We approach the end of another year (where does the time go!) so here is a new thread for your CET predictions for 2013. Remeber there are several CET competitions that run during the year. This thread is just for making a prediction as to what you think the CET will be for 2013 as a whole.

A separate thread is opened each month for predictions for the CET in the month ahead (I will open up the January thread later today). The monthly thread also features a different annual competition to see who has the most accurate monthly predictions on a cumulative basis throughout the year. This is updated every month.

For the annual CET competition covered by this thread you need to predict what you think the mean Central England Temperature (CET) will be for 2013. The CET series is maintained by the Met Office Hadley centre and their official statistics will be used to determine the result of the competition. The figures can be found at the following link http://www.metoffice.gov...adcet/cet_info_mean.html

The data is updated with provisional figures daily and adjusted figures for the month are usually published on the 1st day of the following month. You will often hear us refer to the "Hadley" data when talking about the CET. This because there are other versions of the CET but we currently use the Hadley data for our competitions.

More details on what constitutes the CET area and links to more detailed articles can be found here http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/

To enter the competition all you need to do is post your prediction of the mean temperature in the CET area for 2013 in Celsuis. There are two important points to note:
- your prediction should be to two decimal places; and
- your prediction needs to be unique so we have no more than one winner at the end of the year (so first come first served on any particular figure).

Any entry that is not unique and is not adjusted will be amended by me to the nearest available figure (either up or down).

Entries close at 23:59 on 2nd January

To assist you with your prediction the chart below shows the CET each year since 1961 (green line), the average for 1971-2000 (blue line), average for 1981-2010 (red line) and a 10 year moving average (purple line).

I will monitor how the annual CET is progressing throughout the year and post updates in this thread.

Thanks Simon, 9.96°c for me please.

My carefully considered........guess, which is based on the square root of eff all, is - 10.12c.

Thanks. Looking forward to keeping tabs on this next year.

10.25 C. please.

10.02C for me please.

10.29C please.

10.33c

10.10C please.

10.57c for me

bump

10.50c 

9.71 please

I really don't have a clue

The Met Office are predicting that 2013 will be the warmest year globally since records began:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2012/2013-global-forecast

...but we all know how little that tends to mean for the UK, aside from increased moisture levels!

I'm anticipating some cold weather for the second half of Jan and perhaps through a large part of February, so a cold start to rise from - but then spring 2013 could be dry and warm or cold and wet or any combination of those as far as I'm concerned!

As for the summer, could we really see yet another cool one? Unfortunately it does not come down to 'balancing' but rather the state of countless variables, some of which seem to be heavily favouring particular states of late - solar activity low, ENSO towards La Nina, Arctic Sea ice low, and so on.

The autumn and winter 2013... why even bother

So all I can do is throw out a number and cross my fingers I'll go for 9.77°C please.

8.39 oC please

 9.49c please