The mention of above average months this year, but its no warmer than last year at all. The year started cold to average, april was the hottest for 100 years or whatever, summer disappeared into the cold, and september produced the similar set up to april. Dry and hot.

As an island our weather is so vulnerable to other scenairos around the world. If we were part of a landlocked cluster of countries you could predict to the nearest day when our seasons would change. Yes seasons would vary in temperatures but there would be a definitive change nevertheless.

We are faced with so many issues in the UK, as proven april can be hotter than any summer month and so can september. That simply in my view would not happen on the continents. So weather europe will be cold/hot it could well have no affect on our weather.

I do echo comments that any cold this year will not come from greenland like last year. I cant see it at all, not for 6 weeks like last year in affect. There is talk of cold coming from scandi, but that has rarely happened at all in recent years during a core winter month. We have had a lot of march cold come from scandi but by then its not as serious as december cold.

Lets face it, how many times do you go to work or out and about and it reads -22 and 2 feet of snow on the ground. And over the christmas period. I have some neighbours who are from orginally norway, and they went back last december to get warm.

I think Roger is saying his analysis shows that November can provide pointers to the winter ahead. I'm also also not sure if Roger mentioned anything about whether September on its own can provide pointers. I'd add that you need to look at the synoptics, not just temperatures and rainfall. For example, a warm dry October could be driven by high pressure on the continent, or from an Azores ridge. The final point I'll make is that any long range forecaster who issues at the end of November and tells you he doesn't look at the medium range NWP is almost certainly feeding you with rubbish.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/wz/pics/Recm1201.gif

is that not a chart then that should cause interest as we head into november?

No, it's October.

Question: Has a Very Warm and Dry October ever NOT been followed by a cold winter?

Historically a warm, dry October has usually been the prelude to a cold winter.

Andy

I think the way to look at it is by finding the cold winters and then checking the octobers preceeding it, although im not talking about a winter with just 1 cold month, im talking about blocking that repeats over and over, and what you will find is that most of them have high pressure very close to us or just to our east, and as the winter prgresses, further blocking will establish but this time further north.

So a warm dry october doesnt always mean a cold winter BUT almost all cold winters have a warm dry october previous to it.

For proof, just check the archive charts, and you will find major blocking just to our east and/or partly over us.

I think we need to start seeing some changes in FI in the next week or so, too me it looks like heights will remain low over Greenland as the polar vortex strengthens. Only October, but the signal for November at this current time is rather bland for us coldies.

Andy a warm dry October is not always followed by a cold winter.Its fifty fifty split.

Looking at very warm dry Octobers your question was have they ever NOT been followed by a cold winter?.Looking at 1900-2010 the answer is they have frequently NOT been folowed by a cold winter.If we take very warm Octobers as having A CET 1c or above mean there were 15 such Octobers were followed by warm winters 7 by cold.Only 2 of thewinters were very cold(CET below -1C) out of 21 very cold winters in the 11years.

Finally for the sake of completeness I have looked at September indicators.This does reveal one conclusion.Dry Septembers tend slightly  to be followed by  warm winters.In period 1900-2011 55% of winters were above the mean.However for dry warm Septembers the figure was 68% and for dry cold Septembers the figure was 62%.So slight bias towards warm.

 As some people will know, I have long used September as one factor in my winter forecast.

Slightly off topic, but this shows the NW/SE split for September quite well...

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/2011/9/2011_9_Rainfall_Anomaly_1971-2000.gif

So a cold winter for the north west, but a mild one for the east? See, I don't think the whole 'dry Autumn - cold winter' theory is as simple as some people are making it out to be

Sorry sriram but Brian had done nothing of the sort.He has issued his early winter thoughts in which he said he said that at the time of writing he was tentatively looking at a less cold winter than the last three. He did however point out that this could well change between that point and when he brings out the official TWO winter forecast in late November.

I think we should wait for the official TWO winter forecast before saying what Brian has called for this winter.

I think if you look at the synoptics fromm extactly a year ago in the achives they are very similar to what we have now. So I'm

not writing this winter off yet.. Some out there sound like the thinking of posting winter is over all ready. Only october!!! last year was very mobile right upto mid mid november

This is how we compare to 2010

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/2010/Rrea00120101023.gif - October 23rd 2010

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn121.png - October 23rd 2011

This is how October ended last year

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/archive/ra/2010/Rrea00120101031.gif

GFS FI so far for this year

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn2041.png

So as you say we are pretty much as you were really.

Not off topic at all in a discussion about Autumn's impact on the coming winter. I have had to remind myself when reading this topic over the last month that many posters are from the Southern/ Eastern half of the UK. Every time I look out I see rain (and sometimes wind) which of course does not tie in with many of the observations on here. The above graphic shows very clearly the split and I don't think it is unique to September either.

If people are going to make a UK winter forecast based on a dry Autumn they would do well to consider the picture further North. It simply adds to the confusion this year would be my only conclusion.

It happens every year. People seem to want winter to start in October, which I always find slightly strange. Some winters barely have as much as a frost before Christmas...

Spot on!

I have a feeling that this winter will be a bit milder than the previous few, just a gut feeling. It may be late October but there's still alot of Autumn still to go aswell. I find cold weather more comfortable and I think snow is nice when it first falls but it can be an unconvenience if you own a bike but having said that statistics show criminals more than most find it a difficult time when it snows for many reasons - that's why they hate it so much, so that's a good point too... that is unless you leave the car unattended heating up!

This has been pointed out by Joe B'astardi, there is a CFS V2, which you can see here;

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/CFSv2seasonal.shtml

Heres the ENSO forecast of the V2 model;

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/images3/nino34Mon.gif

Still going for a strong La Nina, but doesn't reach the extreme depth of CFS V1;

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

Notice the recent warmer members on the V2 ENSO ensemble as well? The model could well be starting to realise this La Nina is not going to be anywhere near as extreme as its been forecasting?

 I'm expecting a winter with a lot of interest for cold rampers. We could of course end up with a flat zonal pattern, but I think it's quite unlikely.