FI Charts ( T120+ onwards) Winter 2022/2023 **READ MOD NOTE IN FIRST POST**

Milder and more unsettled conditions are strongly favoured alright. Unlikely to be very mild though based on the ensembles. The mean trend is to continue to dilute the extent of how mild it gets.

There is still quite a spread on the pressure ensembles too

The JMA shows a slider low and the cold digging back in after next weekend.

Quite a scatter in the ensembles from Saturday into Sunday. Trend is certainly favouring the Atlantic encroaching and introducing a less cold airmass. The perbutations that favour the cold airmass staying in situe extend the heights over Greenland southward and cut off the low coming out of North America, just south of Newfoundland. Interesting period of weather watching ahead.

The mean from the 18z GFS ensembles suggests less cold conditions from Sunday 18th. A low pressure system will bring rain, with perhaps some wintry precip on higher elevations in parts of Ulster on the 18th. It will be cool in the seven days leading up to Christmas Day. Temperatures perhaps a degree or so below normal for the time of year. Unsettled at times but no strong wind episode signalled. This is the most likely scenario but, as we have seen over the past two weeks, there remains plenty of scope for change. At least a blowtorch screaming southwesterly for Christmas is very unlikely 🎅

My readings of the models this morning is there seem to barreling a low pressure into the cold again, from the west this time, and that is drawing the warm air up. Similar to how the Azores low was going to destroy the block. And the ibera low.

Good bit to go yet, wait and see. Ensembles then were in agreement about the warm air winning out too! UKMO OP seems to be in support of continuing the cold for example.

At least Christmas Day will be milder at 8c to 10c from this chart

So the mean seems to suggest the cold lasts another week or so then there's a breakdown as the Atlantic wins back and temperatures go up to average again.

There is also building consensus of a blocking pattern returning after the Christmas though far out into FI they got a lot of this spell right when it was in FI.

I'll take the frost over cold or even "mild" rain any day!

I always find it amusing when people describe wet windy days this time of year in Ireland as "mild", in a positive sense. They obviously don't have to work out in it 😅

The current cold spell looks almost certain to last through next Saturday before a low pressure system brings a milder, wet and potentially windy spell of weather for Sunday through Tuesday. Thereafter, there are signs that cold weather may dig back in, this time from a Polar Maritime direction bringing heavy wintry showers by midweek. The latest GEM run below

The GFS shows something similar. Those two models are signalling a mild, cold, mild, cold etc pattern setting up as we approach and go through Christmas. It's a pattern we are well used to in Ireland in winter.

The NAO looks set to dip marginally drop back into negative territory after Sunday's break in the cold spell.

GEM and UKMO have outperformed the GFS through this last few weeks to my cursory glances at them. GFS also tends to throw up extreme examples of low pressures when it senses a signal over a week out. Be some craic if the models hint at a big reload.

GEM for 20th Dec wanting to send us more towards the freezer rather than mild.

ECM is pretty consistent by day 5 of somewhat milder air moving in. Think it's safe to be reasonably confident about it. It will be about whether it's comparatively fleeting or a big change. We won't know for some days I think where things might go in the run up to Christmas.

We have moved a way from the blow torch southerly though to something more benign.