will turn.

 

EDIT

Some Christmas cheer in the ensembles?

As if to emphasise the idea of the Atlantic sector amplifying around Xmas the control run gives us some Xmas cheer.

Obviously the chart is not to be taken literally but as an example of the FI signal GFS is currently toying with

Edited December 12, 2020 by Mucka

[Griff]

Relax everyone, the gem has got it sorted in fi, demolishing the euro heights and out to our north and west the Atlantic is gaining that much sort after amplification... 

Like my Grolsch beer, you can't rush these things... 

PS I'm leaving and never coming back because weather charts that haven't happened aren't doing what I want them to do in a future that will never turn out like this... 

So see you all later, yeah? 

[West is Best]

I like that bowling ball metaphor. It's a good one. A case in point here:

 

Nevertheless, it's surprising to see 'winter's over' posts appearing on December 11th. Yes we are back to fairly full-bore Atlantic zonality (it certainly felt that way overnight here on the Cornish cliff-top) but even so it's far too soon for cold lovers to throw in the towel. I can recall two other occasions that Steve Murr declared a departure. One was a long time ago when a Bartlett High took up residence in southern France and he basically decided to come back in a month  The other was iirc in a November/December around 2004 again when a mucky high pressure settled over the UK.

The point is that when patterns are mobile there is more opportunity for change than if they are static. A resident HP over Southern Europe or Germany is about the worst outcome. We don't really have either at the moment.

Yes it's zonal. It could be pretty stormy at times and that can be a dramatic experience for amateur meteorologists. Perhaps, dare I say, just a little greater realism would be good. We live in the British Isles, warmed by the Gulf Stream and fed by the Jet which makes us much milder than would be the case at our latitude. Properly cold conditions here are rarer than hen's teeth, especially these days with climate change. That doesn't mean some cold spells are out of the question.

So, chins up folks.

Edited December 12, 2020 by West is Best

[swfc]

Morning. Gfs oz control in fi should brighten the mood

Very festive and ties in with what crewe, chino catacol mention

Edited December 12, 2020 by swfc

[Mucka]

ECM day 10 chart again shows the potential for Xmas salvation though dubious whether any proceeding pattern would draw in cold air by the big day and, well it is a day 10 chart.

But where there's hope...

[swfc]

9 minutes ago, Mucka said:

ECM day 10 chart again shows the potential for Xmas salvation though dubious whether any proceeding pattern would draw in cold air by the big day and, well it is a day 10 chart.

But where there's hope...

Yes mucka it's looking OK to west. Those insipid Heighths to the sse are a pain again