you can still get cold winters with a westerly QBO

A good old traditional wet, windy and mild winter. Basically the last few weeks x2 months.

QBQ is absolute rubbish. What sort of winters that have gone before have no meaningful bearing on what is to come. What happens, as has been mentioned previously, is determined by a a series of events of which each has a knock on effect to the next. This causes the very general scenario that QBQ uses.

As I said, complete rubbish.

Best chance of making even a rough guess is gained by reviewing all the charts and information therein, and looking for a pattern.

As Gavin P has said, at the moment that is very difficult, with both warm and cold seeming possible.

Cherry picking the one or two that suit what an individual wants, will only disappoint.

Milder than average favoured overall but as highlighted, the cumulative outcome cannot be used in isolation for obvious reasons.

As stated, the METO are going for a much milder than normal November (which already seems likely given the ensembles for the next couple of weeks) which means there is a chance that Dec is a little milder than average but that Jan is very cold.

Good call by the MetO IMO and I think any cold weather will be confined to the late Winter period when the westerlies blow themselves out.

Till then its a grim prospect with much wind and rain.

Oh dear

Andy

A bit like last winter then.

The standard, annual Woodcock 'winter is over' post in October 🙄

Good call, why?

You think, why?

You have no idea, and neither do the experts.

That's not to say I don't hope you're right, but you do this every single year. [sn_sleep]

Good call by the MetO IMO and I think any cold weather will be confined to the late Winter period when the westerlies blow themselves out.

Till then its a grim prospect with much wind and rain.

Oh dear

Andy

Originally Posted by: Matty H 

The standard, annual Woodcock 'winter is over' post in October

Good call, why?

You think, why?

You have no idea, and neither do the experts.

That's not to say I don't hope you're right, but you do this every single year.

Originally Posted by: Andy Woodcock 

Which means, of course, that he'll be right more often than wrong.

Which makes it a decent method of forecasting, doesn't it?

But, of course, of no use to anyone....

Good call by the MetO IMO and I think any cold weather will be confined to the late Winter period when the westerlies blow themselves out.

Till then its a grim prospect with much wind and rain.

Oh dear

Andy

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

The standard, annual Woodcock 'winter is over' post in October

Good call, why?

You think, why?

You have no idea, and neither do the experts.

That's not to say I don't hope you're right, but you do this every single year.

Originally Posted by: Matty H 

 

Which means, of course, that he'll be right more often than wrong.

Which makes it a decent method of forecasting, doesn't it?

But, of course, of no use to anyone....

Originally Posted by: Andy Woodcock 

I don't know whether he did or not, but Andy was possibly one of those people who 6 months ago were going for another poor summer because the previous 6 had all been poor (I know of at least one member here that was definitely forecasting a poor summer, but no names) Thankfully the reality was somewhat better.

With our weather, one just never knows.

Indeed.  Of course if we did know then there would be no more speculation....

All I would say is that we've all seen strongly mobile weather patterns suddenly blow themselves out. 

?????

You and everyone else will only know if it is a good call after Winter............................surely?

I am slanting towards a milder than average winter, but there will, I'm sure, be something for everyone as there is most years.

Personally, I believe this is the most active we have seen the Atlantic and jetstream for a good few years, and I think all Andy was alluding to was it's going to be mighty difficult to break out of this.

We can't have a colder than average winter every year after all.

Have you forgotten how active the atlantic and the jet stream both were for much of 2012, including the period up to and including last Xmas & New Year? Yet look at how things changed from about mid-January onwards.

Indeed. The dramatic change we all witnessed from a mild & wet pattern to a major cold spell in late 2009 and again in 2010 were proof enough that mobile westerly patterns can sometimes end quite quickly.

An encouraging update for authorities tasked with winter maintenance and for those that prefer a milder winter.  

Andy!!!!

Hmmm - balance of probabilities favour above average to below averagetemperatures  for the three month period as a whole - though this may be strongly influenced by the expected mild November. A glimmer of hope for those who favour colder conditions too perhaps....

As a crumb of comfort for coldies, if you flick back through this thread there were plenty making winky smiley references to what they reckoned would be a cold end to Oct and cold start to Nov. Fail.

In other words, and I'll say it again, no one has a bloody clue what will happen next week, let alone next month. I'll never cease to be amazed that this topic gets so much debate.

Basically the last few weeks x2 months.

Originally Posted by: Matty H 

Originally Posted by: Saint Snow 

As a crumb of comfort for coldies, if you flick back through this thread there were plenty making winky smiley references to what they reckoned would be a cold end to Oct and cold start to Nov. Fail. In other words, and I'll say it again, no one has a bloody clue what will happen next week, let alone next month. I'll never cease to be amazed that this topic gets so much debate.

Originally Posted by: Matty H 

Spot on Matty

there can't be anything serious added to this thread only JFF'S

Not 'sort of' but exactly that. In fact the term "butterfly effect" was coined to describe chaotic system behaviour using the weather as an example.

This is the precise reason weather forecasting is very difficult more than a few days ahead - the atmosphere is a chaotic system - something that is defined by the fact that, while entirely deterministic, the system parameters diverge very rapidly when the starting conditions are changed even very slightly.