I think the best I can hope for now is to keep my lead, though if I do it will be by the skin of my teeth!

September confirmed as 14.3c which is 0.6c warmer than 2018

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/mly_cet_mean_sort.txt

Damn those clear, cold nights 

I feel cheated.

Final, exact answer is 14.28c so, assuming my sums above were correct, Col retains the lead, but with GezM up to 2nd and very close behind.

First 14s CET finish for September since 2009! 

Wait, that means... I was spot on, to within 100th of a degree Celsius.

I think that's three, maybe four small errors in a row for me. All the luck I was owed from the 1st half of the year really has come in one big surge .

A bad month for me but not completely disastrous as I still retain my lead, even if only just.

After the run I've had I can't really complain too much!

Tell me about it!

We got the anticyclonic spell but the high was rarely in the right position to give us the S or SE fetch that would have prevented the cold nights. If it had been, I would have been laughing right now!

Still, the CET competition is full of if and buts, and the what might have beens.....

Yes, we talked about this Gav! Plenty either side, but oddly none of these.

I think I might have retained my position- I have just been pipped by Frank H I reckon, but leapfrogged GW at the same time. Happy with a .19 error. Good show Col!

Clearly Col's lead has been all but obliterated and the those with an error under 5.0 are in with a better chance of those with an error under 6.0!

So it would appear that the winner will come from the leading pack, but there's an outside chance of one of the "less than 6 but more than 5 degree" boys making it.

For the rest of us also-rans, at least the pressure is off.

Well it certainly doesn't feel like a victory given the hit I've taken but 1st place is still 1st place. As for October? Well let's just say given your comment on the October thread, we may have gone for something similar....

Haha thanks Caz - I've basically eased up on the amount of hardcore science and started using a bit more 'reckoning' .

Here are the charts for September. Slightly above average month. Looking at the maximums and minimums, the minimum was bang on the 1981-2010 mean whereas the maximum was 0.5C above average.

Chart 1

Chart 2

Chart 3

Table 1

Table 2

Annual CET competition - September update

Here is the table for September. Stormchaser won the September competition with an exact prediction of 14.28C. Congratulations to him.

For the annual running totals we see that Col retains his lead but only just. GezM climbs up to second with marting dropping to third. Gusty is up one to fourth.

Very tight now as we enter the final quarter of the year. Just 0.90C separating the top seven. All to play for.

Full sized table

Thanks as ever GW and congratulations to Stormchaser!

I was quite fortunate last month as the first half of the month was cooler than I expected, but then in a couple of previous months a couple of short very hot spells blew my predictions so I think these things tend to balance out overall.

This is probably the closest finish we've had. Anybody in the top 7 is still in with a great chance of winning and even people outside this set cannot be ruled out yet. I expect at least one of the last 3 months will deviate from the average more than others have recently so a brave prediction could thrust somebody to the top of the table. Could this be that month?

Good shout SC.

I love this game.

Thanks for all the info GW.  We await the October predictions with interest.

Here are the maximum UK temperatures for each day in September. There is currently an issue with the uploaded Daily Weather Summary at the Met Office Digital Library which means the data is only shown up to 22 September at present. I have flagged this with the library but in the meantime they have provided me with a copy of the full file. So here is the data.

We did have one date record this month (highlighted in red) on the 22nd. In fact the date record for the 22nd was easily the lowest of the month so was a bit of an anomaly. Despite breaking the record by 1.4C this year the 22nd remains the lowest maximum date record in September.

Table 1

Thanks GW; still interesting to read. That blue 18 on 9th- remind me; is that an all time lowest national max?

No that just signifies the lowest maximum recorded this year in September. I normally just highlight the highest and lowest readings for the month in orange and blue. Anything in red is a date record high.