I'm not sure Ian ever said that it would never happen again, just that it would be an extremely rare occurrence, and to be fair, he's not been far wrong has he?
I did say in my earlier post "If one is being diplomatic about it, then for the most part he has been right."
He may not have ever said as much in so many words, but that was the impression that I got from many of Ian's comments here pre-2009. For instance, whenever cold was shown in any model runs, Ian would be on here like a shot trying to tell is that it simply would not happen and that it would all be gone again in the next set of runs. That, to me anyway, was effectively tatamount to suggesting that notable cold couldn't happen again.
I am not going to start writing winter off now (contrary to previous years), but as I've said many times in the past, relentless zonality is a tough beast to shift, and could be a long path to signficant cold.
That said, there are some tentative signs of some sort of blocking on ECM and (occasionally on and off) GFS. Truth is, no-one knows how winter is going to pan out but you can never go far wrong by saying largely Zonal and mild.
Agree with you there. What I would add though is that, to take a relatively recent example, we had a very wet and mild November in 2009 and I imagine that to many people back then, any chances of notable cold must have seemed miles off. I for one don't recall there being much if any suggestion of a change in pattern until the early days of December 2009.
For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not suggesting for a second that what happened 11 years ago will happen again this time, but in my experience, even patterns which seem to have been in place for what seems like a eternity can change pretty quickly and without much warning in advance. Just looked at how the zonal pattern that lasted virtually all of last winter came to a sudden end just after mid-March this year and was replaced by a much more blocked & settled pattern, just as the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown was beginning.
Edited by user
21 November 2020 09:23:13
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Reason: Not specified
Lenzie, Glasgow
"Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom, and we must always be ready to listen and respect other points of view."- Queen Elizabeth II 1926-2022