Could be Gandalf. Alternatively, I do think sometimes the temperatures/precipitation forecasts with these seasonal models need to be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt - Thats why I mainly rely on pressure/height forecasts.

Yes, I'm fine thanks. Just can't shake off this annoying, irritating cough, LOL.

Yes, indeed. Do you recall looking at those charts where the jet was blasting across from Iceland almost into the Russian Arctic. Winter after winter with zero chance of northern blocking.  If we got a high pressure cell as far north as Denmark we all celebrated the cold spell.....

On a serious note this coming winter is looking a tough one to call and reading those whose expertise on teleconnections far exceeds mine, seems to suggest of a cold latter November and this continuing into December with January being milder and February and March being below average. To be honest I would say a cold December is looking a good call but woudn't have a clue thereafter.

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfs/run1/cfsnh-0-2142.png?00

JFF JFF JFF HP to the East starts to introduce a cold flow

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfs/run1/cfsnh-0-2220.png?00

JFF JFF JFF  Cold well established across the UK

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfs/run1/cfsnh-0-2280.png?00

JFF JFF JFF JFF JFF JFF Proper cold covers the UK

I'm starting an Open University degree in Environmental Science in February - so excited to do this. Something I've always wanted to do...so who knows, one day I might actually have a bit of common sense behind my insane ramblings!

I have to say, purely from a pattern matching point of view, I think the hopes of a particularly cold winter are slimmer than they have been in recent years.
The jet is roaring away stronger than is has been for many years, and the storms are starting to form...I think November will be a very unsettled month with the jet roaring all the way through the British Isles and through to central and eastern parts of Europe.
I think we would be unlikely to see a cold winter this year (for more reasons than the above of course), but time will tell.

Originally Posted by: Scandy 1050 MB 

I have to say I am struggling with any logic in that, Moomin. The jet can blow itself out in a matter of days and I know that it's not rare to find a sudden lurch in the pattern as the jet buckles and high pressure develops.
To write off January and February on the basis of a hunch that November might be dominated by a strong jetstream just seems rather fanciful to me.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

Sorry Gandalf, I should have said it was based purely on a "hunch"....Don't worry I'm not about to write off winter! I guess my thinking is mainly because how active we have become recently, although I confess this is just normal for October....
Of course I'm not saying that my "hunch", my "inkling" will be anywhere near the mark, but I do use pattern matching in my annual LRF. It's just one very small cog in the wheel.
Bearing in mind that we have a storm just over a day away and we still don't know the affects or the track of that, it would be folly of me to say that my LRF will be any more or less accurate than any other year.
It's all (to use Gooner's phrase) JUST FOR FUN!

Originally Posted by: moomin75 

LOL. I thought "JJF" was only used when the charts were showing blizzards and/or a metre of snow. A long range forecast of mild weather all winter isn't my idea of fun....! ;-)

I could say I've got a hunch that after a couple of near misses in the recent ones, this winter we will strike lucky (assuming you want a snowy cold winter). There are some who would suggest that increased snow cover and more extensive Arctic ice increase the odds.

Just so long as we don't see much of "the slug" I'll be fairly content...

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

Agree - don't forget how stormy and atlantic driven the weather was in November 2010...we all know what happened at the end of the month. Also last year, even into December wet and windy ruled then we had January snow (a rare event south of the Midlands pre 2009) followed by the coldest March in many years. Looking at those statistics it's hard to call a wet and windy winter all the way through, and given the bias of recent winters for at least one decent cold spell to occur that's a brave hunch to have! 

Being the weather it could happen but if you were writing this in 2006 I'd probably agree with you but a lot has changed since then.

Originally Posted by: moomin75 

So what do the figures show?

In the period 1873 to 2012 there were 32 autumns that were both wetter than average and warmer than average(using CET and CEP(central England precipitation).

Of these half were followed by warmer than average winters,half by colder than average .

However if we look at the more extreme years -very warm or very wet(defintion CET >0.7c above average,CEP >50mm above average, a more skewed pattern emerges.Very warm autumns had 83% warm winters to follow them.On the other hand very wet autumns had 70% cold winters following.

For non extreme autumns (CET 0-0.7c above average,CEP 0 -50mm above average) the figures are  68 % of warm Autumns were followed by cold winters,62% of wet autumns were follwed by warm winters.

The strongest indicator groups were Very warm,wet 100% followed by warm winters and warm,very wet 71% followed by cold winters.

Until the end of November we wont know which category aoutumn 2013 falls.At this stage it looks more likely to be very warm than very wet.

Finally JFF looking through this one year emerged as having a similar seasonal pattern  to  2013 ie very cold,dry spring,very warm dry summer and very warm wet autumn this was 1984 followed 0f course by the very cold winter of 85!

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfsv2fcst/htmls/glbz700e3Mon.html

CFS is currently showing a 'decending winter' which sees it start of with mild westerlies dominating, only for high-latitude blocking to become increasingly prominent through January, culminating in a potentially extreme February and March with the zonal flow running in reverse for much of the time.

While that's to some extent in keeping with what it was showing a few weeks ago, the signal for a westerly December has strengthened somewhat, while the signal for an extremely blocked February is new on the scene, replacing what was a signal for an extremely blocked January.

Pre-winter, the signal for November is for another stormy month of westerlies. Given what CFS and ECM are now hinting at regarding the PV, there is a chance that this CFS projection could be blown out of the water... have to wait and see.

Thanks for sharing that analysis of seasonal pattern matching, roger63. Really appreciated.

Any suggestions of a mechanism for warm, wet autumns being followed by cold winters? Perhaps one factor might be that autumn warmth and rain are likely to be accompanied by strong westerly winds. Churning up the surface of the Atlantic might help to release heat from the ocean, abating the strength of westerly winds in the months ahead.

No idea whether such an effect is really plausible though.

Just to avoid confusion the big picture is that very warm winters be they wet or very wet are more often than not followed by  warm winters and very wet winters be they warm or very warm are more often than not followed by cold winters.

There are a total of four sub groups :

1.Very warm ,Very wet  3 years- 1 Warm following winter (2003),2 cold following winters (1969 and 1985)

2.Vey warm,wet- 9 years,  9 warm following winters(1914,1939,1950,1971,1983,1995,2000,2002,2007)

3,Warm,very wet- 7years, 2 warm following winters(1877,2001) 5 Cold following winters(1904,1936,1940,1947,1977)

4.Warm ,wet -12 years -4 warm following winters(1925,1930,1981,1999),  8 cold following winters(1887,1900,1907,1929,1931,1955,1982,2009)

I can think ofa  mechanism which say autumn is about tranfserring energy north and that transfer stops after a stormy mild autumn and is compensated by a cooler winter.However the splits above don,t reflect this theory!

Thanks Roger, fascinating figures there - so a warm dry Autumn statistcally will more likely deliver a mild winter but a very wet Autumn (overall Autumn period I presume of Sept - Nov combined?) will more likely overide a warm signal most of the time to deliver a cold Winter. Out of interest how is October shaping up on the rainfall front, after the dry start it's been quite wet. I wonder how far off the average we are with two days to go - some more rain overnight and today in the west to add to the figures. November looks to be wet up to mid-month looking at this mornings runs, so we may just end up with a wet Autumn overall though it will have to go some to make up for the dry September and dry start to October.

Scandy roughly to date CET, averaged across September and October hasa posoitive naomaly of 1.1c which places Autumn so far in the Very warm category.

Rainfall for Central England in September  was 15mm below average.whilst October looks like being around 30mm (or More) above aveagevaerage.Net therefore to date,Aautumn is c +15mm putting it in the wet(but not very wet category)November  looking at models looks like following a slightly wetter than normal and slightly warmer than normal route.

Thus the classigicatioin type  most likely to emerge for autumn 2013 looks,at this stage,looks to be verywarm,wet.This is a very strong indicator (100%) for the following winter to be mild.

However if the November rainfall wa suffcient to moved the total autumn into very wet then there is a 70% chance of acolder tah average winter.All to play for until November is over!

Thanks Roger for the stats update, as you say all to play for in November - it has been a very odd year as Gavin P noted on his last video so November may surprise us by lurching to cool and very wet in the second half. Hopefully not warm and dry though as that would as you say tip the balance more towards a mild winter outcome.

Not normally one to prognosticate long term but IMO November will continue fairly mild and very wet at times, trending cooler slowly with time but no significant cold outbreaks.

I think we may have to wait until mid-December for a decent snow chance generally.
January however may be a completely different story

Sounds like a typical proper winter to me

Much as it would be exciting to have snow in November, we don't need it for a cold winter, because November is still Autumn after all...

I think this could well be the SH Winter and a clean and cold winter olimpic games...

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/qbo.u30.index 

As always with looking at pattern-matching, the devil is in the detail of WHY any particular autumn was mild/wet or cool/dry, etc.

I tend to believe there's something in persistent/repeating general synoptic patterns over the course of several months/years. But how they translate into actual weather in any one specific area (eg the UK) is dependent on relatively tiny differences in the location and/or orientation of pressure systems.

eg - a predominance of blocking over Scandanavia during autumn could lead to mild/dry conditions over the UK during this time. If that general set-up persistently repeated during winter, it would likely lead to a cold winter.

It could therefore add statistical weight that a mild/dry autumn is more likely to lead to a colder winter.

However, the orientation/specific location of the blocking over Scandanavia in autumn might mean that the UK has a cool autumn. Or maybe the blocking of Scandanavia is located/orientated in winter so that the main thrust of cold misses the UK.

Similarly, a mild/dry autumn could be the result of the Azores High persistently ridging over the UK. That certainly wouldn't lead to a colder winter.

All these are anomalies that pretty much knacker up any simple pattern matching exercise.

I tend to agree with you Martin.
If pattern matching assists in predicting the general pattern the following season (and it's a big if) what it will fail to do is pick-up the specific detail.
As you say Scandinavia can be as blocked as you like but if the ridging doesn't extend far enough westwards we end up coolish and dry. In the same way it can be a winter of zonal activity but if the Az/Euro high is strong enough much of the country ends up dryish and mild.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/publicsector/contingency-planners

Now updated for November to January

No white stuff until 26 Dec....Just frosty nights.. Will suit me...Then it can all happen..

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfs/run3/cfsnh-0-1374.png?12

JFF JFF JFF

Xmas day Easterly

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfs/run3/cfsnh-0-1398.png?12

JFF JFF JFF

A wintry boxing day

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfs/run3/cfsnh-0-1596.png?12

JFF JFF JFF

A wintry start to the New Year

Tom thanks for bringing The METO view to our notice.Clear statement that ENSO forecast favours  continuation of neutral condtions " leaving the influence of this as a forcing factor weak and not  xpected to contribute predictive value for conditons across Europe2 for the nest three months"

The chosen indicator is the QBO which it says has an established link to autumn and winter conditions over north west Europe .The current strong westerly QBO favours a positive NAO" typically associated with milder,wetter and stormier conditions than the average"

So there we are above average temps lilely for  for December abd January.