I can understand that some people don't like cold weather for various reasons but I can't understand how any weather "enthusiast" can want a mild winter. They are so unbelievably boring! At least in summer with mild weather you can get scorching heat and thunderstorms but in winter its just boring nothingness.

Indeed, boring and everybody up in arms!

I can't understand how any weather "enthusiast" can want a mild winter.

Then allow me to explain why personally I would like a repeat of 91/92. I am actively involved in the organisation of more than one social activity which require a reasonable number of people to travel to a venue. Snow, particularly if combined with ice, either results in cancellation or only a tiny number of people turning up. Sharp frosts, such as occurred in January 1992, are not a problem in isolation. The 'extended' winter of 2012/13 [ie including March 2013] was the most disruptive I have known since at least winter 78/79.

I can't understand how any weather "enthusiast" can want a mild winter.

Then allow me to explain why personally I would like a repeat of 91/92. I am actively involved in the organisation of more than one social activity which require a reasonable number of people to travel to a venue. Snow, particularly if combined with ice, either results in cancellation or only a tiny number of people turning up. Sharp frosts, such as occurred in January 1992, are not a problem in isolation. The 'extended' winter of 2012/13 [ie including March 2013] was the most disruptive I have known since at least winter 78/79.

That is a fair shout John, my Mother can't stand the Ice and Snow,she lives in a Village 5 miles out of town , but she accepts she won't be able to get out and stocks up accordingly.

She also arranges her social life around the weather if Ice and snow are forecast ,which is understandable

I can't understand how any weather "enthusiast" can want a mild winter.

Then allow me to explain why personally I would like a repeat of 91/92. I am actively involved in the organisation of more than one social activity which require a reasonable number of people to travel to a venue. Snow, particularly if combined with ice, either results in cancellation or only a tiny number of people turning up. Sharp frosts, such as occurred in January 1992, are not a problem in isolation. The 'extended' winter of 2012/13 [ie including March 2013] was the most disruptive I have known since at least winter 78/79.

That is a fair shout John, my Mother can't stand the Ice and Snow,she lives in a Village 5 miles out of town , but she accepts she won't be able to get out and stocks up accordingly.

She also arranges her social life around the weather if Ice and snow are forecast ,which is understandable

Does she drop the bingo and opt for sledging and ice skating when conditions permit 

I'm sure at some point we are going to pay for all this dry weather and hope it combines with cold and high winds to bring a proper winter storm.  Late Nov/Early Dec would be acceptable enough for me.  Until then it can stay mediocre for all i care.  Do worry that we are going to have a mild s/sw flow most of the winter though.  One of those cases of high in the wrong place 

 LLTNP 105m asl 

I can't understand how any weather "enthusiast" can want a mild winter.

Then allow me to explain why personally I would like a repeat of 91/92. I am actively involved in the organisation of more than one social activity which require a reasonable number of people to travel to a venue. Snow, particularly if combined with ice, either results in cancellation or only a tiny number of people turning up. Sharp frosts, such as occurred in January 1992, are not a problem in isolation. The 'extended' winter of 2012/13 [ie including March 2013] was the most disruptive I have known since at least winter 78/79.

That is a fair shout John, my Mother can't stand the Ice and Snow,she lives in a Village 5 miles out of town , but she accepts she won't be able to get out and stocks up accordingly.

She also arranges her social life around the weather if Ice and snow are forecast ,which is understandable

Does she drop the bingo and opt for sledging and ice skating when conditions permit 

 

I'm sure at some point we are going to pay for all this dry weather and hope it combines with cold and high winds to bring a proper winter storm.  Late Nov/Early Dec would be acceptable enough for me.  Until then it can stay mediocre for all i care.  Do worry that we are going to have a mild s/sw flow most of the winter though.  One of those cases of high in the wrong place 

I'm sure we will get some decent spells through the 3 month period.

My biggest regret was not making the most of the 2010 spell , something akin would be great

Sometimes in recent years we tend to skip some seasons altogether - perhaps we will skip a proper Autumn and go straight from summer weather into winter.............? 

I would prefer an actual decline though with time to enjoy the chilly air and leaves blowing before the snow comes..... 

Sometimes in recent years we tend to skip some seasons altogether - perhaps we will skip a proper Autumn and go straight from summer weather into winter.............? 

I would prefer an actual decline though with time to enjoy the chilly air and leaves blowing before the snow comes..... 

2010 was such a year ,we hardly had an Autumn and flew straight into Winter IIRC

A repeat please

Any update yet on the state of Arctic sea ice and Siberian snow cover?

Not that that necessarily affects our weather, it is still interesting.

It is still increasing for now apparently.

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

 LLTNP 105m asl 

I have been getting very suspcicious that 2013 will try to pull a summer/winter transition without much of an autumn. It might involve a false start or two, though.

I can't wait to experience my first snow event in Reading, as I've read countless times about snow depths here more than three times what I've had to make do with back in west Hants!

The CFS Charts show anomolies.  Is there therefore a chart which shows the "norm" for each of the months?

For instance, if it is showing higher than normal pressure in a place, the norm might be really low pressure and the higher anomoly might still be low pressure albeit not as deep??  Or have i gone off on the wrong tangent?

 LLTNP 105m asl 

The CFS Charts show anomolies.  Is there therefore a chart which shows the "norm" for each of the months?

For instance, if it is showing higher than normal pressure in a place, the norm might be really low pressure and the higher anomoly might still be low pressure albeit not as deep??  Or have i gone off on the wrong tangent?

that is correct-

So iceland for instance needs a considerable +VE anomaly to warranyt thinking that will be high pressure-

One for Gav & his snow vid-

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf/runs/2013100600/ECH0-240.GIF?06-12

ECM has significantly cold upper air & the fledgling vortex locating itself in exactly the place at day 10 to generate a lot of snow cover in the westernm portion of his snow map....

S

Is there somewhere then that shows what the average is or the norm that the CFS is predicting its anomoly against?

 LLTNP 105m asl 

The CFS Charts show anomolies.  Is there therefore a chart which shows the "norm" for each of the months?

For instance, if it is showing higher than normal pressure in a place, the norm might be really low pressure and the higher anomoly might still be low pressure albeit not as deep??  Or have i gone off on the wrong tangent?

 

that is correct-

 

So iceland for instance needs a considerable +VE anomaly to warranyt thinking that will be high pressure-

 

One for Gav & his snow vid-

http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/ecmwf/runs/2013100600/ECH0-240.GIF?06-12

 

ECM has significantly cold upper air & the fledgling vortex locating itself in exactly the place at day 10 to generate a lot of snow cover in the westernm portion of his snow map....

 

 

S

Thanks Steve.

Brian's latest Buzz would make the Daily Express proud

There appears to be much hype surrounding the coming winter from many quarters this year... more so than there is normally .

I have no idea on what we can expect but I do have some comments:-

- CFS is very poor imo.

- Using early season snow cover across Russia/Scandi is a risky game for using as a forecast tool; easy come, easy go.

- Twitter/YT can generate unfounded excitement.

- Pattern matching is a lottery; if it was that easy, LRFs would be easy.

Will there be some decent snow this winter?

Yes, some places will get 'lucky' depending on your p.o.v while others will miss out.

I have found that the media in general really do overhype weather events nowadays. Wet and windy will now nearly always result in a yellow warning while any snow event will be a blizzard with 'worse to come'. The reality is nearly always much less severe. This will be seen this week in fact with reports of it turning much colder across the country; many southern locations will still max at between 13-15c on Thursday and by Friday, temperatures will slowly begin to climb. Some rural spots may get a slight ground frost but is this uncommon? No. I remember many times when frost was pretty normal in the well known hollows through October.

Brian's latest Buzz would make the Daily Express proud

There appears to be much hype surrounding the coming winter from many quarters this year... more so than there is normally .

I have no idea on what we can expect but I do have some comments:-

- CFS is very poor imo.

- Using early season snow cover across Russia/Scandi is a risky game for using as a forecast tool; easy come, easy go.

- Twitter/YT can generate unfounded excitement.

- Pattern matching is a lottery; if it was that easy, LRFs would be easy.

 

Will there be some decent snow this winter?

Yes, some places will get 'lucky' depending on your p.o.v while others will miss out.

I have found that the media in general really do overhype weather events nowadays. Wet and windy will now nearly always result in a yellow warning while any snow event will be a blizzard with 'worse to come'. The reality is nearly always much less severe. This will be seen this week in fact with reports of it turning much colder across the country; many southern locations will still max at between 13-15c on Thursday and by Friday, temperatures will slowly begin to climb. Some rural spots may get a slight ground frost but is this uncommon? No. I remember many times when frost was pretty normal in the well known hollows through October.

All valid Mike , hope all is well

BUT don't kill my dream

The CFS Charts show anomolies.  Is there therefore a chart which shows the "norm" for each of the months?

For instance, if it is showing higher than normal pressure in a place, the norm might be really low pressure and the higher anomoly might still be low pressure albeit not as deep??  Or have i gone off on the wrong tangent?

Just to say, I posted a possible pressure pattern anomaly for the current winter over on Netweather the other week - based on the likely QBO, PDO and Enso.  The resulting analogue years were 1969/70 and 2008/2009 (not a huge dataset granted?!) - anyway the anomaly on the face of it looked decent - northern blocking - but the actual surface pattern was more mobile - so it emphasises Steve's point that ideally we'd want to see a very high anomaly over Iceland. 

By the way, my projection did show severe cold in January for Germany, Poland and S Scandinavia - with the UK on the edge - East colder than average, West average. For what it's worth, it forecast a slightly below average winter overall.

What i'll say is that unless your analogue years are only 1962/63, 2009/2010 (extreme neg NAO years) - then I don't think we'll ever see an intense surface pressure anomaly showing to the North on the analogue charts that we sometimes use to make forecasts. IMO for example, we couldn't ever hope to forecast a 62/63 repeat at this range - based off using analogue years. Definitely though the bigger the predicted anomalies the better.

I'd assume that the CFS forecasts are similar (someone correct me if they disagree) and the best we're going to get are decent looking anomalies (nothing exceptional), but the underlying surface pattern forecast won't be showing wall to wall northern blocking. 

Snow spreading out now towards Northern China. http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif

Climate wise I find Mohe county in Northern China an interesting place, VERY cold and snowy in Winter as seen on the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohe_County

Snow spreading out now towards Northern China. http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif

Climate wise I find Mohe county in Northern China an interesting place, VERY cold and snowy in Winter as seen on the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohe_County

Quite a covering for early October