Well, I have been looking in the sheep entrails and there are some hopeful indicators at the moment:

1. Solar activity is weak and on a downward path to the next minimum.
2. ENSO is broadly neutral.
3. Speculation about the QBO is positive.
4. Purely anecdotal, but from my own experience, an Indian summer as we have recently been experiencing, is often followed by a proper winter.

Good to know I'm not alone in that one then.

The entrail patterns  here indicate a  colder drier winter is a possibility. 

Further updates as more sheep are slain towards the end of November.

Maybe, but this time last year, GLOSEA5 charts showed a tendency for blocking for the following winter months with drier than average conditions, and look how that turned out. I think while these charts are fun to look at, they are not worth the paper they are printed on. Same goes for the ECMWF 'seasonal' outlooks too. Our own met service here in Ireland came out a couple of years ago and said they were useless, and I'd take their word for it.

Maybe one day in the future, when computing power is developed to enable these models to be run thousands of times an hour every hour, then the resulting percentages for months in the future might be significant. But even then I the basic knowledge of all the input factors required at a seasonal level might still be lacking. The admission that most of these models never generate a QBO is telling, I think.

As has already been said, we have a rather unusual QBO setup at present. Having had a westerly QBO last winter we would normally expect to see an easterly QBO by now. The QBO did nearly turn easterly in April (reaching 0.64) before turning very positive again and reaching 10.07 in August.

It is not unprecedented to have a lengthy positive QBO period and also not unprecedented to see a double peak in the QBO. But we have never seen the QBO return to essentially zero before rising strongly to a double peak.

Currently we have seen 15 consecutive months of positive QBO. It is likely September will be positive as well giving us 16 consecutive months. Looking back into the archives since 1950 the maximum number of positive QBO months in succession has been 16 (three times). So history tells us we might expect the QBO to starting trending negative by October or November. It will be interesting to see what happens.

The table below shows periods since 1950 with at least 14 consecutive months of positive QBO. I have included in the table details of the month in which the QBO went negative and also details of the temperatures in the CET area for the following winter, together with the ENSO state and sun spot state.

What we see is typically that long positive QBO periods tend to come to an end around May or June. 2016 will clearly be quite different.

Interestingly the majority of the years in the table were followed by a winter that experienced El Nino conditions. Only one had La Nina conditions. There were three neutral years of which two were in a phase moving from negative to positive ENSO state so not similar to this year. 1961/2 is very different. The following winter of 1962/3 saw a neutral but steady ENSO with a slightly negative figure. That might be similar to what we see this year. But this did not follow a major El Nino event.

In terms of temperature we see a number of years with one or more cold months in the following winter. Generally the cold conditions coincide with low sun spot numbers which is not surprising. The main exception being the winter of 1981/2.

So none of these years are especially similar to this year other than having a very long run of positive QBO months. There is only one year since 1950 where the QBO turned negative towards the end of the calendar year. This was 1995 when the QBO went negative in November. That winter was very cold and did have low sun spots. It was a La Nina winter as well. There had only been 11 consecutive positive QBO months but overall it is probably the closest match to 2016.

I don't take too much out of this look back at the archives in terms of what it might mean for this winter. But I think if sunspot numbers are very low during this winter then there is a fairly good chance of seeing some cold weather at some point.

But I do worry that everything will be scuppered by the two one-off events (the failure of the QBO to turn easterly when it looked like doing so, and the huge Blob of anomalously warm surface temps in the N Pacific, which appeared at the same time as our last two hopeless winters - are the Blob and the strange QBO by any chance related?). Would love to be proven completely wrong though.

Interesting snippet from Cohen:

Given that sea ice is running below normal, this currently favors more extensive Siberian snow cover in the coming months, followed by a strengthened Siberian high and a weakened polar vortex/negative AO this upcoming winter.  The lowest sea ice years – 2007 and 2012 were both followed by a strengthened Siberian high the following winter but differences in the location and orientation resulted in different patterns of temperature anomalies across Eurasia.

http://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation

Really fascinating post from Global Warming, thank you.

With solar activity at it's lowest in a century, we might not even need a negative QBO for some serious bouts of cold.

The Maunder Minimum is also known as the 'prolonged sunspot minimum' for good reason.

is there a link to the Met O seasonal forecast pls?

Here you go P;

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/gpc-outlooks/ens-mean

You can find the link to this and many other seasonal models on my "Links" page, BTW

http://www.gavsweathervids.com/links.html

Fascinating update from GW BTW! 

Here's last winter forecast pdf from the Met office. Issued end of November '15 it shows the conditions being assessed.

http://medcof.aemet.es/images/doc_events/medcof5/docMedcof5/presentaciones/MedCOF5_Brookshaw.pdf

There's a couple of interesting graphics - page 10 shows the GloSea5 strat forecast with the ensemble members and page 14 shows the NH pattern anticipated for winter as a whole. To compare, I've also done the DJF Z500 anomalies on the ESRL reanalysis.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/composites/printpage.pl

Simon Keeling's update - only show's hints of milder weather in December' but generally unsettled with wind and rain, so not quite the anti-cyclonic conditions or drier December the models on Gav weather videos had forecasted. http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-app/reports?LANG=en&REPORT=seasonaloutlook&DAY=20160925

However, it is September so this should all be taken as a foot of salt ha! :)

https://business.weather.com/blog/the-weather-company-warm-autumn-northern-europe-cooler-south