this summer is now very much resembling the very bad ones we had in the 1960s and 1950s and many of those delivered cold or even very cold winters.
Wet Junes have not tended to be followed by cold winters, if anything the opposite is the case. There have been six Junes since 1960 with E&W rainfall >100mm. None in the 1960s. They are 2007, 1998, 1997, 1987, 1982, 1980. None of the following winters were particularly cold and most were very mild.
June 1962 was exceptionally dry and the coldest winter of the century followed.
For a bit of fun for the last two months I have been looking at the cfs daily nine month runs on Meteociel and specifically checking out December 2012 and January and February 2013. bearing in mind all the caveats which come with the tool.It should be remembered they are run forward from genuine starting data rather than assumptions. I have made notes of what the runs have suggested. So far they run around 70/30 in favour of a winter with substantial cold or very cold periods. In some weeks the percentage has been as high as 80/20 in favour of a winter with substantial cold or very cold periods.Any runs showing a genuinely mild winter have been very very few and far between.Please feel free to shoot me down in flames ( as I say this has been for a bit of fun)However at this stage of the year I would venture to suggest that this method is as accurate as any other for trying to get a handle on trend for the coming winter.Purely based on what I have seen gleaned from the above and nothing else The suggestion is that that tendency would be for a colder winter overall than last year with the coldest spells coming in December and January and possibly very late feb.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.
From about September I'm going to try and use the CFS daily updates regularly as a "countdown to winter" type thing. As long as I can get the copyright sorted out of course.
On the summer>winter or winter>summer thing, I don't personally believe there is any link either way.
Edited by user 09 June 2012 14:32:19(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Hi Gavin
You're welcome.
I agree with you on the summer winter connection or not as the case would appear.
As I say in the post I,m just doing it for a bit of fun but bearing in mind the whole different range of starting data over the last couple of months from the wet april conditions to the heatwave late may conditions it is interesting to note that the 70/30 bias has not really wavered.
As you say it will be interesting as we get into autumn to see how things progress. If they do not differ too much from the trend they are showing now then I will be even more interested when the sensible seasonal forecasters like Brian on here and GP over ot Net weather start putting their forecasts together.
Still,thats a long way off hopefully we'll get some half decent summer weather between now and then. lol
Edited by user 09 June 2012 15:00:52(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
The notable feature of the Junes of the 1960s is that they were not that cool, the coolest was June 1962 and that was 13.7C, so the image of the summers of the 1960s being cool were not down to the Junes.
Edited by user 09 June 2012 16:06:56(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Blizzard of 78:
Many thanks for sharing those observations from the CFS runs with us.
One statistic which would be interesting is if you could keep a record of how the CFS runs split in each month towards a cold/mild winter. We could then compare each month's runs with the actual outcome and possibly pinpoint whether conditions in May (or any other month) are an accurate or inaccurate pointer for the subsequent winter.
For a bit of fun for the last two months I have been looking at the cfs daily nine month runs on Meteociel and specifically checking out December 2012 and January and February 2013. bearing in mind all the caveats which come with the tool.It should be remembered they are run forward from genuine starting data rather than assumptions. I have made notes of what the runs have suggested. So far they run around 70/30 in favour of a winter with substantial cold or very cold periods. In some weeks the percentage has been as high as 80/20 in favour of a winter with substantial cold or very cold periods.Any runs showing a genuinely mild winter have been very very few and far between.
This I can very much believe and I base much of this on the basis of the summer we are having - Some indeed, quite a few, may disagree with me here - but this summer is now very much resembling the very bad ones we had in the 1960s and 1950s and many of those delivered cold or even very cold winters.
Probably not the best thread to talk about summer, but as I've said elsewhere, since we are only 9 days into June, it's way too early to be writing this summer off just now. There have been summers in the past which have had medicore or poor starts like this one has had, but have then changed dramatically for the better at a later stage. Remember for example 1995 and 1990?
If by the time we get to the second week of August and we have had two months of the weather we've got now, then yes, this summer will go down as another poor one, but there's a lot of water to flow under the bridge before we get to that stage.
Will keep following the runs and try to do regular updates as we go through summer and into the autumn.
Looks like average to cold is strongly favoured?
Yes that was my take on the figures too Gavin I notice the latest NOAA probabilty charts have switched to colder than average for Jan Feb March 2013 as well.
Interesting statistics I understand that a weak El nino will be good, plus there is the approach of a solar 'maximum' to the current very weak solar cycle which is doing anything like 'maximising' The blocking feeback from the arctic which has spoilt the summer, could well return as a long term feedback in terms of NAO and AO. Interesting to see how the traditional cooling of the polar stratosphere fits in with all these factors as the short days really arrive. Ozone could be higher than last winter
Thanks for that and very interesting - shaping up at the moment to be possibly a very different Autumn / Winter to last year.
Things starting to get seriously interesting .... thanks for taking the trouble to collate this information.
Thanks Blizzard.
September is really the month where I think seasonal models begin to latch on to the possible pattern for winter as they begin to factor in arctic ice loss and Siberian snow cover, etc... Your next update will be much anticipated I'm sure.
Cheers Gavin and all the others making this a readable thread. My wish is for a dry and mild winter with high preesure anchored over Central Europe throughout. We are certainly due one.
Edited by user 02 September 2012 14:25:07(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Wasn't last winter dry and mild?
I think we're in for a late 80's still mild winter if I'm honest. Just to add salt into the wounds of this summer