Overview
The autumn forecast we issued took into account historic weather patterns to give an indication of what may happen this year. When this was produced we took the results further forward to see what it suggested would happen this winter. A couple of caveats are needed at this point! Firstly, as ever remember that all long range forecasts for this part of the world tend to be inaccurate. Secondly, this is not our winter forecast, as this will be issued in November and will take into account the autumn weather that actually does develop. Given these considerations, let’s take a quick look at what our initial thoughts on the coming winter are.

December
Here there was no bias towards cold, average or mild conditions. In other words, any of these outcomes are equally possible using our approach.

January
The bias here was towards cold and stormy conditions with heavy snowfall likely in northern areas, and possibly further south on occasion. Overall bias was towards Central England Temperatures falling 2C below the seasonal average. Here is an example of the synoptic set up which was suggested.

February
The bias here was towards settled and blocked conditions. The problem here is that a slight change in the orientation of a high pressure cell can make the difference between very cold or very mild conditions. However, the most likely outcome according to our initial thoughts is for a mild or very mild southerly air flow to become established across the UK. There would be a moderate possibility of cooler or colder conditions filtering into the south east at time. Here are a couple of examples of the sort of synoptic set up which could develop.