su rui ke

You got there before me! It's just suddenly got heavier anyway. Should be in Fife ... about now?

That's an interesting question. For this month, mean temperatures locally have been slightly below average with a -0.3C anomaly. I would sum it up by saying that the prolonged cold, but not severely cold, spell of the last two or three weeks has been partly offset by a very warm spell earlier in the month - we had maxima over 20C for a couple of days during that time. The cold anomaly in the far south has been stronger - maxima of around only 6/7 C in Guangzhou this week! However, the cold did not set in there until a little later and they also had a very warm first half to the month and look to have finished slightly above average for the month. The (in)famously cold northeast aslo looks to have been slightly milder than normal. So, yes, I think the story has been more the persistence of the snowfall in central and eastern China rather than any extreme cold. No doubt some local low temperature records will have been broken though. The temperature data I've been quoting come form NOAA's excellent Global Temperature Time Series. I'll try and do a more thorough analysis for January when I have a bit more time. Anyway, here it's still snowing ...

It's just started snowing again here (about 7.30 am in China). It's quite heavy and beginning to lie. This snowfall is forecast to last into tomorrow, so things could get interesting again!

Yes, today we finally got some lying snow here right down on the coast near Ningbo after more than a week of freezing cold and drizzle. It's all melted by now but there is more forecast for tomorrow - we'll see; it's always very marginal here. Judging from the TV pictures Nanjing has at least a foot of lying snow and friends said there was snow on the ground in the centre of Shanghai on Sunday, which doesn't happen too often. It couldn't have happened at a worse time, of course, with millions of people trying to head home for the holiday. Is there anything in particular we can blame all this on? La Nina?

Meanwhile, in another part of the northern hemisphere (China) things are a little different. From NOAA's global monitoring pages, some temperature anomalies for the past month: Guangzhou +1.73 Beijing +1.37 Qiqihar (Heilongjiang) +1.24 Shengxian (nearest station to me) +0.72 Lhasa +2.21

I think you might be talking about the global average temperature there - it is predicted to be the sixth warmest on record.

Sorry but I don't see where a 2.0C drop this week is coming from. Looks like an up-and-down week for temperatures but with the CET eventually settling around 8.0C for the first half.

I wonder if throwing in some global data might help here. Below are the monthly worldwide (land and ocean) temperature anomalies for this year, as published on NOAA's 'State of the Climate' pages, together with each month's ranking in the series. The anomalies are relative to the 1961-90 means. Jan +0.36C 13th warmest Feb +0.53C 6th warmest Mar +0.55C 7th warmest Apr +0.45C 8th warmest May +0.50C 5th warmest Jun +0.60C 2nd warmest Jul +0.56C 3rd warmest Aug +0.54C 4th warmest Sep +0.56C 4th warmest I'd be very interested if anyone could explain exactly what series is being used here and whether the complete data set is available anywhere. (I don't think it's on the NOAA site.) Then we could do SF's ranking for each year based on this too!

Well, I didn't say that exactly! I actually enjoy most types of cold weather, whether it's over here or back in the UK. However, for the second month in a row - and for the third month out of the last four four(!) - the 'warmest on record' monthly CET looks seriously under threat. I just don't think that should be ignored! By the way, does anyone know if the date records for the 29th and 31st given on the TORRO site are up to date. At 19.2C and 19.4C, respectively, they're looking shaky too if things go according to plan at the end of the week!

It's actually down to 13.3C now (up to an including the 23rd). Temperatures look all over the place this week and the GFS forecast temperatures for any particular day are changing by a lot from run to run. However, the overall amount of 'mild' and 'cold' for the next few days is staying roughly constant and it looks like the CET will be down to around 12.9/13.0 by the 28th. If the last 3 days of the month are as mild as currently forecast that will then push the CET back to within a whisker of equalling the record by the 31st. Another exciting end to the month as far as the CET goes!

And at the moment it looks like we might continue floating around 13.3/13.4 until at least the 25th!

The long warm spell continues here and it looks like we've just broken the date record of 29.1C. Ningbo, China 1400 (local time) Temp 29.7C Wind S, 1.6 m/s No rainfall today

Hi West, I think it's May-October 1995 with an average of 15.04C. By my calculations we need an October CET of 9.01 to beat that.

OK, Nick - it is obviously going to be very, very close. It feels strangely like waiting for an election result to come in!

12.5C for the very good reason that no-one seems to have taken that yet.

Hi Nick, Checking, I think my 11.6 was a bit out, but 12.0C would do it, wouldn't it? If 8.7C is near the mark for the minimum that would mean a CET max of about 15.3C for today would see the record equalled. (16.71 x 29 + 12.0)/30 = 16.55C But better if it was a little higher to avoid rounding arguments!

To just equal the record, using Philip's figures, I reckon today's CET needs to be at least 11.6C - assuming 16.55 counts as 16.6C - or 13.4C if it needs to be at least 16.60 to count as 16.6C. Does anyone have an estimate of what last night's minimum was?

16.89 gets rounded down?

Are you sure that was after the end of the 28th? I'm pretty sure it was 16.8 for the 1-28.

But do we know what the figure was at this stage yesterday to 2 decimal places? What I mean is that it might only have fallen from 16.76 to 16.71 - a not too frightening 0.05C.

Exactly, it's a bit of both - according to Philip Eden maxima were 2.6C above the mean for the period 1-29 September and minima were 3.2C above. So, you could say that the high minima have contributed more to the final figure than the maxima, but not 'very' much more.

Looking at Weatheronline, temperatures are already close to what the GFS suggested today's maxima would be, so perhaps 16.8C is still possible after all! It would be nice to break the record properly and not just scrape in by 0.1C!

West, I was going by an earlier GFS run which showed widespread minima of around 10C tonight. Obviously if tonight's minima are lower than last night's, tomorrow's maxima will need to be correspondingly higher to hold the figure steady. Do you think tomorrow is likely to be warm enough for that? It's sometimes difficult to get a feel for what's happening at this distance, especially when thing's could come down to a few hundredths of a degree!

At this very late stage, it still looks like it's too close to call as to whether the (Manley) record will be broken or 'only' equalled. What do people think - 16.6 or 16.7 as a final figure? It doesn't look like any other outcome is possible now.

It's stayed at 16.9 for the 1-26. I agree with Anti-Mild that 16.7 looks the lowest figure likely now - might even be 16.8 if Saturday is warm.