sebastiaan1973

That's unfortunately true. I do expect lots of snow around Noril'sk http://www.yr.no/place/Russia/Krasnoyarsk/Noril%27sk/

A nice forecast of the winter 2012. http://www.lightinth...om/archives/420 E.g. Putting it all together The dominant factors at play for the winter of 2011-12 should be a weak geomagnetic field, weak electric field strength of the solar wind, a negative NAO, AO, PNA, PDO, and ENSO (moderate La Nina). In addition, a factor not mentioned in the discussion is the QBO, which measures variations in the equatorial stratospheric wind, will be near neutral to slightly negative. Data for winters with this modality in conjunction with the solar external forcing noted already support negative NAO winters with plentiful blocking. Notice that all the indices mentioned above will be in a negative state, suggesting that the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere are in for a colder than normal winter overall. However, that does not mean everyone will be cold. Notable pockets of warmer than normal temperature departures will exist this winter, one such location over much of the Southern United States. Coupling the conditions expected with analogs (years with similar regimes to this one) suggest an overall warm winter (DJF) from the Southwestern US eastward through the central/southern Plains, and the Southeastern US. The DJF departure map for the Northeast of slightly below average temperatures is a bit deceiving, as I believe there will be periods of extreme cold and extreme warmth spattering the winter in the Northeast. The northern Rockies into the Mid-western US and Great Lakes should have a more predominately colder than average winter. My analogs for this winter: 1954-55, 1955-56, and 2008-09. Important for us -on the others ite of the Ocean- is in my opinion the predicted negative NAO.

Those red spots southeast of Nova Zembla will soon disappear. I have taken the forecast for Noril'sk russia from Yr.no http://www.yr.no/pla...%27sk/long.html Lots of snow to come

Cooler than average. BTW I heard from a meteorologist of Weerplaza (Commercial weather company in the Netherlands) the ECMWF model predicts a cold (below average) winter.

The 'forcast' of Madden has even reached Dutch television and newspaper http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1012/Binnenland/article/detail/2961725/2011/10/10/Extreme-winter-op-komst.dhtml http://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ad.nl%2Fad%2Fnl%2F1012%2FBinnenland%2Farticle%2Fdetail%2F2961725%2F2011%2F10%2F10%2FExtreme-winter-op-komst.dhtml

World Climate Services.provided a picture of their forecast (via Meteo Consult on the Dutch Television)

regulary I see such 'mistakes'

We have a little deficit http://moe.met.fsu.edu/snow/nhtime-4month.png I see large red are;as in Siberia, that's not good for our winter. Hopefully things will change

http://books.google.com/books?id=tHAAAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=nl#v=onepage&q&f=false or http://books.google....epage&q&f=false Please press 'pdf' and you can read the book. http://en.wikipedia....iki/Luke_Howard Very interesting book. A part of the second book, describing the frozen Thames in the winter of 1814!

An increasing transport of ozon from the tropics

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/qbo.data reveals september had a QBO of -2.3

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/weathermatrix/story/55908/accuweathercom-20112012-winter-forecast-points.asp

According to EC12 of today, there's lots of snow to expect in a couple of days in Siberia. I have turned the picture, for a better view of Siberia. Especially in the Central Siberia Plateau.

Well If I understand Chionomaniacs view the increasing number of solar flux is a good development for the winter lover

Well Chionomaniac, last month recorded 123.01 (solar flux), the highest score since november 2003. ftp://ftp.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/data/solar_flux/monthly_averages/solflux_monthly_average.txt

De Bilt (Netherlands) already reached 25.3c, second day on a row

Excellent conditions.

At this stage especially the conditions in Siberia are important. And things look good according to EC 12u Lot's of colder area going south.

De Bilt (Netherlands) recorded 26.0c, 4th warmest october day since 1901

De Bilt (Netherlands) recorded so far a temperature of 25.2c making it the fifth 'zomerse dag'(a day with a max. temp > 25c) in october since 1901. Probably the record will not be reached, it's 26.7c in 1921

Some interesting reading http://strat-www.met...-et-al-2006.pdf We have shown in earlier studies the size of the changes in the lower stratosphere which can be attributed to the 11-year sunspot cycle (SSC). We showed further that in order to detect the solar signal it is necessary to group the data according to the phase of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO). Although this is valid throughout the year it was always obvious that the eect of the SSC and the QBO on the stratosphere was largest during the northern winters (January/February). Here we extend our rst study (Labitzke 1987) by using additional data. Instead of 30 years of data, we now have 65 years. Results for the entire data set fully conrm the early ndings and suggest a signicant eect of the SSC on the strenght of the stratospheric polar vortex and the mean meridional circulation. & http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/looknorthyorkslincs/ahlbeck_solar_activity.pdf

What are your expectations? This year there is probably a (weak) negative QBO and a weak or moderate La Nina. My guess is the stratosphere is cooler than normal?

Yesterday at http://www.rtl.nl/xl/#/u/6e154d3a-6ed7-49f5-8906-4346f9b7c32f/ (a Dutch television show, sorry no English subtitles) it was reported that Meteo Consult expects a cold winter in the Netherlands. Due to a negative NAO. They get their information of World Climate Service.

Some nice reading. http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/25574-possible-snow-gradient-explanation/

Well we can take in our winter predictions one factor for 'sure'. According to NOAA, La Nina is back. Synopsis: La Niña conditions have returned and are expected to gradually strengthen and continue into the Northern Hemisphere winter 2011-12. La Niña conditions returned in August 2011 due to the strengthening of negative sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies across the eastern half of the equatorial Pacific Ocean (Fig. 1). With the exception of the far westernmost Niño-4 region, all of the latest weekly Niño index values were –0.5oC or less (Fig. 2). Also supporting the return of La Niña conditions was the strengthening of the below-average subsurface oceanic heat content anomaly (average temperature anomalies in the upper 300m of the ocean, Fig. 3), in response to increased upwelling and further shoaling of the thermocline across the eastern Pacific Ocean (Fig. 4). The atmospheric circulation over the tropical Pacific continued to exhibit La Niña characteristics, but remained weaker and less canonical than the wintertime atmospheric patterns. For example, convection continued to be suppressed near the Date Line, but remained south of the equator, while convection was only weakly enhanced near Papua New Guinea (Fig. 5). In addition, anomalous low-level easterly and upper-level westerly winds persisted over the central tropical Pacific. Collectively, these oceanic and atmospheric patterns reflect the return of La Niña conditions. Over the last several months many models have predicted increasingly negative SST anomalies in the Nino-3.4 region during the upcoming Northern Hemisphere fall and winter. However, the majority of models continue to predict ENSO-neutral conditions for this period (Fig. 6). The NCEP Climate Forecast System (CFS) has performed quite well over the past several months (Fig. 7) capturing the recent decrease in SST anomalies. The better model performance, combined with the historical tendency for significant La Niña episodes (as in 2010-11) to be followed by relatively weaker La Niña episodes, leads to increased confidence that La Niña will persist into the winter. While it is not yet clear what the ultimate strength of this La Niña will be, La Niña conditions have returned and are expected to gradually strengthen and continue into the Northern Hemisphere winter 2011-12. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110908_lanina.html & http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html