Relativistic

Heating hasn't been on yet in our student house. Luckily for us we live in a terrace house and we manage to steal the neighbours' heat. It'll be fleeces only for a while yet methinks.

Here in Brum:

The earliest settling Winter snow I have seen in my life believe it or not. That's what I get for having spent most of my life in tropical Essex. The snow here in Selly Oak:

Just looking at the CET monthly data, it seems as if many of the mildest Novembers (i.e., 8.0C+) have come in pairs, or pairs with a year's gap. 1729: 8.1C 1730: 9.2C 1817: 9.1C 1818: 9.5C 1821: 8.6C 1822: 8.2C 1938: 9.4C 1939: 8.7C 1951: 8.5C 1953: 8.5C 1982: 8.0C 1984: 8.0C 2002: 8.5C 2003: 8.1C 2009: 8.7C 2011: 9.6C 2014: 8.6C 2015: ?? http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/mly_cet_mean_sort.txt

Christ, this place is going nuts. Great to see so many cracking charts. Here we come Winter!!

It may be, but everybody forecasting too high has definitely happened before (March 2013).

I'm starting to think the 1994 record may go already.

No, actually my blinds are up all day and I love going outside when it is dark, or when the cloudcover is so thick that it feels like the Sun hasn't actually risen properly. I love playing football in the depths of Winter, when it is dark, wet, and freezing, or going for a walk when the wind is blowing in your face under a thick sheet of fast-moving clouds. So I think I do get outside enough. There is nothing antisocial going on here Light isn't bad for me at all. I enjoy the extremes (I like the days around the Summer solstice), but I enjoy the darker days far more. I think you just assume that everyone who likes the dark is a recluse who can't stand going outside.

Which means another three months where the daylight hours are shorter than today.

This is killing me now. Every time I check to see what is going on there is no light at the end of the tunnel, just a constantly disgusting outlook. I don't think I have ever been so desperate for a change in the weather in my life.

This month is looking atrocious already. I'd love another seasonal November like 2012 or 2013, or better still a really cold one. I've been playing football today and this is the hottest I have felt all Autumn! And it's November!!

Best months of the year now for daylight hours (November to January). Enjoy it while it lasts.

Or we could leave the clocks as they are and make people get on with it? I've never seen so much fuss kicked up over something so small.

My entry of 4.0C is looking shaky already. But I'll stick to my guns.

* -21C

What? 18C? That's just depressing.

4.0C, for now...

The key word being if. From what I gather the super Nino had an impact on the ice this year. It will be interesting to see how the ice responds next Austral Winter.

I guessed October only so that it wouldn't be. To make any conclusions now though is extremely premature.

Even in balmy Essex we had snow showers in October 2012. I'd never seen anything like it!

I think the WMO recommends using the 61-90 average until 2021, so that the 61-90 average is used for 30 years, then the 81-10 average is used for another 30 years, etc.

Don't really know where to put this, but I thought this thread is probably the most suitable. Anyway, I noticed something in the CET series (I'm sure someone has probably picked up on this before) that I thought might be of interest. I noticed that in many cases, 7±1 years after a subzero CET month was recorded, you get another one. Below is a list of all such cases (I think). Where a month came in at 0C before recording to the nearest 0.1C was implemented, I gave the month the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was subzero. Jan 1660 (0) à Jan 1667 (0) [7 years] Dec 1676 (-0.5) à Jan 1684 (-3), Feb 1684 (-1) [7 years] Jan 1684 (-3), Feb 1684 (-1) à Feb 1692 (0) [8 years] Feb 1692 (0) à Jan 1698 (0) [6 years] Jan 1709 (-1.5) à Jan 1716 (-2) [7 years] Jan 1776 (-1.6) à Jan 1784 (-0.6) [7 years] Dec 1788 (-0.3) à Jan 1795 (-3.1) [6 years], Dec 1796 (-0.3) [8 years] Jan 1814 (-2.9) à Jan 1820 (-0.3) [6 years] Jan 1823 (-0.1) à Jan 1830 (-0.2) [7 years] Jan 1830 (-0.2) à Jan 1838 (-1.5) [8 years] Dec 1874 (-0.2) à Jan 1881 (-1.5) [6 years] Jan 1940 (-1.4) à Feb 1947 (-1.9) [7 years] Feb 1956 (-0.2) à Jan 1963 (-2.1), Feb 1963 (-0.7) [7 years] Jan 1979 (-0.4) à Feb 1986 (-1.1) [7 years] Notable months that didn’t make the list: Jan, Feb 1740 (-2.8, -1.6) Feb 1855 (-1.7) Dec 1890 (-0.8 ) Feb 1895 (-1.8 ) Of course this could all be a coincidence, but interesting nonetheless. So while this doesn't suggest any subzero months this Winter, perhaps Winter 2018 will deliver the goods...

That's area, not extent.

You mean 1947, right?

Fantastic, thanks for the link. By odd I was referring to the fact that May saw the highest sea ice area on record, whereas during the SH Winter months the values have been close to or at the lowest on record a number of times.