FI Charts ( T120+ onwards) Winter 2021/2022 **READ MOD NOTE IN FIRST POST**

The weather over the next 2 weeks is looking increasingly mild to very mild if not slightly warm at times. There may be very brief cool spells lasting about a day or 2 but other than that expect temperatures regularly to reach 10 to 14C over the next 2 weeks with high pressure and warm long fetch south-westerlies for the first half of February. There is a chance we may reach 15 or 16C in a few spots if we can get sunshine combined with the warm air. Overall it looks relatively dry for much of the time apart from some patchy light rain or drizzle at times, however northern and western areas may be prone to more regular rainfall.

The NAO and AO is set to remain fairly positive over the coming 2 weeks with plenty of low pressure to our north while we will remain mostly on the warm side of the jet steam and often relatively dry. There is no signs of northern blocking any time soon with deep areas of low pressure from Canada across to Greenland and Iceland and high pressure never far away from us.

We finish up with high pressure anchored over us with warm southerly winds making it feel very much like spring.

There is potential for this February to be the mildest section of this winter with significantly warmer than average conditions that could rival February 2019 where it was warm enough to wear shorts and tshirts, if this sort of a setup was to verify as we head towards the 3rd week of February temperatures of 16 or 17C could be possible under the right conditions.

Very little rain looks likely across the south and east of the country with perhaps the north and north-west seeing more average amounts of rainfall.

February is once again a complete write off for any sort of cold or snow unless there is a major change over the next 2 weeks which I don't see happening. All the long range models support mild or very mild for the next 1 to 2 months at the very least. This pattern should last into early Spring. Hopefully it will last till mid summer because if it does we could be in for a fairly memorable summer or a trainwreck of a summer if we lose this pattern just before summer and revert to several months of cool and wet. I would gladly give up a bit of hill snow in March for the continuation of this pattern to benefit our summer. A 1976 style summer would be possible if this pattern persists all the way to August but that means holding onto this setup for another 6 months, we're going to need alot of luck for this to remain in place till then.

Models can be wrong but usually wrong when it comes to weather we want: cold and snow in the winter and high pressure dominating in the summer. It rarely flips from 2 weeks of boring/unsettled charts to something much more favorable, particularly during the winter.

I think it's in our interest now that we see this pattern continue till at least the middle or end of July to get a decent summer. I am worried that when this pattern breaks properly it will be goodbye high pressure for months on end, afterall most of our yearly weather is usually dominated by the conveyer belt from the Atlantic and we haven't really been in this position properly since 2020. August is usually a crap month and if we got June and July decent and then the pattern breaks in August, this should continue into September delivering a cooler more typical September than what we experienced during the autumn. We will need a cool or fairly typical September this year to give us any sort of hope for next winter as we now now that a September filled with low to mid 20s is not a good sign for the winter.

Nobody really knows when this pattern will truly break, it could be happening right now, it could get delayed another month or two or it could break just as summer starts. It could even last right through the summer and into Autumn, that would make a full year of high pressure dominance and mostly dry conditions which truly would be exceptional, it's already exceptional the length this has gone on for already.

Tonights CFS looks like a repeat of last Spring. Staying generally mild until the end of March and then multiple direct hit northerlies for April which would bring wintry conditions at various stages through the month and this even extends into the early part of May. After that we alternate between cool and unsettled and very warm and humid with high pressure from the azores near by. An interesting run.

Tonights GFS keeps us mostly mild but there could be some cold zonality at times over the next few weeks which may give high ground a chance of sleet or snow. This Friday will be one of those isolated days this winter which will actually be colder than average with wintry potential over high ground. GFS also going for another cold day on Friday 11th of February with some nationwide snow but this is extremely unlikely to verify.

Overall we are starting to trend more generally unsettled but staying mostly mild except for an isolated day or 2.

The 18z is nice but unfortunately it is an outlier.

However the mean has started trending cooler again, but do I believe it? We have been here so many times with the ensemble mean trending cooler than average only for it to completely reverse a day or 2 later and the trend is gone back to mild.