Yep, Brian did on Page 2...

Basic pattern matching over the last 3 years , this year seems to fall relatively close to previous 3 years leading up to winter. This summer like last year has been similar, simialar set ups, similar temperatures (nothing extreme), been pretty dry tho in comparison. Very little rain here since march really.

Last winter was pants for cold & snow.... one very significant cold snap lead to sub zero maxes and laying snow but this lasted only couple of days.

Hopefully this winter will deliver more but i suspect it will be be a mild one with plenty of rain around.

I'd take a cold November and December again with snow on the ground on Xmas Day as was last year than a slightly cold winter but with rain around. February could be mild again for all I care, last year was magical with the depths and icicles on the big day even if no snow actually fell!

Yes, it was only the coldest December since 1890 and just 0.2c milder than the coldest December in the entire CET series dating back to 1659.

The ENSO signal would appear to favour a cold start and a mild end, like last winter.

Looks like another re-run of last year with a cold November / December milding up as we head into Jan / Feb

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

I wouldn't mind that aslong as it doesn't mess up the run up to Christmas.

Last Year was a shock to the system because up till the first Snowfall it wasn't too bad then BANG freezing and Snow around for almost a Month !!!...After Christmas last year we hardly got a frost

Its kind of weird as to how many Forecasters are forecasting a cold winter already yet it is only August. 

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/images3/nino34SSTMon.gif  stronger la nina and runs are going off the chart? If I am correct that the lower the minuses, the stronger the la nina?

Which we would take given a choice of that or an average winter. However, it wasn't so good for the SE last year as we know. I was lucky in being in the north of the UK in the week leading up to Christmas and therefore got to experience the deep cold that didn't really fully get a grip down here during that time period.

If we had a re-run of last year with slightly warmer in Cumbria / Northern Ireland and slightly colder in the SE, I am sure there would be no complaints in here (except the inevitable ones from the (majority of?) people on here who don't actually like cold weather in winter even though they say that they want to see it)

My own view is still that CFS is over-doing this and it'll be a far weaker La Nina than predicted, but we'll see.

I don't want to go over the same ground again YD, but it would be better to say "However, it wasn't so good for PARTS OF the SE last year as we know". As I noted at the time, we had a lot of snow here, and it lasted up to Xmas. 

Agree completely. I was meaning more London and to the south of it, though even here I believe there was some snow that stayed around for quite a few days. I am in agreement with you - I'm just saying that the far SE getting some snow that then thawed over a few days wasn't as good (from this point of view) as the days of deep powder, sub -5c maxima and rime on the telephone lines that northern parts got

Agreed and don't want to remember last Dec at all, was very painful to see the deep cold missed my area completely full time, only 1 night was cold enough but forced me to get up at 3am to see it before the uneccessary cloud came up and sent the temps back to above 0C by 9am as if nothing cold happened overnight.  I rather go for mild winter to avoid this pain.

December was an absolutely amazing month for the majority of people in the UK. I understand you though, December 2010 was a dull month in the South East but the sunniest on record in Northern Ireland and very, very sunny here, day after day of clear skies, frost, snow.. absolutely amazing, no mild winter will ever deliver that.

I remember that well in the 85-87 winters in Boston Spa, near Wetherby, when we had lot of snow it always sunny afterward which failed to deliver in the SE.  I had got amount of snow cover in Decbut the clouds wouldn't let me record snow surface temps which could had been below -20C and estimated -15C air temps on Xmas day and estimated around -16 to -17C on 20th Dec if wasn't the clouds arrived.  Did you had a chance to record snow surface temps since you have lot of sunny days.   I used the old Brannon max and min thermometer as I worried the electronic sensors may go off from being too cold.

Here the first spot of snowcover in far east:

http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif 

It look normal to see patchy snow cover for late August and sea ice would stop melting in early September and re-form again as the sun will disappeared on 21st September in the arctic regions.

Sadly I didn't, but I'm guessing values well below -20C could have occurred, would have been interesting to see what the snow surface temperature was at Topcliffe, North Yorkshire when it recorded -19c

They do it every year on Net Weather