Met Office Hadley        5.4c.     Anomaly     1.9c.  Provisional to 14th.

Metcheck                     5.45c    Anomaly     1.30c

Netweather                  5.74c    Anomaly     1.55c

Forest Town Mansfield   6.0c   Anomaly   1.5c

Peasedown St John  6.8c  Anomaly  1.6c

Treviskey Redruth  7.3c.  Anomaly  -0.38c.

Mean Of My 10    6.12c   Anomaly   0.41c.    

Down to 3.91C and no further hopefully :)

 Down below 5c.  That’s for certain!  

GFS 12z of today averages 1.1*C for 17th-24th compared to 1.8*C for the GFS 12z of 11th which was also, at the time, the coldest GFS run in a while.

Full 12z of today gives me a final CET estimate of 3.3*C. It could have gone into the high 2s had it not brought a shortwave low through the mid-Atlantic ridge to introduce more cloud and keep the night temps from getting much below zero 26th-28th.

ECM 12z has a colder outcome for D8-D10 with some areas seeing ice days to accompany wide areas of lying snow. I'd be sceptical of it were it not for the huge consistency with the 00z, and how well it fits the expected impact of the combined stratospheric and tropical forcing. The former initially being more responsible for height rises just N and NE of the UK starting D6/D7 (albeit GFS still making less of this than ECM), then for the full vortex split that the GFS 12z depicts in lower-res.

Met Office Hadley        5.5c.      Anomaly      2.0c. Provisional to 15th.

Metcheck                     5.62c     Anomaly      1.47c

Netweather                  5.83c     Anomaly      1.64c

Bordon                         5.3c      Anomaly       -2.54c

Canvey Island               6.6c      Anomaly       0.54c

Cheadle Hulme              5.6c      Anomaly       -0.05c

Clevedon Weather          6.5c     Anomaly        0.02c

Darwen                         6.3c     Anomaly        1.04c

Hexam                          6.0c     Anomaly        1.72c 

Mount Sorrel                  6.1c     Anomaly        1.39c

Forest Town Mansfield     6.3c     Anomaly        1.8c

Peasedown St John         7.0c     Anomaly        1.8c

Treviskey Redruth           7.5c     Anomaly        -0.38c

Mean of My 10 Watched Stations using  6  Year Average   6.32c.   Anomaly    0.61c.             

The mild spell here melted away this morning, as the temp fell from 9c at 8am to 4c at 2pm.  It’s been steady at 0.5c for the past hour.  

CET fall incoming!   

As impressive as the GFS 00z became late on, the less cold interlude beforehand meant the CET estimate was still in the mid-4s beforehand, so the final estimate was 3.9*C - nothing special anomaly-wise.

The GFS 06z on the other hand... well what can I say - it totally avoids a less cold interlude and then produces the perfect storm for very low temps 29th onward.

The estimated CET means for 29th-31st are Min -8.7, Max -3.3... so a mean of -6*C that sends the CET capitulating from 3.7*C to 2.8*C - rarely is such a drop achieved in the final days of a winter month! Odds of actually seeing such a prolonged deep cold, disrupting troughs with slack cols combination are of course slim.

Conditions remain just as cold through the first few days of Jan so it really does become an astonishing run from a temperature perspective.

Met Office Hadley        5.7c.      Anomaly     2.2c.  Provisional to 16th.

Metcheck                     5.51c     Anomaly     1.35c

Netweather                  5.89c.    Anomaly     1.7c

Bordon                         5.0c      Anomaly      -2.84c

Forest Town Mansfield     5.9c      Anomaly      0.7c

Peasedown St John          7.1c      Anomaly      1.9c

Treviskey  Redruth           7.4c.     Anomaly      -0.88c.

Mean of my 10 stations   6.13c  Anomaly  0.43c.                

I reckon that’s as high as it gets and 2 or 3 more days will see it go below my 5c guess!  

Having said that though, I can remember someone commenting a couple of days ago that they didn't think that it would go above 5.5°C during this month and yet, it just has which means that you never actually know what might end up happening.

Well, it only needs an average of 2c for the rest of the week, to fall below 5c and at the moment it’s looking like daily averages similar to that will continue to month end.  

That’s done it!  I’m off to find my Bridget Jones breaches!  

First look at the CET tracker right out to the end of the month.

First thing to note is that I am expecting a very large month end downward adjustment. As of yesterday my CET mean was running a massive 0.43C below that of Hadley. So take the current 5.7C provisional figure from Hadley with a large pinch of salt. I make it 5.26C.

Cold all the way now until the end of the month. Current estimate for the final CET is 3.81C. But I suspect that is quite conservative and there is a good chance it will finish much lower than that. I would say probably something around 3.5C is the mostly likely scenario at the moment. I may have gone a little too low with my 3.2C prediction but I have a feeling I won't be too far away come the end of the month.

You will see on this page that I ventured the figure would get to something in the region of 5.5c (which is what 5.7 is), though I reckon that's an over-estimated CET  at present , so we go down, but we still don't know how fast how far how deep.  The GEM this evening would suggest not very far to drop.  the ECM has different ideas.

WI

Met Office Hadley           5.5c.    Anomaly    2.0c. Provisional to 17th.

Metcheck                        5.25c   Anomaly    1.09c

Netweather                     5.68c   Anomaly    1.49c

Cheadle Hulme                5.5c     Anomaly    0.17c

Hexam                            5.1c    Anomaly     0.89c

Forest Town Mansfield       5.6c    Anomaly     1.1c

Peasedown St John           6.9c    Anomaly     1,7c

Treviskey Redruth             7.2c.   Anomaly      -0.68c.

Mean of my 10 stations     5.76c.  Anomaly   0.05.       

Something worth factoring in when considering the raw GFS numbers is that, much to my surprise when I first learned of this, the model uses static SST data; it doesn't change the SSTs in response to what's going on in the air above it!

This will be biasing its predicted temps upward compared to what we'd actually see for about a week's time onward.

As far as I know, ECM doesn't have this problem; the ocean and atmosphere are fully coupled.

FWIW, the 06z GFS landed my Jan estimate in the low 3s.

I don't know what I was thinking about when I went for the figure I did.

Never mind, it’s just one month!   

Met Office Hadley     5.3c.    Anomaly   1.8c. Provisional to 18th.

Metcheck                  5.10c   Anomaly    0.95c

Netweather               5.5c     Anomaly    1.31c

Bordon                     4.8c     Anomaly     -3.04c

Canvey Island           5.9c     Anomaly     0.25c

Cheadle Hulme          5.3c    Anomaly      -0.03c

Clevedon Weather      6.4c    Anomaly      -0.04c

Darwen                     5.6c    Anomaly      0.34c

Hexam                      5.0c    Anomaly      0.72c

Mount Sorrel             5.3c    Anomaly      0.59c

Forest Town Mansfield  5.5c  Anomaly  1.0c

Peasedown St John    6.8c    Anomaly     1.6c

Treviskey Redruth     7.2c    Anomaly    -0.68c.

Mean of my 10 stations   5.78c.  Anomaly  0.07c.     6 Year Average.             

Oh, how quickly things can change...

That was just 2 days ago, when we were drunk on 'stella' runs.

I suspect latest output would put us in the 4.2c-4.8c bracket.

I did used to enter the CET comp here but I found people were sometimes confusing my CET entry (which is just for fun) with my month ahead forecasts on my website.

Very often in the CET comp I might have taken a gamble and gone for a cold or hot month but in my GWV forecasts I tend to be much more conservative most of the time unless there's really good evidence for something extreme happening.

So I was aware there was a bit of confusion creeping in... So that's why I stopped entering the comp.

If I ever retire from GWV I'm sure I'll start entering the comp again as its a lot of fun and GW runs it amazingly well! 

I would not worry about people getting confused about your well thought-out, and  heartfelt predictions.

People would welcome a big name, such as yourself, being prepared to take the risk, and enter the fray, and put their well respected expertise to the test. 

Yourself, Neil, Steve Murr, Doctormog, to name but a few, are, amongst many others, who are notable absentees from this test of forecasting ability, considering the sagacity that is demonstrated on a weekly basis in the MO thread.

There is nothing to fear. Join us.