There are plenty of comments made  on social media about claimed inaccuracies in forecasting cold weather. However, many of these comments are made by those who are desperate for snow and cold. I feel their pain, but we have to remain scientific in our approach to forecasting cold events and be realistic

The Quasi-biennial Oscillation (QBO) is a measure of winds in the stratospher at the equator. In milder northern hemispheric winters the QBO tends to  e westerly, whereas cooler winters can coincide with a reversal in the wind to a more easterly flow. In the image below the bottom graph is the one

The latest output from the ECMWF 46-day model is available now. It's certainly going with some cooler weather arriving, although as per previous ideas it's likely that there will be a mix of colder and milder days. The forecast 850mb temperatures from the operational model (below) shows the ups and downs of

Wow that's a cold plunge of air going into eastern Europe ... the forecast for the next 7-days shows anomalies of 12C below the average for the time of year. Look at the snow forecasts too ... much of eastern Europe falls under snow cover by Wednesday morning. But no prizes