We are nearly at the end of another year and getting close to winter. Generally 2016 has been a fairly mild year so far. Will there be a sting in the tail?

As ever predictions for the final two months of the year are to be made by private message to me please rather than posted in this thread. This ensures we get genuine predictions not tactical predictions as the annual competition reaches its climax.

Predictions for November can be made until 23:59 on 1 November with no penalty. 

Historic summary for November

1971-2000 6.9C

1981-2010 7.1C

1996-2015 7.5C

The last two Novembers have been very mild with 9.5C last year - not far off the all time record although still not as warm as December was. 2013 was much colder at 6.2C. The coldest recent November was 2010 at 5.2C.

Chart of November CET with rolling 10 year mean since 1961

Latest model output

850 temperatures looking fairly cool for the first part of the month

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT8_London_ens.png

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT2_London_ens.png

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT2_Manchester_ens.png

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MT8_Manchester_ens.png

This morning's ECM run for De Bilt shows the op run going very cold right at the end of the run. The control run continues this cold theme deeper into FI. Mean temperatures in fact are close to zero by the end of the run. However, the control run is a big outlier. The majority of ensemble members show mean temperatures around 6-7C.

https://meteoijsselmuiden.nl/knmipluim

My CET estimate for the first 13 days of the month suggests a CET of around 7C by the 12th which is more than 1C below average.

Met Office contingency planners overview

Not yet issued. Should be published tomorrow. Will update when available.

Analogues

Looking at years with a warm September (>15C) and a fairly average October there is a mix of results. The majority of years have a cold November but there are some very warm ones as well. Difficult to draw much of a conclusion but 1961 is by far the best match since 1950 which saw a below average November. This year November will start chilly.

                 September     October     November   ENSO

1999          15.6C            10.7C        7.9C           Strong La Nina

1961          15.2C            10.9C        6.0C           Neutral (slightly negative)

1958          15.1C            10.8C        6.4C           Weak El Nino

1949          16.3C            11.7C        6.6C           Strong La Nina

1898          15.2C            11.3C        7.2C

1825          15.1C            10.8C        5.2C

1795          16.0C            11.7C        4.5C

1779          15.2C            10.9C        5.7C

1730          15.3C            10.9C        9.2C

1729          16.6C            10.1C        8.1C

2016          16.0C            10.8C        ????            Neutral (slightly negative)

Points to note are that 1999 saw a very strong La Nina which is not generally conducive to cold winter conditions in the UK. Very different setup to this year. As was 1949.

The closest match to this year is 1961. That saw a neutral ENSO with a slight negative tendency. Also saw sun spot numbers similar to what we have this year as we moved towards a solar minimum. I will be watching 1961 very closely in the coming weeks as I think it is a good benchmark for this year. December 1961 was very cold (2.2C) followed by an average January and February and then a very cold March (2.8C).

I need to tomorrow to think about it - but looks like a cold one.

GW you mention 61/62 as an analogue year.

Just looked back at my own observations for Burton on Trent.

The mean monthly temps I recorded were.

N 4.8,D 1.0,J 3.2,F 4.2,M 2.8

The most interesting feature was a cold spell of  three weeks stretching from Dec 15th to Jan 5th.This included minimum temperatures of -10C on Christmas day,and on the 2nd and 3rd of January.It also included eleven days with maxima of 0C or below.Thre was amoderayte snowfall on the 29th and 30th December with snow lying for a week.

January and February were pretty average but cold north easterlies set in around 22nd Feb leading into one of the coldest Marches on record.with persistent winds between north and south east.There was an absence of heavy snow but the main feature was the cold nights with frost on 23 days.

So will December 2016 deliver a decent cold spell?We await the Meto contingency forecast with interest.

Interesting local analysis; I will try to avoid being impetuous this month as I've changed my bid a few times recently. I'll see what the big 3 hint at tomorrow, although the picture is already looking a tad less blocked...

Cheers GW 

I'll go for 7.4C please 

GW wants predictions via Personal Message peeps as we are now in the final two furlongs 

I've PM'd my guess. Let's see if I can do as badly as I did in October!  

I agree it is a difficult one to call this month. The models seem to be trending a bit milder towards the middle of the month at the moment. I do think it will be a cooler than average month overall but not especially cold.

I am posting my prediction here and before I have looked at any of the PMs I have received so I don't get an unfair advantage. My prediction is 6.2C.

Met Office Hadley              9.1c.          Anomaly         0.2c.     Provisional to 1st.

Metcheck                           6.92c.        Anomaly         -0.01c.

Netweather                        8.93c.        Anomaly          2.04c.

Peasedown St John         9.2c.         Anomaly          1.0c.     

Met Office Hadley            7.9c.            Anomaly      -0.6c.  Provisional to 2nd.

Metcheck                         6.24c.          Anomaly      -0.68c.

Netweather                      7.26c.          Anomaly       0.37c.

Peasedown St John       7.9c.             Anomaly      -0.3c.

Met Office Hadley            7.2c.        Anomaly     -1.0c.   Provisional to 3rd.

Metcheck                         6.66c.      Anomaly      -0.01c.

Netweather                      7.03c.      Anomaly      0.14c.

Peasedown St John       7.7c.         Anomaly     -0.5c.

I'm intrigued to see the list of people's predictions for this month

8.4c - sh*t or bust tactics!

Nah, only kidding.  I can't actually remember, but about 1c below average I think

Quite possibly a few people (myself included) went too low as the cool start looks like being steamrollered for a while.

6.1c it was

Hmmm....

Way too early to be worrying about whether you have gone too high or low. What we can say is the first part of November is going to be in the very cold category.

My current estimates suggest a CET of just 5.38C by the 8th. This would be the coldest first 8 days of November since 1988 and the 11th coldest first 8 days since 1900. The CET at that stage will be nearly 3.5C below the 1981-2010 mean so very significant indeed.

After that the models want to warm things up significantly but I take that with a large pinch of salt. Yes things will probably get less cold but the ENS are all over the place at the moment so the warm up to the high 6's by mid month shown in the charts below is by no means a likelihood at this stage. Even if it does get that high we will still have nearly half the month to go and temperatures generally drop off a lot during November. Some forecasts are suggesting things could get quite cold again towards the end of the month but that is speculation at this point.

So at this stage I am quite happy with my prediction of 6.2C. I was very tempted to go much lower with something around 5.5C but I held off because the models were showing a much warmer period around mid month.

Met Office Hadley            7.2c.          Anomaly        -0.8c.     Provisional to 4th.

Metcheck                         6.53c.        Anomaly        -0.39c.

Netweather                      7.18c.        Anomaly         0.29c.

Peasedown St John       7.6c.         Anomaly         -0.5c.

The way this month is looking - I'll be way out.