Much appreciated, Gav, particularly the written summary.
Of all the seasonal pointers, I'd rank model output right at the bottom, alongside volume of berries. (To me they're both an expression of current and recent conditions, and that's it; when you see how model output ensembles diverge into spaghetti at the ten-day mark, it's pointless giving them any credence at ten weeks or more out.)
Doesn't stop me eagerly looking forward to them every autumn though. I think the problem is that they all look so precise once they've been averaged out into anomalies, and the resultant maps look so like genuine weather maps, that you'd have a real disdain for the joys of weather forecasting to ignore them completely.
So, thanks again, Gavin.
2 miles west of Taunton, 32 m asl, where "milder air moving in from the west" becomes SNOWMAGEDDON.
Well, two or three times a decade it does, anyway.