I guarantee some regions of Britain will see snow in October and even more so in November.

Whether anyone lives there is another matter

If and it's a big if any where see's Snow in October then you'll be very lucky to any, anywhere away from the high ground of Scotland and or the Pennines, what is very likely is the papers today are just over Hyping another Weather related story

Yet another model forecasts that high pressure is likely to be more dominant than usual this coming winter. The consensus is quite something given that its only a little way past mid-September.

The resultant signal for rainfall and temperature is a logical one for the south, with drier than average conditions shown to be more likley - if by a marginal amount - as well as colder than average conditions.

Elsewhere in the UK, there is little dominant signal, which suggests to me that, during the larger part of the winter, there could be Atlantic frontal incursions moving through, these weakest in the south, with the associated milder air having more effect the further north you go. The south is often calm and with mist and fog helping to create cold conditions, whilst the north sees more mobile conditions and is probably rather average overall for temperature and rainfall. I reckon we'd see a few Bartlett High scenarios as well as a number of strong highs sat atop the UK.

Southerly tracking lows are unlikely to be a feature during more than a few weeks of the winter if this outlook verifies. CFS offers support for this prediction and the PWS forecast describes a similar winter.

Cold-lovers do not dispair, however. There is still time for change, plus even if these overall conditions verify that could still allow for a colder than average December in exchange for a milder than average February - something I wouldn't bet against this year

Gavin thanks for posting the links to the Met office charts.I've had difficulty trying to refind these links via the Hadley site.

As Stormchaser says there is currently some cross model agreement on a HP dominated winter with the synoptics along the lines of HP dominating the south and a more mobile flow in the north.The likely pressure anomalies suggested by Meto do not suggest northern blocking-if anything the overall NAO indicated is weakly positive.That does not however ,rule out a winter of two different halves s you suggest.

My main worry at this stage is that the position of the HP will be likely to leave us on the boring side.HP to the south west would feed in cloudy and warmish north westerlies.HP close to the south east would give a south westerly feed over the north of the UK with a more south /south easterly feed over the south.We might get lucky with the HP drifting north east towards the Scandinavia on occasions and letting in a more  dry easterly flow but it doesnt suggest a very snowy scenario.

All of this could still lead to  below average temperatures  over England and Wales as the METO temp charts suggest.

Yes at present all is looking good for a fairly snow free winter, yes i agree it would/could be cold at times, but if it does turn out to be as the long-range charts show then widespread heavy snow fall like 2010 shouldn't occur.

Still time for change but hopefully things will stay more a less as they are now.

I'd be more optimistic if we start seeing more northern blocking soon. It might be a false perception, but in the past month or so, it seems as though northern blocking has become much less prolific.

Am I right? I'm not saying it matters greatly, it doesn't. But I'd feel more confident that the trend was continuing if we start seeing more of it in within the NWP, both in the short and the long term.

My view is the opposite, if hoping for a cold winter. The 2 coldest winters [from memory] of the last 40 years were 78/79 and 2009/10. Both were preceded by prolonged and quite exceptional spells of zonality in the autumn. These spells were quite different. October 1978 and much of November 1978 had a long spell of anticyclonic zonality [ie zonal jet pattern, but way to the North of usual position in our region]. November 2009 was relentlessly zonal and wet.

Yes, a positive NAO with the UK under some kind of mid latitude/euro high is one of the things I look for in October.

It's one of the many aspects I consider when formulating a winter LRF (G).....

I am not sure about any correlation between a warm October and the following winter, but would be very interesting to gauge conditions over the coming month and then tie this in with conditions in winter.....

As has been alluded to many times, there are all sorts of different building blocks to be considered when thinking about what the coming winter will be like, and it really is ANYBODY'S guess what is going to happen.

Personally, I don't think what happens in October matters one jot when it comes to winter. We have factors within the winter season itself that can appear quite literally out of the blue (such as sudden stratospheric warming events), which completely scupper any patterns which may lead to a cold (or a mild) winter.

That won't stop people continuing to produce LRF's....and I have to say, it's great fun weighing up all the different factors before producing something.

I am really just in the process of starting this for the forthcoming winter, and I'm sure I'll get shot down in flames again whatever I produce....but it won't lessen my enjoyment of trynig!  

The latest CFS charts show an Above average month for Temperature for December, January and February are both Normal. So not 1 of the 3 winter month are below normal.

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

Precipitation is below normal or normal for the midlands south all winter, above normal for Northern England upwards for December and February normal in January.

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

I don't think warm or cool in October is really that important.

What seems to be more important is the dryness.

Maybe.

I was just looking at the archive for this time last year, and there was already some impressive blocking taking place. All very unscientific I know.

IMO, a lot of the blocks will fall nicely into place in the near future - but this will be during October and November, breaking down soon into December.

In many ways we could well end up seeing the patterns of last winter (allowing for some variation in the excact nature of them) shifted so as to take place about a month sooner this time around. Perhaps any serious cold (relative to averages) will set in during the final week of October.

Current model output suggests that high pressure will be more dominant once any notable cold has left us than was seen last year (Jan and Feb this year were near or above average for precipitation in a lot of places IIRC).

Hopefully high pressure will be more dominant this winter, with a bit of luck the worst of the winter weather will have let by December leaving the rest of winter settled and mostly dry. 

You mean charts like this Joe?

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm2401.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn2401.png

Yes.

The mystery is that whilst  none of the individual month charts for  Dec,Jan,Feb are below normal, the seasonal  3month mean for Dec-Feb shows below normal as most probable.How can this be true mathematically?

LOL- just as we mention the lack of northern blocking ECM goes on overload!  Looking like this morning (if ECM veriifies) to be potentially the longest spell country wide of sustained warmth / fine weather since Easter.  If Joe's theory is right that bodes well for the coming Winter.

But does HP over Scandinavia and eastern Europe constitute nothern blocking?

No - northern blocking was more evident in yesterday's 12z runs. Today there are lots of blues and purples up there instead.

All rather irrelevant anyway, at the moment.

We'll have a much better idea of how things are panning out in a few weeks time, now is a bit too early IMO.