Model output discussion - into the last third of January

[Timmytour]

1 hour ago, Froze were the Days said:

ECM 12z day 9 full of potential  if we can get that low to shift east/south east near Denmark at day 10, no it just wants to take up residence in another place, guess where?...heading to that bloody Norwegian coast!!!

Okay these are just details of charts I'm waffling on about which most probably won't come about and at that time scale...but what's the bets that limpet low of that fore-mentioned coastline scuppers real cold getting to the UK at some point?

I honestly think that's a very regular occurrence. I can remember many a winter spent looking at the models and getting excited seeing a big blob of deep blue edge T3 by T3 towards us from the east. It always, but always, stuck rigidly to that Norwegian coast and progressed no further.  Eventually I began to accept it not as a harbinger of freezing weather for the UK but instead liking seeing a very old man take his normal seat in a rest hone!

[Stu_London]

51 minutes ago, sebastiaan1973 said:

Well. Nothing special in the EC-plume De Bilt. Day 10-15 seems to me milder than this mornings output. We have to wait and see.

Yep - I would like to see these a lot lower before I started to believe in any type of easterly set up that was going to deliver. 

Some short term possibilities, particular for some areas that have missed out, but placement and marginality are still issues particularly the nearer the south coast you are. So I expect some will still be desperately unhappy come Monday night. 

As for the rest - well its all day 8 and day 9 onwards. Its the equivalent of watching a repeat of last nights football and betting on how many goals Liverpool are going to win by, whilst already knowing that they lost 1-0

 

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by Stu_London

[Mike Poole]

Short term update, here HARMONIE cumulative snow covering Sunday:

Something for those who haven’t seen any snow so far...EURO4

Bit of a Jackson Pollock that one, as it seems to record it in the sea too, but never mind, snow chances on Sunday...and better chances longer term into February.

[MJB]

The showers have made it through to here and it's snowing well , settling on the cars 

Let's hope this is right for Sunday 

[Uncertainty]

38 minutes ago, Timmytour said:

I honestly think that's a very regular occurrence. I can remember many a winter spent looking at the models and getting excited seeing a big blob of deep blue edge T3 by T3 towards us from the east. It always, but always, stuck rigidly to that Norwegian coast and progressed no further.  Eventually I began to accept it not as a harbinger of freezing weather for the UK but instead liking seeing a very old man take his normal seat in a rest hone!

Absolutely but I imagine the vast majority of those winters didn’t have two technical strat reversals within a month.

This is an almost unprecedented event (Judah Cs words, not mine) and given the tropical forcing working concurrently:

Forecast

Nina composite for Jan, Feb

GEFS day 15 forecast 

Then this next ten days of model watching will show the charts you describe, and some will show the cold progressing far further W than the Norwegian coast.
 
But, of course, like in Jan 19, or countless other times, it can all seem perfect, tick down to 120, and then all fall apart in two sets of runs 6 hours apart. Let’s face it, that happens 9/10. Divide the amount of times you’ve seen screaming snow by the amount of times you’ve seen screaming snow charts and you get a sad, sorry little number. I can moan as well as ramp by the way
 

Nevertheless. all i’m saying is given the teleconnections and, increasingly, the medium term modelling, we have to pay attention to the output over the next few days and put aside the (many) disappointments of the past and view it objectively. For me, right now, it’s 50/50 we get a memorable cold spell early Feb. We could equally get a weakly -NAO and a weak trough to the west, the big 3 ensemble sets all have that possibility. 
 

Edited January 22, 2021 by Uncertainy

[Man With Beard]

52 minutes ago, Mike Poole said:

ECM clusters, T192-T240, and T264-T360:

There’s a lot going on there!  But to simplify things look at the green borders = -NAO.  The later chart has all 16 going for it.  The details of where the block will be and how it will affect the UK are for future runs, but my opinion is we are now in the game for February like nothing so far this winter, so relax for the next day or 5 and then watch the wintry synoptics show on the op runs.  

The D11-D15 didn't really float my boat, actually - the main cluster looks like a continuation of D6-D10, which is a thin wedge of low pressure straddling the UK and not quite south enough.

That said, I guess cluster 2 and 4 are decent for a northerly, and, combined, it would nearly be as big a cluster as the main one. 

Inconclusive - that was the word I was after

[Mike Poole]

3 minutes ago, Man Without Beard said:

The D11-D15 didn't really float my boat, actually - the main cluster looks like a continuation of D6-D10, which is a thin wedge of low pressure straddling the UK and not quite south enough.

That said, I guess cluster 2 and 4 are decent for a northerly, and, combined, it would nearly be as big a cluster as the main one. 

Inconclusive - that was the word I was after

It certainly will be inconclusive at this stage, and it is not the local pattern that is of interest to me at this stage, this is 10 days plus out, it is the wider pattern, hence highlighting the -NAO on the charts, get that in first and the cold will follow, and get the cold in second and the snow will follow...

[Andrew snow hope]

18 minutes ago, MJB said:

The showers have made it through to here and it's snowing well , settling on the cars 

Let's hope this is right for Sunday 

Where is here?

[damianslaw]

1 hour ago, phil nw. said:

A decent evening of model charts for cold and snow fans.

The milder spell moving in next week does look fairly short lived and looks likely to stall towards the north of Scotland. 

The trend back to colder conditions in later frames continues in the operational runs and is again supported by the ens. 

In the meantime some snow chances over the weekend even further south are still showing up. 

Plenty to keep us interested with the cold air never going far. 

Models reminding me of some of yesteryear winters when the cold remained more stubborn and held back the atlantic, parts of winter 95/96 and more so 93/94 did this, with the north holding onto cold weather more than mild. Its been a long time since we had a winter do this..

Looking at the reliable timeframe, cold polar maritime air for next 3 days, trough features embedded within giving snow to low levels. Come Tuesday atlantic moves back in, with frontal activity this giving snow where it bumps into cold air. Signs are the milder atlantic air may well struggle to make inroads into far NE parts, we then have a pincer movement, heights to the north and south, low pressure forced through inbetween - fine margins between cod air to the north and milder air to the south - looking like the cold air will win out again and very quickly..

[MJB]

3 minutes ago, Andrew snow hope said:

Where is here?

It say's my location in my profile 

 

Banbury 

[Mike Poole]

What’s up with the pub run?  Stuck on T18 on Meteociel...

[Chertseystreamer79]

Just now, Mike Poole said:

What’s up with the pub run?  Stuck on T18 on Meteociel...

Lashed up....is friday I suppose.

[Timmytour]

16 minutes ago, Uncertainy said:

Absolutely but I imagine the vast majority of those winters didn’t have two technical strat reversals within a month.

This is an almost unprecedented event (Judah Cs words, not mine) and given the tropical forcing working concurrently:

Forecast

Nina composite for Jan, Feb

GEFS day 15 forecast 

Then this next ten days of model watching will show the charts you describe, and some will show the cold progressing far further W than the Norwegian coast.
 
But, of course, like in Jan 19, or countless other times, it can all seem perfect, tick down to 120, and then all fall apart in two sets of runs 6 hours apart. Let’s face it, that happens 9/10. Divide the amount of times you’ve seen screaming snow by the amount of times you’ve seen screaming snow charts and you get a sad, sorry little number. I can moan as well as ramp by the way
 

Nevertheless. all i’m saying is given the teleconnections and, increasingly, the medium term modelling, we have to pay attention to the output over the next few days and put aside the (many) disappointments of the past and view it objectively. For me, right now, it’s 50/50 we get a memorable cold spell early Feb. We could equally get a weakly -NAO and a weak trough to the west, the big 3 ensemble sets all have that possibility. 
 

Something I have increasingly had in my head, and even more after this winter I think, is that for us to see a sustained BFTE in all its winter glory, we need to see it exercise its muscle beforehand.  I'm becoming more and more convinced this of more importance than an SSW or any background signals!  It's often said the winter of 1947 was almost exceptionally mild  in mid Jan and then all of a sudden winter came with a vengeance! But it's forgotten the previous December had seen periods of the muscle being flexed. The same was true of the 62/63 winter when prior to the prolonged bout of winter, there had been periods with an easterly testing the waters.

I saw with great excitement some of the scenarios set up by the model earlier in the winter, but always at the back of my mind was the thought for the East to punch through like some of them showed, it had to have been doing some training beforehand.  The more I have waited in vain to do so, the more I am convinced that the lack of training has prevented it doing so!  I think the last couple of winters have seen it do a bit of training right at the back end of winter, and training only lasts a few days.  For the actual bout to happen, we need to see it training in October and November, so that it we get an SSW, or even if we don't and just get lucky with the positioning of the vortex, it's got the muscle to get through to us and stay!

[Froze were the Days]

1 hour ago, sebastiaan1973 said:

Fascinating? Perhaps in terms of teleconnections. Of course the SSW, the different synoptics are nice to see. But in the end, lies the real thrill what you can experience with your eyes, away from the computer/ smartphone.

Totally agree!...one thing is what you see in reality outside the window the other is on the computer/smartphone, would this have been so fascinating back in the early 90's and further back? I don't think so...and Catacol is probably comparing this to recent winters which isn't saying a lot!...personally feel General Cluster isn't too inaccurate there were some hypers on here at the beginning of the Year.

[Griff]

21 minutes ago, Mike Poole said:

What’s up with the pub run?  Stuck on T18 on Meteociel...

WXCHARTS

WWW.WXCHARTS.COM

---

A new weather forecast model data viewer for Europe and North America. Clickable forecast and ensemble plots, hourly GFS, ECMWF, ARPEGE and GEFS plots

Doing the job (ish) 

[Mike Poole]

Just now, Griff said:

WXCHARTS

WWW.WXCHARTS.COM

---

A new weather forecast model data viewer for Europe and North America. Clickable forecast and ensemble plots, hourly GFS, ECMWF, ARPEGE and GEFS plots

Doing the job (ish) 

Nah! I’m a meteociel addict, Griff.   

[Griff]

Just now, Mike Poole said:

Nah! I’m a meteociel addict, Griff.   

I'm struggling with the format but not giving up

[MJB]

Doesn't look like we will see the HP from the E /NE 

[Willsy]

bit of a now cast but what’s the chances this to the sw manages to get north enough to clip the south coast. i know all models show it going into northern france but they could be wrong. hopeful thinking i know lol 

[Tim Bland]

18z GFS tomorrow and Sunday 

[Mike Poole]

1 minute ago, MJB said:

Doesn't look like we will see the HP from the E /NE 

It would be later than that if we did, so all good here at the moment. 

[MJB]

2 minutes ago, Tim Bland said:

18z GFS tomorrow and Sunday 

That will do me 

[MJB]

1 minute ago, Mike Poole said:

It would be later than that if we did, so all good here at the moment. 

I was flicking through the 12z and comparing times , not sure on this one Mike but ...........

[Chiltern_Blizzard]

2 minutes ago, Tim Bland said:

18z GFS tomorrow and Sunday 

Looking good. Waiting till tomorrow's runs before getting excited

[Battleground Snow]

Atlantic should ridge in to Iceland again, maybe slightly further north this time.