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The time honoured one re lots of berries foretelling a harsh winter is getting me worried this year. There are very few berries around here and the birds are already stripping berries from the cotoneaster (before they are even fully ripe) This would suggest a mild winter and I really hope so for the wildlife as autumn pickings have been rather meagre. Of course bird migration says more about ice and snow cover to our north and east and we should indeed anticipate early migration if you look at the current snow cover. We normally find most duck and geese on the water meadows after Christmas rather than before.

Ref 1987, in SE Essex there was over a foot of snow and prolonged cold in February, flash flooding in August as well as the storm in October. A particularly memorable year for that County.

Item coming up on BBC News in 5 minutes about exceptionally low Arctic ice cover. 'Twill be interesting to hear what they have to say.

Latitude, welcome to the SW & central If things are quiet just now, wait until the ice and snow comes (could be a very long wait of course!)

Just had a short but torrential shower here, only minutes ago I was enjoying the brilliant clear moonlight!

How about 'typical English weather from Northumberland southwards, Scottish weather further north and changeable in Wales and to the west? Lets be honest, forecasting with accuracy more that four days ahead remains more of an ambition than an achievement so lets not be harsh on Meto. At least they have a go and with human nature being what it is they are more likely to add detail if people don't keep criticising them. I just wish they put a bit more description around it to tell us what they have based their judgement on. We can then make our own mind up on detailed factors.

I wont throw a bucket of water over you as you pass by then! (apparently thats what the sailing fraternity like, while they chuck tenners away in bundles). Have you got tickets for the Nothe? If so it should be a really good place to watch from, albeit that (according to the Echo tonight) there appears to be some fuss over parking and other arrangements.

Huge pressures on the Dorset highways team at the moment as they try and get other repairs done and traffic moving frely. LOCOG will doubtless be demanding that priority be given to the routes leading from London to Weymouth for the Sailing Olympics and I suspect it was apparent that there was no point making a start on the tunnel until structural assessments had been completed on the tunnel itself. Brickwork could be seen to have been torn away. The engineers will also have been needing to checked hundreds of old bridge structures to ensure they had not been damaged by the recent floodwaters. In truth this is probably all down to just one or two civil engineers as the Local Authority workforce has been drastically scaled down over recent years . That said it clearly is tragic, almost unbelievable, that a car can be totally concealed below what appears not to have been a huge volume of spoil. The odds against being in exactly that spot at that instant must be enormous . One has to feel not only for the families but also for the poor workers who unearthed the car. Grim would be an understatement.

looking at current Metoffice Radar it looks like a part of the NE must be getting /is about to get a real hammering with a long streak of heavy rain feeding in from the N Sea - is anyone underneath that band, how heavy is it?

C'mon, lets just accept it. Announcing Drought Orders causes less pollution and is far more effective than seeding clouds with chemicals. The rains have come exactly when asked for haven't they?

Village, may i suggest you do a little research into the source of your water supply - I believe it is Hanningfield Reservoir. Do a Google Search on the Ely Ouse Scheme and I think you will find that since the 1960s your water has been supplemented from Cambridgeshire - up to 35% of Essex's water in a dry year! The drought order is because many reservoirs do not have the ability to abstract over such great distances and rely upon natural collection and springs fed from groundwater. It is that groundwater level that has been the concern. Many of Dorset's rivers have until the last week or so been running near to their autumn (lowest) levels and the fear is that when the current surface water has abated the background spring fed flows will be little better than they were in February. Many so called winterbournes (streams that run in winter but not in summer) were dry this winter.

Hmm, not sure about this as Met Office is currently sending out email alerts for snow tomorrow in the SW (away from the Southern coastal fringes) yet this does not seem to show in their local forecasts. I suspect this is due to great uncertainty so forecast shows rain but the warning shows possibility of snow. If this is the case the other forecasts might also be just tipping the balance at 55% probable leaving a colder option not showing as its 45% probable. The other possibility is that the forecasts have yet to catch up with latest outputs. How do others feel about the current METO forecasts?

I agree entirely - remembering last year when there was an exceptional turnaround on about a three day timeframe. I shall be watching with interest how the models behave after Wednesdays weather moves through.

This is not strictly true as the codes of practice for structural design of buildings as well as for detailing such items as windows and roof coverings take account of a number of factors including geographical location and local exposure. Hence 100mph is of considerably greater significance to buildings erected in normally sheltered locations than to those in coastal locations and the north of UK. In truth however those buildings that fail tend to be those with inherent defects and those subjected to freak gusts, such as along squall lines. My personal belief is that Fridays weather does need watching carefully and I fear for anyone whose property is affected at this time as the nation's building industry pretty much shuts down for two weeks at Christmas. Even if builders are working, they will find material difficult to source at short notice.

Re the 'warm patch' could there be any connection with the event in this link - see also much comment in the worldwide weather thread 'Alaska Storm' http://www.livescien...-explained.html

Me too, the more the merrier (especially when associated with some comments on why the weather is expected as forecast). This then gives us the opportunity to compare and learn. Enquiry and polite challenge should be fine, but if we all looked to applaud success rather more than criticise failure, more posters would have the confidence (or willingness) to air their thinking publicly. I am sure that all forecasters learn from others, no matter how much original thought they apply to the subject.

I don't pretend to know either way and recognise the many outrageously unlikely claims that PC makes, however I believe it was he that said some 6 or 7 years ago that from 2008 we (UK) are about to enter a series of probably 10 much colder winters. I decided to watch with interest and the past 3 winters have certainly included much colder spells that the previous decade. Many are saying we cannot have a fourth cold winter in a row because of statistical improbability based upon historic patterns.Yet I believe the forecasts methods PC uses are based pretty heavily upon historic solar patterns and the relationship between those patterns and patterns of air temperatures. If that is so it might suggest that statistically it is indeed possible to experience successive cold winters in context of those cooler climatic periods. The patterns do seem to match well and there also appears to be a lag of air temperature and of CO2 about two years behind the solar 'cycle". If that correlation proves to be correct, we should not require this winter to be extremely cold to stay within the profile. As long as it was not very warm and as long as subsequent winters stay at or fairly well below average temperatures, the pattern could still give an acceptable fit to the 'cooler phase' profile. Looking back to the 60's and 70's it was often mid January before anything major started to happen in the South of the UK and plenty of time for that to be the case this year. Deep cold and snow is really not common in the Southern half of England before Xmas. As others have said, we shall all know who was right, afterwards! I would be delighted if those skilled people with access to historic data sets could confirm or deny the probability/trend patterns relating to successions of cold winters during the solar minimum years (as opposed to across all years irrespective of solar activity).

I too like the new format better. My only wish is that they could add some lateral information regarding thermal activity (laymans CAPE) and gustiness for sailors and flyers.

CR I too do not recall the data predicting that the current solar maximum would be weak, I believe it was merely aligning temperature patterns alongside the cycle of sunspot activity. From what I recall the conclusions related more to projections drawn from historic temperature records. Reference to patterns of sunspot activity and CO2 levels appeared to be there to highlight apparent relationships between cycles emerging from the data and possible cause for the temperature cycle, rather than an ability to forecast temperatures based upon predicted levels of sunspot activity. That is probably a correct basis as, during the period in history from which data was drawn, there had only been an ability to accurately record temperature ( the method of measuring levels of sunspot activity was rather rudimentary). The mapping so produced appeared to show a pretty compelling relationship, albeit the temperature graph appeared to lag two or maybe three years behind the sunspot activity. I seem to recall that the contention was that either the period 2008 to 2018 or the period 2030 to 2040 (or thereabouts) would be similar to that experienced in what was known as the 'Little Ice Age' Clearly weather in any given winter can override the general pattern, but to convince me that the hypothesis is correct I would expect to see reasonable correlation. I would suggest that eight winters out of 10 during the 2008-2018 period would need to be 'colder than normal' to strongly affirm the hypothesis. My own interest in this is because I find it difficult to believe that serious abnormal weather patterns, such as those which caused major crop failures in the past , will not happen again. Mankind tends to be capable of ignoring even recent history. (why else would Americans chose to build a major city along the San Andreas fault line?)

Some interesting points in this thread and thanks to those who have posted the useful links. About five or six years ago I read an article highlighting cyclical patterns in solar activity and UK winter temperatures and also suggesting a ten year period of cold winters would start in 2008. The cyclical patterns looked pretty convincing in a historical context and the projection was therefore plausible, indicating that either this 'cold cycle' or the next one in 20 odd years time would be very cold indeed. At a time when we were being told that we would be getting much warmer, I found these historic trends of interest and vowed to watch the winters of 2008 onwards. So far there have been three winters which I would consider to be colder than 'normal'. Time alone will tell if these extend to show a colder ten year period and also whether this is the coldest series of colder winters or if the next cycle in 20 years time is actually the coldest cycle. All I can say thus far as the first three years of the predicted colder run of winters seems to have followed the prediction and it is also interesting that the Met Office are now discovering data which would seem to support the link of colder UK winters to low solar activity. I believe some of the research work related to this (circa 2005?) came from Russia, a country who doubtless has great financial interest in predicting European winter temperatures. Does anyone have references to meteorological research and opinion emerging from Russia over the last few years?

I had hoped that the UK might have shown its first white pixel over Cairngorm today, but no joy. Ever the optimist!

Ryan, you must have been unlucky last year - my son and I went out tobogganing both Xmas Eve and Xmas day last year - and that was a first for me in half a century! Xmas eve had stunning icicles from buidling roofs as we walked back from church in the evening. Whilst it did not snow on 'the day' the atmosphere was certainly there. It will be interesting to see what happens this year. If the sunspot theories are correct, and if we do not get quite such a strong and early start to winter as last year (which i feel was exceptional), then there must be a very good chance of conditions being favourable for snow falling around Xmas Day compared with the longer term probability of this happening.

OK , just scrolled the thread and no posts from Dorset, so here you are: 8.00 torrential rain between Dorchester and Poole, but dry in Poole. Late morning to mid day 3 hours heavy rain with torrential bursts accompanied by some thunder and lightning in Bournemouth and Poole. Afternoon overcast and drizzle / showers. Still overcast now. Reflecting what Old Met Man commented on earlier, I too struggle to understand why Met Office did not catch onto this earlier, at 7.00 they were giving 20% chance of heavy rain, when their own radar was sending a very different picture. In effect, not even a good 'nowcast' I would welcome some commentary (with hindsight) as to what changed and caught the forecasters out.

Just watching the lightning radar showing things starting in the Channel. Met Office has them coming ashore 10.00 tomorrow but one strike already seems quite close to Weymouth (20 miles out perhaps?). Has anyone seen a forecast showing them arriving sooner?

Basically a commodities trading term where you bet on wheat prices going up substantially later in the year by investing now in wheat as a commodity on the expectation that you sell again later in the year when the price has risen substantially. I.e gamble your money that UK and N American wheat yields will be very low this year. I would be prepared to take that bet if N America and Canada looked like getting a similar very dry year to that which Europe seems to be getting. Farmers in UK are seeing their crops goings 'spikey' - leaves curling tightly around the stem to reduce water loss - a sign that they are struggling to survive drought. In the short term this should not be a great problem as root growth will be strong and the stems short and strong. If drought continues however there could be widespread failure. Do you see signs of the next six weeks being dryer than average and is this mirrored in N America (I haven't been following what weather has been doing there)