the crazy thing is if we get a pattern in a favourable place like we did in summer it’s possible! Odds would be fairly big but couldn’t rule out a colder than average winter month this season

Hasn't Moomin predicted a washout summer virtually every year?

Average to mild and dry. Wake me up in March!

CFS has been thinking about a mild Nov - Dec followed by a below-average Jan - Apr for a while now

I have been observing the CFS for several years now and find it a useful tool for getting a feel of what to expect over the coming weeks and months. During October and November if you see the CFS develop a trend for dominant mild weather during the winter months with very little if any cold showing, then the chances are high that a mild winter will occur. So far I am fairly optimistic that we will see a mixed winter fluctuating between mild and cold. The trend from the CFS over the next two months will be the most telling alongside the weather patterns during October and November for the coming winter months.

Just a side note. Durning the SSW of late December, early Jan a couple of years back when even the bbc had a special video showing bitterly cold air most likely over the coming weeks due to SSW and just about every forum foretelling of downwelling easterly winds and bitter cold for north America and Europe the CFS seemed rather non plussed about it. Yes there were a couple of cold runs but they would soon disappear and be replaced the more familiar mild runs. Sure enough the forecasted cold was being put back to the middle of January then the end of January. Finally, after being pushed back to mid February and beyond it was dropped completely.

Therefore in my view the CFS is definitely worth keeping an eye on.  

Well in Dec 1995 we equalled the all time record low after a hot summer so never say never....

October certainly starting off pretty wet and stormy.  Doesn't mean it won't change, but not a great start to their forecast given its only a week old?

 LLTNP 105m asl 

Starting to look like it will be cooler than average in second half of October in UK, but milder in Europe, which rather suggests the normal Autumn Atlantic origin weather (westerlies) is going to be more a northern from colder Arctic.

Could continue into November, but there is old weather lore : If there be ice in November that will bear a duck, there will be nothing thereafter but sleet and muck.   
This would fit in with the 3 main winter months (Dec-Feb) being less cold than normal in some long term forecasts. (Not that I am a great fan of a damp, windy, soggy winter)

I see the METO have blogged the winter forecast today, blocked Nov and Dec.

https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2022/10/06/what-can-we-say-about-the-weather-this-winter/

Martin

That's an eyebrow raiser. 

“Weather patterns for October look mobile with a westerly or south westerly air flow ..."

I'd like to see the pressure anomalies for just November/December in that case. Because if they're suggesting higher than average pressure over and around the British Isles for Oct/Nov/Dec with the outlook mentioned above for October, then the signal for Nov/Dec alone must be even stronger.

I thought exactly the same, must be a strong signal. Martin

Scotland has no snow patches anywhere in the country for the 4th time in 6 years after The Sphinx, in the Cairngorms melted yesterday.

They had previously had no snow patches 9 times in 300 years prior to the recent run.

BCC flips to blocked too on its latest update. Very strong Icelandic blocking signal there, Courtesy of the Beijing Climate Centre modelling-

Weird now is melted completely in October than in summer months.

Not really if you think about it. Any snow on the Scottish mountains has had 6-7 months to melt by this point in the year, and October more often than not, isn't particularly cold and snowy even up there.

They have to survive until lasting snow arrives. That is not usually until late October in the high Cairngorms and November in Lochaber. In 2015 when many patches survived the lasting snow did not arrive until December. (The first snow may often fall in September and even late August but it does not last). Way back in 1976 after the hot Summmer lasting snow arrived in the second week of September on the Cairngorm plateau but that was exceptional and did in fact save the Sphinx patch on Braeriach from melting despite the long hot Summer. It was the only survivor that year but even it has now melted 4 times in the last six years. It had actually only melted five times in the three hundred years prior to 2000 and three of them were in the second half of the twentieth century.

An interesting number 1 in the Analogue Index for the last two days:

11 OCT 2022

1952 saw the second-coldest November CET in the last 75 years, at just 4.2C. With less than three weeks to go until November, there might actually be something worth considering in this analogue.

Might be a dumb question but are there any statistics as regards how accurate analogues are? Obviously the theory is fairly straightforward - if the weather for a long period leading up to October 2022 is similar to the weather for a corresponding period of a given year, then there is in theory a good chance that the weather will be similar thereafter for both years. However, do we know how often the theory works out in practice?