Here's hoping!
Regarding your second point - I always seem to see every year a large number of people seem to suggest how a cold and wet September often leads to a cold Winter, but I'm not sure if I've ever been convinced by this. A bit of a desktop survey - the years below are Septembers since 1900 with a CET of below 1.0 of the 61-90 average and also the wettest ones of those years.
After each year I've then listed that following Winters CET and its anomaly against the 61-90 average.
1918 - 4.0 (+0.1)
1923 - 3.9 (-0.2)
1925 - 4.7 (+0.6)
1927 - 4.3 (+0.2)
1928 - 1.7 (-2.4)
1931 - 4.9 (+0.8)
1944 - 3.6 (-0.5)
1952 - 3.4 (-0.7)
1957 - 4.2 (+0.1)
1962 --0.3 (-4.4)
1965 - 4.4 (+0.3)
1974 - 6.4 (+2.3)
1993 - 4.6 (+0.5)
^I personally struggle to see any major correlation. And I stick to my view that this whole cool wet Septembers lead to a higher than average chance of a more colder Winter than normal is sometimes a bit misleading or confusing - though someone may well wish to correct me on this.
(What also sometimes confuses me is, why do people specifically choose September anyway? Wouldn't October or November's synoptics and statistics, 2 months which are far closer to the Winter, offer more of an insight rather than a 30 day period of 1st September to 30th September which is over 60 days from the start of Winter and over 100 days before mid-Winter?)
Originally Posted by: Puppies444