We’re looking at a chilly high pressure pattern to end the weekend and commence the new working year but it turns wet and increasingly windy mid week and particularly next weekend.

There’s good cross model agreement that two lows will significantly impact Irish and British shores around Wednesday and late Friday after a frosty start to next week.

QPF  rainfall projections reiterate the zonal flow with wettest weather captured by west facing upslopes of Ireland, UK and Norway.

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This keeps the zonal/positive NAO pattern going but while it appears there’s no change to the mild, there is something big going on high above our heads.

The initial 10mb chart shows a still cold polar stratosphere on our side of the pole which continues to drive the mild, zonal pattern but by the end of this up and down week. We’ll have a very different temperature profile. One that will make for a very big shift in the pattern as we reach the mid point of January.

We didn’t see this 10mb temp setup ANYTIME last year. It was much more like the above (initial)

This should result in a blocking high developing over the Davis Straits and Greenland as the PV splits sending one piece into North America, the other in Europe. This fits my overall thinking. Remember the early December chill followed by mild and then a colder Christmas to New Year period. Another mild spell now but within that mild there’s chill too. Then there’s SHOULD be another cold spell stronger than the last during the 2nd half of January. Each cold spell is colder than the previous and if this comes off, we could have some widespread snow and bitter cold to contend with before the month is out.

The GFS may be catching on to the above as it shows positives building west of the UK while the trough becomes more noticeable over the UK and Europe.

GFS operational

Day 1-16

The most negative 850 temp anomalies are noticeably shifting from Iceland down into the UK.

EPS Control

Day 1-15 doesn’t show positives building west of the UK but it does show lowering heights over the UK and Europe.

Be sure to watch the video for a detailed discussion of much anticipated pattern shift that’s coming!

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