Morning all.

This is how I see things panning out in broad terms. I'll leave the detail
to the official Met Office forecasts later.

High pressure is now building over Scandinavia in response to the deep low
west of Ireland in association with a southerly jet thrusting low potential
vorticity polewards. On Saturday this high will nudge west and as there are
no more Atlantic lows the gate will open to the cold air from the east to
start to flood westwards. Deep cold air will arrive on Sunday with
thicknesses below 528DAM and this will be very unstable to sea temperatures
with CB tops up to 15000 feet bringing heavy snow showers to the east which
will settle. These will then spread westwards on Sunday night as organised
PV filaments form troughs in association with the cold pool bringing quite
widespread snow due to release of upper level instability. Meanwhile during
Monday warm advection to the SE over Europe and also some PV forcing will
encourage low pressure to form over SE England and this will then meander
westwards into England on Tuesday and Wednesday with bands of sleet and snow
rotating around it, air will be a little warmer at this stage so rain is
possible near coasts in the SW. By Thursday this low will have merged with
the Atlantic low complex and this is where the key to the cold spell lies.
If the low merges a long way west then that will open the gate to milder
southwesterlies into the south spreading north as per some model solutions.
Consensus allows a merging over Ireland which will then mean some digging of
cold air down from the north on Friday and Saturday in response to warm
advection over eastern Canada and western Greenland. We then get into a cold
northerly type which will either collapse as per ECMWF or reinforce. If the
low stays put over England and Wales then a stronger northerly could come
down later and then we would enter a prolonged severe cold spell as per
earlier runs.

That's the way I see it ATM, it is quite a finely balanced setup longer
term. Short term is cold no question about that with snow for many.

Ciao, :-)

Will
--

"Will Hand" wrote in message
...
Morning all.

This is how I see things panning out in broad terms. I'll leave the detail
to the official Met Office forecasts later.

High pressure is now building over Scandinavia in response to the deep low
west of Ireland in association with a southerly jet thrusting low
potential vorticity polewards. On Saturday this high will nudge west and
as there are no more Atlantic lows the gate will open to the cold air from
the east to start to flood westwards. Deep cold air will arrive on Sunday
with thicknesses below 528DAM and this will be very unstable to sea
temperatures with CB tops up to 15000 feet bringing heavy snow showers to
the east which will settle. These will then spread westwards on Sunday
night as organised PV filaments form troughs in association with the cold
pool bringing quite widespread snow due to release of upper level
instability. Meanwhile during Monday warm advection to the SE over Europe
and also some PV forcing will encourage low pressure to form over SE
England and this will then meander westwards into England on Tuesday and
Wednesday with bands of sleet and snow rotating around it, air will be a
little warmer at this stage so rain is possible near coasts in the SW. By
Thursday this low will have merged with the Atlantic low complex and this
is where the key to the cold spell lies. If the low merges a long way west
then that will open the gate to milder southwesterlies into the south
spreading north as per some model solutions. Consensus allows a merging
over Ireland which will then mean some digging of cold air down from the
north on Friday and Saturday in response to warm advection over eastern
Canada and western Greenland. We then get into a cold northerly type which
will either collapse as per ECMWF or reinforce. If the low stays put over
England and Wales then a stronger northerly could come down later and then
we would enter a prolonged severe cold spell as per earlier runs.

That's the way I see it ATM, it is quite a finely balanced setup longer
term. Short term is cold no question about that with snow for many.

Ciao, :-)

Will
-------------------
Seems to coincide nicely with Darren's analysis. I will forget the models
for a while and watch the forecasts in the hope my daughter (born Feb 1st
1981) will get a birthday present she will enjoy. (Funny how many of these
snow lovers there are , really ;-)

Dave
--

That's the way I see it ATM, it is quite a finely balanced setup longer
term. Short term is cold no question about that with snow for many.

Cheers for that Will!
As you know due to mostly crap winters since 1988, I'm a complete
pessimist but will enjoy the couple of days of cold and hopefully snowy
weather early next week before it goes tits up again and the milder
weather sets in and we are left with slush and muck

Sorry Will I'm depressing you again


Today sums up the month here in Stoke really cold & wet

Overcast with rain and current temp 1.8c
--
Graham

Graham wrote:
That's the way I see it ATM, it is quite a finely balanced setup
longer term. Short term is cold no question about that with snow for
many.
Cheers for that Will!
As you know due to mostly crap winters since 1988, I'm a complete
pessimist but will enjoy the couple of days of cold and hopefully
snowy weather early next week before it goes tits up again and the
milder weather sets in and we are left with slush and muck

Sorry Will I'm depressing you again


You may be surprised Graham. I cannot say any more ;-)

Overcast and rain at 1.8C you're lucky!

5.3C here, 100 metres visibility and intermittent cold moderate rain with
big drops :-(

ATB.

Will
--

Will Hand wrote:
Morning all.

Will, I'm still unconvinced, but quite happy to be proved wrong. The
general pattern is fine, it's the so called 'deep cold' I'm not so sure
will be deep enough for my neck of the woods. As you say, potentially,
the longer term could be even colder, but my gut feeling is the mild
incursion will win hands down. Also, In previous years, we would have
been looking at -10 to -25°C over Russia and Scandinavia, those numbers
don't seem to be on the scale any more.

Bah, humbug. ;-(

--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net
e-mail: kreh at southendweather dot net

Keith (Southend) wrote:
Will Hand wrote:
Morning all.

Will, I'm still unconvinced, but quite happy to be proved wrong. The
general pattern is fine, it's the so called 'deep cold' I'm not so
sure will be deep enough for my neck of the woods. As you say,
potentially, the longer term could be even colder, but my gut feeling
is the mild incursion will win hands down. Also, In previous years,
we would have been looking at -10 to -25°C over Russia and
Scandinavia, those numbers don't seem to be on the scale any more.

Bah, humbug. ;-(

Keith, yes times have changed which is why you can no longer expect the
weather we had in winter's past. But that doesn't stop a cold spell with
snow in UK. In the 1960s day maxima would be well below freezing and as I
said the other day the SE is looking at +1C or 2C which is still damn cold
compared to the average max. at this time of year of around 7C at sea-level
and also well cold enough for snow. I have to say though that Southend being
close to the North Sea you do admittedly need a continual feed of very cold
air to keep snow cover going. It's just the same here in the SW where any
feed off the sea spells curtains for any snow in low-lying areas, that was
not the case in most of the 20th Century.

Go inland, or north or up young man :-)

Will
--

"Keith (Southend)" wrote in message
...
Will Hand wrote:
Morning all.

Will, I'm still unconvinced, but quite happy to be proved wrong. The
general pattern is fine, it's the so called 'deep cold' I'm not so sure
will be deep enough for my neck of the woods. --
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net
e-mail: kreh at southendweather dot net
--------------------
Keith, according to my calculations from the 12z hires GFS, assuming that
data remains the same (unlikely!) I reckon anything you get from Sunday
afternoon through till Monday will be snow, but thereafter the frontal stuff
progged from the low may be somewhat more borderline, say 50/50.

Dave

Will Hand wrote:
Morning all.
We then get into a cold
northerly type which will either collapse as per ECMWF or reinforce. If the
low stays put over England and Wales then a stronger northerly could come
down later and then we would enter a prolonged severe cold spell as per
earlier runs.


I notice that the 12z ECMWF goes back to a more Northerly solution :-)

http://www.wzkarten.de/pics/ecmpanel1.gif

But it still looks like petering out next weekend of sorts.

UKMO seems to be sitting on the fence.
--
Keith (Southend)
http://www.southendweather.net
e-mail: kreh at southendweather dot net

In article ,
Dave Cornwell writes:

"Keith (Southend)" wrote in message
...
Will Hand wrote:
Morning all.

Will, I'm still unconvinced, but quite happy to be proved wrong. The
general pattern is fine, it's the so called 'deep cold' I'm not so sure
will be deep enough for my neck of the woods.
--------------------
Keith, according to my calculations from the 12z hires GFS, assuming that
data remains the same (unlikely!) I reckon anything you get from Sunday
afternoon through till Monday will be snow, but thereafter the frontal stuff
progged from the low may be somewhat more borderline, say 50/50.

Following that, both GFS and ECMWF suggest to me the chance of more snow
next Friday, with a northerly setting in, before it possibly turns
milder.
--
John Hall
"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless
information."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"John Hall" wrote in message
...

Following that, both GFS and ECMWF suggest to me the chance of more snow
next Friday, with a northerly setting in, before it possibly turns
milder.
--
John Hall

The 12Z operational output from EC was positioned right at the top of the
ensemble plume by day 10, with the ensemble 'core' in the -5 to -10 range in
terms of 850mb temperatures.

Jon.