Have looked at data on cold/blocked winters around solar minimum give.

If we take the year of the solar minimum and the two years preceding and two years following this gives us five years to look at for each solar minimum A cold winter is counted if DJF  CET is 3.5 and below.

This analysis gives  the following results.

Solar minimum 1955 - cold winters 55,56

Solar minimum 1964  -cold winters 62,63,64,65.

Solar minimum 1977 -cold winters  77,79

Solar minimum 1986  -cold winters 85,86.87

Solar minimum  1997-cold winters  96

Solar minimum  2009 -cold  winters 09,10,11

Solar minimum  2020?

Analysing the above  cold winters shows that there were four pre solar minima winter,five on the solar minima,and five post solar minima.

 

I wish people could get rid of this spurious notion of the 'law of averages'.

If the weather for a given month or season is random, then the weather for that month cannot be 'overdue'; thus in this case the chance of a cold February would be about 1 in 30.

If the weather is climate driven, then the weather for that month is most likely to fall in with the pattern observed over several years i.e. the chance is LESS than 1 in 30.

If the weather depends on the current situation in respect of SSTs, NAO, stratospheric warming etc, then there's room for a lively debate on which of these is likely to influence the winter and at what stage.

In no case does any 'Law of Averages' kick in.

Probability is one of the least understood areas of mathematics. The fact is, it is always dependent on time. Even the 1:6 alleged probability of rolling a 6 on a die is exposed when one considers the pre-destined nature of the subtleties of the roller's hand movements. And once the six is rolled, the fact is, the chance that it was going to be rolled is 100%.

If averages mean anything, I’d say a very mild winter is due. Perhaps record breakingly so.
I think Oct-Nov will start rather benign and uneventful before lashing rain & gales for much of December leading to a very mild Jan-Feb period with very few or no frosts recorded in the south throughout.

If averages mean anything, I’d say a very mild winter is due. Perhaps record breakingly so.
I think Oct-Nov will start rather benign and uneventful before lashing rain & gales for much of December leading to a very mild Jan-Feb period with very few or no frosts recorded in the south throughout.

Entirely speculative of course but maybe we are in for a cold one.... completely frozen windscreen this morning at 7.30am.

9am, car was showing ice alert, 5 degrees.

I’m in rural East Ayrshire, KA4 postcode. That’s the earliest I can remember a frost in a long time. Normally into November.

Junes with a CET of 16.0C or greater are frequently followed at the end of the year by a below average December. Stats quirk?

2018: ?

2017: 4.8

2003: 4.8

1976: 2.0

1970: 4.3

1960: 3.9

1950: 1.2

1940: 3.8

1896: 3.9

1858: 4.8

1846: 0.5

1826: 5.8

1822: 1.6

1818: 3.6

1798: 1.5

1786: 2.8

1785: 2.8

1781: 5.4

1775: 4.5

1772: 4.8

1762: 3.6

1728: 1.6

1726: 1.6

1707: 3.5

1676: -0.5

1672: 4.5

Maybe to get a really warm June in our soggy western seaboard climate, there needs to be an entrenched continental patter; that will wax and wane of course through summer and autumn, but may keep slipping back to default. And maybe 6 months is as far as it goes-  do we see such a pattern match for the other winter months?

Nonsense theory of course; no evidence; so look away now.

I think the late winter SST was of a type that engenders a longer term breakdown in flow patterns.

There.

I've come out.

Of the nine instances since the 1850s, only two Decembers have minima of less than 3.5, and so could be categorised as genuinely cold rather than merely chilly. So June warmth doesn't seem to be a good forecaster of real cold in December. If you go further back than the 1850s, there are more really cold Decembers in the list, but of course winters were colder then on average anyway. None of the three severest Decembers in recent years (1981, 2009 and 2010) were preceded by Junes that meet the criterion.

I did notice one surprising thing, that Junes with maxima above 16C seemed to be more frequent in the 18th century than they have been more recently.

Average December CET is 4.16C. Only nine of the December CETs in the list are above average, while 16 are below average. 

The overall average of the 25 Decembers in the list is 3.28C, which, spread over a whole 31-day period, translates to a pretty significant difference in terms of spells of cold weather experienced on the ground.

I don't think there's any significance in the lack of hot Junes preceding 1981, 2009 or 2010. Nobody is claiming that the temps in December might be affecting the weather six months earlier.

I'm certainly not claiming there definitely must be a link, but it's a noteworthy set of data none the less imo. And at least there's a plausible explanation as to why there might be a link (persistence of blocking highs - the same phenomenon which caused the summer heatwaves which were sometimes a feature of the Little Ice Age, and for which the increased frequency of hot Junes back in the 18th century might be evidence).

Entirely speculative of course but maybe we are in for a cold one.... completely frozen windscreen this morning at 7.30am.

9am, car was showing ice alert, 5 degrees.

I’m in rural East Ayrshire, KA4 postcode. That’s the earliest I can remember a frost in a long time. Normally into November.

Frost down here in East Surrey too at 7.30am this morning - had to scrape a fair amount of ice off the windscreen.

Given how warm the Med is I think higher than average possibility of a cold winter.

Why?

According to the Daily Mirror we're in for a freezing Arctic winter due to La Nina. Believe it when I see it.

According to the Daily Mirror we're in for a freezing Arctic winter due to La Nina. Believe it when I see it.

Certainly no El Nino!! Looks like ENSO Neutral winter - We are more or less in October and still have much colder than average SST's off coast of Chile! There has been very little warming in the Eastern Pacific really...if any progress is slow that's for sure. 

The forecast here for the American NW -

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2018/09/winter-forecast-for-northwest.html 

                                           ................. is interesting for weather in NW Europe.

Quote:

So warmer than normal seems a good bet. 

Let's take a look at one of the best extended forecasting modeling systems (but still with marginal skill), the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME).  I will show you the average anomalies (differences from normal) for precipitation and temperature for November through January.

Precipitation?  Drier than normal over much of the Northwest, but close to normal over western Washington.

................

This to me would edge my take on the winter weather in NW Europe to be cold.

Time will tell.

I opened this thread to read about winter 2018/19, not climate change. The next person who bores me will get their account deleted.

I posted the following in the MO thread, but it could as readily go in this one:

I opened this thread to read about winter 2018/19, not climate change. The next person who bores me will get their account deleted.

The September QBO figure has now been issued by NOAA. As expected the QBO is rapidly transitioning from easterly to westerly. 

The September figure is -9.9 up from -20.4 in August. I would expect the October figure to be somewhere close to zero with a positive figure by November.

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/qbo.data

So we should be in the westerly QBO this winter. I am not sure how long it takes the atmosphere to adjust to changes in the QBO so we may still  be somewhat influenced by the legacy of the easterly QBO, at least for the first part of the winter

Of course the QBO is only one factor that can influence winter conditions.

Looking at years where we transitioned from easterly QBO to westerly QBO in late Autumn the closest match to this year is probably 1977. December 1977 was warm but January and February 1978 were both rather cool. The cool conditions continued right through until August. The middle part of 1977 was also very cool so completely the opposite to what we had this year. We did have weak El Nino conditions in the winter of 1977/8. Solar activity was much higher than it is now.

There are a few other years where we transitioned to westerly QBO a little earlier than this year i.e. in the late summer / early autumn. These were 1963, 1982, 1987, 1992 and 2010.

Dec 1963 - March 1964 was chilly

Dec 1982 - Feb 1983 was mixed - cold December and very cold Feb but mild January

Dec 1987 - Feb 1988 was mild

Dec 1992 - Feb 1993 was mixed - Dec cold but Jan very mild

Dec 2010 - Feb 2011 was also mixed - Dec very cold but Feb very mild

So no real trend there. But it does show that where we transition into the westerly phase of the QBO just prior to winter, it is still possible to get some quite cold spells of weather during the winter, more particularly in December (4 of the 6 years mentioned above).