Why does it have to be cold and snowy or mild and wet?

Why not a nice dry, sunny winter with some frosts but not especially cold?  Just for a change? 

Edit: though that said, I'm thinking that IMBY at least, a wet winter would be very welcome - before the water table drops down to Australia .......

I wouldnt mind mild, wet and windy with some good old winter storms

Happy for it to get cold again when me heating bill wont be 500 quid for 3 months

Increased solar activity may well reduce the chances of colder weather this winter.

 not sure we're really going through much of an increase in solar activity are we? Although it's on a slight increase it still looks low to me.

http://www.solen.info/solar/

Don't you dare say that 

Right, the sledge is on eBay.

Only the UK will be effected but Europe to N America their cold and snowy winter will carry on business as usual.

"...This predicted size still make this the smallest sunspot cycle in over 100 years." (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml)

Even if there is a slight upsurge at present, surely it's the likelihood that it will be the smallest sunspot cycle in over 100 years that would have the influence if there were any? 

What makes you think that? Surely duller, colder summers in the UK increase the probability of a colder, snowier winter, that has certainly been the case for the past three years, smiliar to the hot summers of the 1990's and 2000's were followed by mild winters. 

I would think the chances of a milder winter are increased in the UK and other parts of western Europe. I'm not sure what the impact on Eastern European and North American winters is.

PS: I'm not saying I think this coming winter will be mild in the UK.

Cold summers at the end of the 80's ended up with very mild winters. I also wouldn't call the winter of 95 mild either

And your point is? 

Just saying that most (being the key word) of the winters during the 1990's and early 2000's were mild, and the summers were warmer then, then they are now. 

My point is, there is no link. For all we know, Its the summer following a type of winter that is affected, not the other way round

Increased solar activity may well reduce the chances of colder weather this winter.

Originally Posted by: Solar Cycles 

Only the UK will be effected but Europe to N America their cold and snowy winter will carry on business as usual.

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

I would think the chances of a milder winter are increased in the UK and other parts of western Europe. I'm not sure what the impact on Eastern European and North American winters is.

PS: I'm not saying I think this coming winter will be mild in the UK.

Originally Posted by: Jiries 

Careful Brian, us coldies are a fickle bunch. 

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

I'll call it as I see it. If people don't like it then tough. There will be plenty of long range forecasters going for a cold winter this year regardless of what I issue, so people will always be able to find a forecast to hang their hopes on.

Increased solar activity may well reduce the chances of colder weather this winter.

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

Only the UK will be effected but Europe to N America their cold and snowy winter will carry on business as usual.

Originally Posted by: Solar Cycles 

I would think the chances of a milder winter are increased in the UK and other parts of western Europe. I'm not sure what the impact on Eastern European and North American winters is.

PS: I'm not saying I think this coming winter will be mild in the UK.

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

Careful Brian, us coldies are a fickle bunch. 

Originally Posted by: Jiries 

I'll call it as I see it. If people don't like it then tough. There will be plenty of long range forecasters going for a cold winter this year regardless of what I issue, so people will always be able to find a forecast to hang their hopes on.

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

Ok, thats a sweeping statement, excuse me for asking, but why.
Talk in the grapevine, etc.
Last winter the thing that impresed me, was that the 3/4th week in Nov the 30 day MO forcast stayed cold for 3/4 weeks and carried on, they never backtracked. Never seen that much confidence from them over cold.

Increased solar activity may well reduce the chances of colder weather this winter.

Originally Posted by: rayjp 

Only the UK will be effected but Europe to N America their cold and snowy winter will carry on business as usual.

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

I would think the chances of a milder winter are increased in the UK and other parts of western Europe. I'm not sure what the impact on Eastern European and North American winters is.

PS: I'm not saying I think this coming winter will be mild in the UK.

Originally Posted by: Solar Cycles 

Careful Brian, us coldies are a fickle bunch. 

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

I'll call it as I see it. If people don't like it then tough. There will be plenty of long range forecasters going for a cold winter this year regardless of what I issue, so people will always be able to find a forecast to hang their hopes on.

Originally Posted by: Jiries 

Ok, thats a sweeping statement, excuse me for asking, but why.
Talk in the grapevine, etc.
Last winter the thing that impresed me, was that the 3/4th week in Nov the 30 day MO forcast stayed cold for 3/4 weeks and carried on, they never backtracked. Never seen that much confidence from them over cold.

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

....because there are more lrfs than ever, and the last 3 winters have been cold. I'm sure some of the forecasters will take a guess and call 2011/12 as the 'big one'.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/euT2mProbMon.gif

This will obviously change a lot before we get even to October, but what a lovely chart thati s! 

People speak of possible links between the temperature anomaly of one season and that of another, but surely we should focus on the dominant synoptic patterns, as the same broad pattern can deliver very different temperatures as a result of small scale variation; had certain systems stalled at different times and in different places this summer, we could have seen considerably longer particularly cool or warm periods than has been observed.

As it is, my own belief is that the number of variables involved in climate are so enormous that the odds of particular scenarios from the past repeating now down to almost every detail (let alone completely) are very slim indeed. Hence pattern matching often only produces sporadic success in my experience.

Gut feelings are screaming for another cold winter this year, but I also feel that a major change may be upon us within the next year or so, one which changes the favoured patterns across the N Hemisphere in a significant way and for a good amount of time (well, at least a year...)

Indeed Thunderfish, an irregular Jet Stream often packs little punch to knock aside movements of cold air down from the north. It also doesn't tend to lock into a latitudinal position (N/S) for long periods of time, so allowing for greater variability in the weather, which in winter usually increases the odds of cold weather arriving, as only westerlies and southwesterlies tend to be particularly mild especially later on in the winter.

Back in the days of a frequenly strong and regular jet, it could be displaced northward for a long period of time, giving us those Med-style summers, with even a normally positioned jet tending to bring a lot of mild airmasses in our direction. Winters would frequently see a near relentless stream of mild air, but there were some respites. If the jet was diplaced much north of normal, we ended up with high pressure and a resultant build of cold weather. Aside from that, snowy spells were hard to come by.

It could be that the  mid to late 90's and early to mid 00's were dominated by an unusually strong jet stream pattern relative to the long term average, though I personally have no data to support this idea.

The atmosphere seems to have been trying to balance itself out since the change occured; a long period of weaker, more irregular jet stream patterns. Maybe it will last about 10 years as the previous pattern did. In which case its effects may only become more pronounced in winter, for example, as was the tendancy for mild weather in the winters up to 07/08; that last winter was about as mild as it got (at least IMBY). This is all speculation from me of course and I may not have all my information right, but I thought I'd just get some of my thoughts down here

You are right in saying that there is liitle evidence of a statistically significant link beween the temperature anomalies of preceding seasons and the following winter.The closest link is perhaps not suprisingly with Autumn but even that is weak.The best indiciator I can find is that dry and warm autumns have around 60% chance of being followed by mild winters whilst for very dry,very warm autumns the figure rises to an impressive 80%.