CFS has a habit of over-doing it. This time last year it was forecasting the strongest ever recorded La Nina;

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst_history/201009/images3/nino34SSTMon.gif

Which eventually verified to something far less dramatic;

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst_history/201102/images3/nino34SSTMon.gif

My guess is it won't go much beyond a weak to moderate event - Say somewhere around -1.0 to -1.3 as the absolute minimum.

Beware the outlier that is onto something!

NOAA's own analysis of the situation is that ENSO neutral and a return to La-Nina next winter are equally likley and the CFS is their model. You can find their analysis here

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

As we know a moderate or strong La-Nina would increase the chances of a mild winter particularly the late winter.

I thought your switch to winter tyres last autumn was partly based on La Nina increasing the chances of a very cold early winter? Overall winter 2010/11 was cold in the UK, despite the milder second half.

Read my whole sentence not just the bit you highlighted. The la-Nina signal indeed favours (not very strongly) cold spells early in winter / late Autumn with milder weather later (January and especially February) overal this means that the period December to February (winter) is slightly more likely to be above average. It must be remembered that all these factors that influence our winter are weak but statistically significant over the last 300 years.

So last winter was an anomaly for a La Nina winter, because it was colder than average over the Dec - Feb period?

You can't really say that as the link to La-Nina is weak but it did have a characteristic La-Nina pattern ie colder at first getting warmer later

The NOAA analysis  contains the following info

"A majority of the ENSO models, and all three multi-model outlooks, predict ENSO-neutral conditions (Niño-3.4 SST anomalies between -0.5C and +0.5C ) to continue into early 2012.However, an increasing number of models predict the onset of La Niña during the Northern Hemisphere fall 2011"

The CFS SST outlooks predicts La Nina to redevelop by Northern Hemisphere fall 2011.Presumably this prediction is being fed into the CFT temp and precipitation outlooks.

Finally an interesting note on past events "After updating the ocean analysis a new La Nina episode was classified from ASO 1962 -DJF1962/63" So the severest winter of the 20th cenury was in fact a weak (-0.8) La Nina.Not ramping!

My gut feeling is that any deeper cold will be a bit more intermittent than last winter during December but it will also hold on a fair way into January. On the flip side, the latter stages of January and a large part February could be very mild indeed.

Its just a gut feeling at this stage. It would be quite something to see an even more dramatic tale of two halves than last year!

If nobody has any objections I will happily do so ? 

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfs.php?mois=02&annee=2012

The CFS winter temp anomalies forecast have  gone negative in the last week.Currently for Engalnd Dec-0.2,Jan-0.7 to -1.3,Feb-1.4to -1.7

Weak La Ninas coincide with a number of cold winters  - 55, 63, 85, 95/96. If your looking for a cold winter, weak La Nina is the best ENSO state to be in (though obviously it can't be guaranteed)

Heres an interesting forecast for America that I've seen posted on Netweather;

http://weatherintoronto.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-preliminary-winter-outlook-2012.html

Has implications for us because its predicting a negative AO/NAO for winter 11/12.

i like the look of all the height anomoly charts ...............

If you switch to a Latin American keyboard layout, we might find this discussion easier (the 'ñ' is next to the 'L')

Wasn't that forecast a CC of last years and year befores?! Perhaps we could have the same - funny how that above chart shows some tropical climates like Alabama, Georgia, Missisippi, Florida to have "near normal snowfall!"

So what about back here is anyone familiar with these charts - I am not to keen in these and do not understand the percentages does anyone have the temperature chart of this so I know how much above or below average the temperature will be? I use to have it, if you have it please send the link to me. Thanks.

This is what I have and from what I can understand winter will be in November and December and spring will start end of January - similar to last winter!?

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

The Winter of 2009-2010 happened during very strong El Nino.

I was just thinking about the current Texas drought and what similarities it has with the 'dust bowl' event of the 1930s over there.

I think the Pacific was generally on the cool side back then, whilst the Atlantic was on the warm side (cold PDO, warm AMO).

So I'm wondering, what were the 1930's winters like for the UK?

Here is a relevant article extract (source is not given on the blog where it was posted):

The Dust Bowl - What Caused the Dust Bowl in the US Midwest in the 1930's?

...

Ocean Temperatures in the 1930's Were Unstable

Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center recently used a computer model and satellite data to examine climate over the past century. In the study, cooler than normal tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures and warmer than normal tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures created ideal drought conditions due to the unstable sea surface temperatures. The result was dry air and high temperatures in the Midwest from about 1931 to 1939.

...

Changes in sea surface temperatures create shifts in weather patterns. One way is by changing the patterns in the jet stream. In the 1930's, the jet stream was weakened causing the normally moisture rich air from the Gulf of Mexico to become drier. Low level winds further reduced the normal supply of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and reduced rainfall throughout the US Midwest.

The Jet Stream Changed Course.

The jet stream normally flows west over the Gulf of Mexico and turns northward pulling up moisture and dumping rain onto the Great Plains. As the jet stream weakened and changed course, it traveled farther south than normal starving the Midwest of precious rain.

Such changes upstream from us would have had some effect on our own dominant patterns - am I right?

Winters in the 1930's were nothing special, with the exception on 1937 and 1938, a few good snowy spells in those years.

http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/weather_years_1930-39.htm

The state of ENSO may have some bearing on the weather in Britain, but does not in itself determine whether we have a mild, cold, dry, wet, early or no winter.   Same applies to the weather the preceding September, October, June and 12 years ago.

Thanks. That alone is not too inspiring then, especially with a lot of months described as 'mild'. Hopefully the PDO/AMO setup was not the main driver behind those winters...

Anyone know what the solar activity was like during that time period?

Sunspot activity reached a minimum in 1933 and 1934. In the late 1930's it reached a maximum

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/Zurich_Color_Small.jpg

The US dust bowl event was at its worst around 1933-1935.

Also 1933 was the worst year for named tropical storms in the Atlantic (only exceeded in 2005).

This year we are not far behind 2005 in terms of named storms. We reached Maria on 1 September 2005. This year Maria formed as a named storm on 6 September so only 5 days behind.

Winter CET in 1933/4 was 3.2C. In 1935/6 it was only 3.0C. But 1934/5 was very warm at 6.1C despite solar activity being near a minimum.

There are certainly some parallels with 1933 in terms of what we have experienced recently and are experiencing. This year we have severe drought in parts of the southern US, a very active tropical storm season (although not many hurricanes yet) and still relatively low solar activity. So that might suggest a greater than average chance of a colder than average winter for the UK. But there are so many variables involved I would hesitate to make such a linkage. Interesting though.

But in the UK, things have been very different from 1933 this year

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/645fall2003_web.dir/Jason_Amundson/pdoindex.htm

I don't think the 1930s are a very good analogue for the coming winter since the PDO index was generally very positive during that period.  We're now in what looks to be a long term negative PDO cycle which I suspect helps buckle the jet stream by promoting large scale ridging in the pacific ocean.  I'm not saying it's going to be a cold winter - just that the 1930s are not a good analogue - I would go with something like 1955 as a reasonable analogue year:

• second year la nina
• negative pdo
• positive amo
• lowish solar activity
• negative QBO

which did actually have a very cold Feb.

http://www.factsandarts.com/articles/future-low-solar-activity-periods-may-cause-extremely-cold-winters-in-north-america-europe-and-russia/

This is worth a read.