I did wonder about that - but February only needs to be a repeat of what we had this January which I wouldn't thought was too hard to get.

But February can throw up some surprises.

 

There is also the very real possibility that this meterological winter could be warmer than the meterological spring of 2013!

The Met Office have updated the finalised value for January as 5.45C

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html

4 punters got 5.50 so well done to Devonian, Gezm, Duncan McAlister and Spring Sum Winter Dread - 4 yellow jerseys to start off the new comp for 2016

Also of interest the CET Mean for 25/01 has been revised up from 11.5 to 11.6C so it now is the equal highest January value for mean CET along with 23/01/1834 and 03/01/1932

Here are the final charts for January. Another very mild month.

However, we did have one decent cold spell. The 7 days from 15 to 21 Jan had a CET mean of 1.5C which is 3.3C below average. The other 24 days of the month had a CET mean of 6.6C which is 2.3C above average.

Overall the CET for this winter is well above the record winter of 1868/9.

As lanky noted above the CET mean for 25 Jan equalled the all time January record. 

Also the maximum CET of 13.7C on 24 Jan equalled the all time January record set on 9 Jan 1998.

I was a bit out with 6C. But not too bad really.

Annual CET competition - January update

Here are the first tables of the year. Congrtsatulations to pace setters including first timer Spring Summer Winter Dread (abbreviated to SSWD in the table for space reasons).

I should add that I have been very generous to start the year and have waived all penalties for late predictions in January. I will start adding on penalties for February onwards.

Don't know if you saw my PM GW about my name change.

I was ErghKommol, just in case you didn't.

Don't know if you saw my PM GW about my name change.

I was ErghKommol, just in case you didn't.

Ah sorry yes I did see it but forgot to update my spreadsheet. Will update for all future tables.

thank you

Thanks for the table Simon. 

Thank you GW and congrats to all those on the top table for predicting so closely.  Lots of room for improvement for me though.

Oh gawd, another year of mid-table mediocrity beckons. Not for the first time, I was looking like getting it close as we moved into the second half of the month, only for the models to flip (away from cooler, towards much milder) conditions.

Bloody weather!

As the starter used to say to Franze Klammer "it's downhill from here"

I should add that I have been very generous to start the year and have waived all penalties for late predictions in January. I will start adding on penalties for February onwards.

Oh, you know you want to be generous with Feb as well, don't you! 

Thanks so much for your efforts on this!

That was a big downward correction from 5.7C to the 30th to a final value of 5.45C. The 31st was mild so not sure what happened there.

The Provisional data got replaced with the final official data. If you read GW's posts from month to month, the corrections can be quite sizeable.

I did ask him once why the corrections are so large when they have all the data already but I can't remember exactly what he replied (I recall it was along the lines of "good question" )

 

The Provisional data got replaced with the final official data. If you read GW's posts from month to month, the corrections can be quite sizeable.

I did ask him once why the corrections are so large when they have all the data already but I can't remember exactly what he replied (I recall it was along the lines of "good question" )

 

Maybe worth asking the MetO direct. The reporting stations that contribute to the figures must be accountable publicly for their use of revenue and either they all got it wrong to start with, or one got it very wrong, or neither, in which case the adjustments should be explicable as they are also made in an official capacity in public-money-funded time.

The MetO in my experience are very good at responding to public questions and seem to have dedicated staff ready to do this.

Also in my experience, the actual question doesn't necessarily get answered.