summer blizzard

If i had to asses the CFS anomalies then i would say April cold, May dry and then the summer synoptic looks a little weird in that you'd expect a stronger high pressure response than shown to the east of the low.

Apparently we had a strong MJO wave whilst in other years we may not have. Provided we don't get a final warming soon it does make one wonder if we get a big flip at some point. Are there any instances of very cold March's being followed by hot April/May's?

ECMWF is pretty horrible, replacing cold and dull with warmer and wet. For those of us wanting warmer weather the modeling first needs to cut off the source of cold air (being April soon it's unlikely it will rebuild), Given that the source of our cold air is just east of Scandinavia that is where it needs to be cut-off to allow the continent to warm faster and fortunately the GFS run does indicate progress in that regard... Now and in 7 days.... Cut off the source, the continent warms (nothing to dilute the plumes) and then in a few weeks we are sat down drinking Mojito's in 20C.

A bit of melt on paths here in the city center today which is good since it was iced over on Sunday. I don't expect any real showers to make it this far inland so a flurry is the best i can hope for, i'm more interested in the flow becoming clearer on Thursday if the output is correct.

GFS6z is rather nice, no precipitation for us through the entire run.

Potentially, solar activity will be low for decades. With that said, we are certainly not there yet. Since 2006 in the UK we have seen the two warmest years on record, the two warmest April's on record (by some margin), the two warmest spring's on record, the two warmest Autumn's on record, the 5th and 9th warmest January's, the 4th warmest March, the hottest month on record, the hottest july on record, the 3rd and 8th warmest October's and the 2nd and 9th warmest November's on record. In terms of top 10 cold months we have 1, December 2010. So i think it's quite important that people bear in mind that a few cool winters and summer's (and lets remember that summers 2009, 2010 and winter 2011 were all warmer than average) do not plunge us into some mini ice age at this stage, we are still getting heat just not at the normal times.

Picture from the parents, a good fall.

Snow being pretty much horizontal all night and roads covered.God i love Leeds. My parents took a photo of the garden and there's a good 10cm, i'll post it here later.

Alarmingly he'd have only had to go for 11C before 2007 but we now have 2 April's which are miles ahead of anything else.

Lovely horizontal snow.

Moving at some pace, should be good.

Another GFS run going for an epic event.

GFS6z keeps 30mm of precipitation as heavy snow.

GFS18z is epic, over 30mm of precipitation falling as snow.

June and July 2006. January and December 2010. Thrown in for good measure i will go for.. June 2005.

April 16th.

-1C. The ice age has begun.

Ensembles suggest that we may go average/above average in daily means from around the 29th, will be interesting to keep an eye.

light snow.

Personally i don't much faith in seasonal models, currently there just not advanced enough. I agree with you though that things are looking a little better though i'm not expecting a classic given the persistent -PDO will offset the neutral ENSO a bit. I actually take the opposite view to you though in that i suspect seasonal wavelengths will likely lead to a stronger thermal gradient as summer progresses and so i'm looking for a break in the current pattern during April to a much warmer and more settled pattern which will largely dominate early summer before a probably unsettled August and potentially stormy Autumn. Summer 2010 is similar to what i'm thinking.

Impressive horse shoe in the Pacific for the -PDO, neutral looking ENSO, impressive Atlantic tripole for the -NAO and warm tropical Atlantic waters which could bode well for the hurricane season.

Normally it's the other way around so we could see a mild flip.

Not bad, ranks up there with Feb 09 and Feb 05 for me (a little better than both). Generally cool to cold with 16 days consecutive snow cover and a maximum depth that may have exceeded Dec 10 (it was 17cm before the final Friday snowfall but i've left it provisionally third with an assumption of 5cm for 22cm). It was nowhere close to winter 2010 and failed to compete with Dec 10 in terms of cold, it was also pretty dull.

I'm certainly not sensitive but walking in April 05 got me a suntan in exposed areas (back of neck, lower arms).

I remember 2006 had a weird statistic in that it was the latest date to reach 20C since (1996 i think) but then the earliest to reach (either 80F or 30C) since 1995. That's not a bad thing. If we can back the trough far enough west to raise heights to our east then the further we go into spring the warmer that setup becomes and as it sinks we can get a warm shot. Basically we want the setup we had in the second half of February to repeat.