Can you explain the methodology behind your winter indicies and perhaps give us a few previous years for comparision. Thanks

10 x [(number of days where minimum is at or below 0C) + ( number of days of falling sleet/snow) + ( number of days of lying snow at 9am)] divided by the mean winter maximum temperature.

The higher the value the more wintrier it was.

Last winter was 102

1988-89 was just 20

2006-07 was 21

2009-10 was 197

1978-79 was 262

a) I am writing it off when next week looks interesting?

b] I am writing it off when I know of historical past examples of notable late winter spells?

Some places may get snowfalls next week but the cold uppers are mixed out during Monday, so it becomes increasingly marginal at low levels. Then when the winds go into the east, it's brief before we lose the flow and the uppers are not special anyway. The Atlantic threatens to move in at the end of next week. I'm not convinced it is going to bring a general snow event, it may not even bring in snow for low levels anyway by this stage but we shall see.

As for February, I see two possible scenarios, more anticyclonicity of the Rex block type that limits precipitation or a continuation of what has plagued us a lot of this winter, Atlantic domination. I just don't see or feel a flip in the pressure pattern as has happened in the past for this winter. It feels a Sod's Law winter to me, when cold snowy scenarios have appeared in the charts and they have hardly been any it has to be said thus far, they have downgraded to virtually nothing such as the "northerly" during early December. Another example of the Sod Law nature of this winter is that around here it has dropped close to freezing but never actually got below, it has hovered about 1-2C at times.

I don't recall such lack of wintriness by this stage in a winter even by 1988-89 and 2006-07 standards. I saw lying snow in November 1988 and by this stage in January 2007 I have seen falling snow. Nothing thus far. Just looking at meteorological winter itself, it's on a par with 1988-89 if not as mild.

It just feels to me this winter is going nowhere, it's a non starter.

Certainly will be an unusually late start to Winter.  In my records for Gainsborough (going back 32 years), there is only one Winter that produced its first snowfall at a later date than today's date.  That was Winter 2011-2012, in which the first snow didn't arrive until Feb 3rd.  Yes, even all of the very mild late-80's and 90's Winters had already produced some snow by now.  

Having said that, there looks to be numerous possibilities for snow in the coming week, but we'll wait and see...

Good post, backed up with facts.  It has been a grim, wild, snowless and virtually frost free season (dare I call it winter?) thus far.  If we pay for it with another cold spring I will be pig sick.

I feel like I have been made a mug by this winter, suckered by the charts. Every cold prospect has been downgraded next to nothing. Today is a prime example, a couple of days ago or so, it looked good for wintry showers, now it has turned into nothing.

Really has been a Sod's law winter. Everything has been just on the wrong side of marginal, even minima temperatures have been just on the wrong side of freezing.

I rather have a winter where you know where you stand such as with 1988-89, you see Bartlett, you know where you stand but not this type of winter, it's been horrendous compounded by the ruddy rain all the time.

I wonder if it's any coincidence that we are, and have been, around the peak of solar activity this winter...and it's been a very Atlantic-driven 'winter' thus far?  Of course, the extreme cold in N America interacting with the Atlantic waters has not helped and has fuelled the jetstream massively but without significant HLB (that is a possble spin-off from low solar activity), the jetstream has not been diverted well south into Europe and Mediterranean. 

By the same token, it hasn't been diverted well to the north of the UK as you might have expected in the 1990s and early 2000s - this is curious. 

Of course, winter is not over yet technically.

David

Northallerton

looking further ahead to October High Pressure builds to out East

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfs/runs/2014012518/run4/cfsnh-0-6654.png?18

[quote=Gooner;575362]

looking further ahead to October High Pressure builds to out East

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/cfs/runs/2014012518/run4/cfsnh-0-6654.png?18

Setting us up for a colder winter than this winter!! 

David

Northallerton

On the face of it, we're living through another memorable winter...

...and a remarkable one too in terms of the strat and tropospheric vortex behaviour.

Shame it has meant so much rubbish for us. For the eastern U.S. the consequences have been very different!

In light of the rather stormy longer-term outlook at the moment, with the potential for storm systems peaking as they reach the UK, this free article from 2004 is well worth a read for anybody looking to gain an insight into the workings of particularly intense cyclones and sting jets:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1256/qj.02.143/pdf

This is the work of the University of Reading legend that is Keith Browning 

Interesting to note that 1914-1915 was one of the ones on the low hurricane season i updated back on pg44.

Is this our analogue year?

If so,  anyone looking for a sting in the tail of winter can probably forget if going by CETs of Jan 4.1  Feb 4.3  Mar 5.2   April 7.9  (although as per this week, it doesnt rule out any seasonal weather, just not an abundance of it)

That year was also a colder one overall in terms of the CET so might not bode too well for summer? (although it could have been a dry year for all i know)

On a brighter note 1916/17 appears to be a colder Dec,Jan,Feb so some hope for 2015/2016 

 LLTNP 105m asl 

Some additional stats on QBO.

Looking at the 60 winters from 1953/54 to 2012/13 and tkaing the mean QBO values October- Feb and  November -Feb the correlation coefficents are 0.04 and 0.06 respectively ie no correlation at all.

Just concenrating on the Novemeber -February period dta has been split into above mean value and below mean QbO value for both -ve and +ve years ie identifying weak and strong QBO's.

The relevant CET in terms s of variation from 60 year   mean is then used to  cassfiy cold(below  mean ) yeers and warm(above mean.

The results are as follows

Strong QBO - ve  16 years,6 cold,10 warm

Strong QBO +ve  14 years, 5 cold 9 warm

Weak QBO  -ve    17 years, 11 cold, 6 warm

Weak QBO +ve   13 years  7 cold 6 warm.

This produces the conclusions that

1.The strongest signal linking QBO and CET is the weak QBO -ve (65% cold)

2.Overall weak QBO's tend  more cold than warm(60%)

3.Strong QBO,s tend to be warmer than weakers ones (65%)warm.

Frankly I doubt these differences  are statistically significant.

It seesms clear to me that other influences than QBO are the main drivers of our winter circulation.

I remember reading on wunderground during the Hurricane Season that the lack of tropical activity would lead to heightened barclonic activity during the winter season, and believe it or not... we got that. Big time.

So yeah... hopefully it was a nice dry summer that year.

It was cool overall and July was wet I'm afraid.

Spring was dry but on the cool side.

^ sounds rather dull 

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2624

Reading this arcticle out of interest, I stumbled across something interesting that could have substantial knock-on impacts in those regions depending on how February pans out:

"According to weather record researcher Maximiliano Herrera, "over 90% of all stations in the Balkans from Slovenia to Croatia to Bosnia to Serbia To Montenegro to Macedonia to Kosovo etc, have DESTROYED their previous record of warmest January ever (many locations have 100 - 200 years of data.) In many cases the monthly temperatures were 7 - 9°C (13 - 16°F) above average, and the new records were 3 - 4°C above the previous record. This is for THOUSANDS of stations, almost all of them. In Slovenia, for example, Mount Kredarica is the only station in the whole country not to have set its warmest January on record." "

I then noticed in the comments a link to this rather incredible story, OT but worth a look: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/marshallislands/10609011/Cast-away-Shipwrecked-man-makes-land-after-16-months-adrift.html

At least someones getting it - Snow coming down in Bishkek in Central Asia. http://live.saimanet.kg/ru/cams/2#.Uu1VOdI0IZw

A snowy few days ahead with temps well below zero by day and night http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/1528675

This has been about the worst winter for coldies I can think of, haven't seen one snowflake here, even if the bad 90s winters we had the odd northerly

I'm starting to wonder what you would find if you looked at past periods where the weather got stuck in the same general pattern and small variations of it for a very long time, and used those that are most similar to the one we're in now to generate analogues... something I might look into one day.

By similar, I mean not just in terms of it being often wet and wild, but also the onset time, which in this case is debateable; it could be said to be either the second half of October or the second half of January, depending on whether you view the couple of drier spells in there (with the December one notable) as variations of the same broad pattern.

...so it's not an easy task and rather speculative too I imagine! 

Yes and with a bit of luck some wintry charts will start to show up

Just like last year 😃

There are some fascinating historical records from the middle of the last century regarding long periods of 'stuck' weather patterns and how they impacted on a subsistence lifestyle in Europe. This winter highlights just how different the UK can be in relation to the broader picture in Europe - without any charts to look at, it would be an impossible task to interpret how the scattered records tied in synoptically.

Winters 89/90 and 94/95 were very stormy. In both cases what followed was like a tap being turned off. From mid-March the rest of 1990 & 1995 were very dry, except for June 1990 and September 1995.

Please note this is not a prediction for 2014, although I'm sure many would like a repeat of 1995 which even had a bonus of an easterly December to finish off with.

Thanks for the responses John and Nouska 

The trouble with analogues is that multiple different combinations of driving factors can generate the same sort of surface conditions for our part of the world, and from archived charts it's not always possible to tell what the main driving factors were for given periods of 'stuck in a rut' weather in the past... let alone when looking at historical accounts and the like!

Throw in longer-timescale changes such as the ocean circulations and sea ice extent, and it really does become like trying to piece together a puzzle when the pictures keep changing every 5 seconds.