With the benefit of the hindsight of being halfway through a December that's started mild and with models forecasting zonal pattern for the next two weeks, the odds are clearly stacked on this being a mild winter. Decembers are a good (though not infallible) predictor of the winter to follow. Take the 3 mildest Decembers of the past 100 years, 1934, 1974 and 1988 - all followed up with above average Januarys and Februarys (though not as mild as the preceding December), and the picture through the CET record is pretty similar.....
So, is it time for snow-lovers to despair of anything this year?
Firstly, the past few winters has utterly dispensed with the commonly-held belief pre-2008 that "global warming" had irreversably altered weather patterns meaning that 'snowfall was becoming an increasing rare and unexpected event' over the UK. As such, any mild winter isn't so much seen a confirmation of this view, but rather any inevitable part of living in the UK, where mild winters occurred even right in the depth on the Little Ice Age (e.g . 1795/6 with its 7.3 January - the very year after the record-breaking of January 1795 with its CET of -3.1!). So even if this year does turn out mild and snowless, it won't depress me like, say, 2007, did.
Secondly, even in "mild" winters, cold, snowy periods can and do occur. Take 2011/12 for example.... Definitely mild overall, with a snowless, mild December, but we had a reasonable, if unspectacular, week-long cold spell with spell in February that allowed both a decent sledging event (the main criteria for me as I have young kids), a week of snow-cover, culminating in a snow-on-snow event and a minima (-19 in nearby Chesham) that beat anything here in the post-2007 winter era!
Thirdly, a mild December doesn't necessarily mean a proper cold period won't occur. For instance, December 1852 was exceptionally mild, coming in at 7.7 (1988 was 7.5)...... the following January was above average at 5.1, but February was properly wintry at 0.6. Also, December 1837 was a mild (albeit unexceptionally so) 5.3, followed by a bitter -1.5 January - a 6.8 degree drop which I believe is a record within winter!
So, will Winter 2013/14 end up being a classic - highly unlikely though its not impossible. Will winter be a write-off? I think that's quite likely frankly - and we shouldn't be surprised if it is - but does that mean we should give up hope? Certainly not.
Andrew
Edited by user
15 December 2013 21:15:21
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Reason: Not specified
Rendlesham, Suffolk 20m asl