Well the current trend seems to be for winter to end earlier and earlier.  Are you saying it'll all be over by November this year?

I'd like to go back to normal winters.  With some cold weather, frosts and maybe even some snow in February.

So I hope you're wrong

Boo, go away!

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/euT2mProbSea.gif

For what it is worth here are the NOAA seasonal forecast maps.It shows a slightly cooler than average decdember on the monthly but the whole winter is shown as slightly above average.

I know these maps have been subject to ridicule but last year they picked up the cold december well in advance-which is more than METO did!

Yes if possible so we can return to our normal summers again.  Last winter was the worse one for me to miss out the deep cold potential in here except snow was fine and then full of nothingless Jan and Feb.   If this winter going to be like 88/89 due to nature balancing out which I don't like but may help break the continuous poor summer runs.  That winter 88/89 ended the runs of few years of poor summers.  I remember it was around 13C overnight and mid  teens max in Leeds on my last day of school before Xmas vacation then going to Cyprus to find it colder than UK.

Exacta Weather going for a big freeze it seems.

http://www.exactaweather.com/UK_Long_Range_Forecast.html

Interesting forecast there - what's their forecast record like, did they get last year and the year before correct?  Either way quite brave to call the winter now.

Sounds like a hopecast to me. Possibly a case of deciding on the general synopsis and plucking various meteorological theories to try to back it up.

Every LRF is a hopecast. The fact is they are scientifically impossible with any accuracy and consistency. I'll never cease to be amazed that people even bother to read them let alone discuss the merits of them. Flip a coin in the air and play heads or tails. It's probably more fun

Agreed as I remember they forecasted this summer to be a scorcher and look what happened, NW forecast for a 1976 type summer also failed too.  Now they talking about big freeze, and I bet we ended up with 88/89 winter instead.

Sorry but what? I have no recollection of METO issuing a winter forecast last year, as they have stopped producing public long range forecasts. And what they did do was call December incredibly well (to my recollection) when the models were going somewhat beserk in late november.

I know, I'm gonna get wet legs

They didn't forecast a scorching summer, their opinion, based on the parameters mentioned, was that summer would likely be cooler than average with above average rainfall dependant on ENSO conditions.

Recent LRF updates seem to be backing away from the colder outlook but at this stage it's just a pull of the puggy machine anyway.

The MetO also called the end of the cold spell pretty well, when certain other were going for a continuation through Jan and Feb.   Their public forcasts were excellent last winter.

It'll be interesting to see what GloSea4 is suggesting for next winter, though as we hopefully now all know, being a 3 month probability forecast, you need to study (and be able to understand) several runs to make any meaningful prediction.   Unless you want to pour cold custard and rancid sardines over yourself like the Media so perfectly did last winter! 

I had a look back at their/his (looks like a one-man band) forecasts since 2009, and he has called each summer and winter well. However, on every occasion he has forecast cold winters and poor summers; he has yet to forecast mild or warm. He doesn't seem to produce forecasts for autumns or springs. There was, however, no mention of February's mildness.

It's a bit like Ian Brown et al a few years ago, calling every season mild or warm, back before 2007.

If he manages to successfully predict a mild or warm season, then his reputation might increase. Certainly, his methods seem similar to *****Corbyn's, but without the rhetoric, the hysteria, or the twisting of facts or loose interpretation of previous forecasts to call something correct that was actually wrong.

You are quite right in that METO did not produce a long range forecastAS it happens I checked with METO around September time and ther NAO forecast was around -1.6.They however dropped seasonal forecasts and replaced them with a month ahead and on that basis got December right.

However the key words above are that NOAA picked up the cold December well in Advance by September if I remember rightly.

Anyhow for what they are worth here is the current monthly probability forecasts from NOAA.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/euT2mProbMon.gif

I'm sure our Brian and his polar bears will love you for saying that Matty.

Obviously all LRFs are hopecasts but I as YD said already the trend is pretty clear (so obviously people are going to go with the flow and forecast a cold winter, so their chances of being right are higher). A winter of 88/89 would be very unusual and milder than any winter I saw over the past 10 years.. and mild winters in this country usually mean zonal dross with days, weeks, months of rain and mist.. yuck

 Hopecast or Guesscast?

I tend to agree with your overall critique of LRF's - but whilst some LRF'ers try to be impartial, others seem very influenced by what they hope will happen. Usually it's pretty obvious to discerne between the two

They are awful yes but I would trade that in as they often give us near to decent summers and sometimes very hot summers like in 1994/1995 winter was very mild but followed by scorching summer.

Each to their own I suppose. I myself would happily trade good summers for severe winters, but I'm weird like that. 

Nothing weird about that and that my love about Continental climate that you can get hot summers and cold winters to your doorstep guaranteed.   When we had a cold Dec spell I thought we may have a hotter summer which did proved well in April which was just barely 4 months after the Dec freeze and manage to get many days of 25C easily which was a good effort for a temperate island zone. It was down to coward AZ being a main culprit that refused to move east entirely since May for no reason and sent lows over us like a tennis ball after being served by AZ racket.

Agree with both those points. With cold winters we should see hotter summers, even sub-polar Yellowknife in northern Canada sees hotter weather than we do, and while I am not the biggest fan of summer I would like to enjoy it while it is here, which is why I am looking forward to winter, so we can get some real weather for a change as summers in UK recently have been dull and boring. 

Many years back on a school trip we went up to the top of Rochester Castle. While leaning over the railings, one of my friends was unfortunately sick (he'd been on about how quesy he felt as we were climbing the stairs). His puke landed on some unlucky Chinese tourists far below, who started exlaiming loudly once the unexpected shower landed.

It was one of those things that you know shouldn't be amusing (after all, who'd like random sick on themselves) yet pretty much everyone cracked up.

So yes, being sick can be funny.