Woollymummy

I agree gillybean. As far as I have gathered, anything after 1 week in the modeling is less reliable, and so after that anyone's guess as as good as the next, plus their own experience helps? Is that right? Also, am I right in thinking the moans and ramps bit is less strict on having to post specific data? Was just checking. My specific model output question: if you only had one data set from one model to choose from , and could only use that to make forecasts from (for weekly weather) which would it be? I automatically go for the jetstream for some reason, maybe because it is what first got my attention last year. This question is for anyone with an opinion, and you can give your answers as written statements, pictures, charts or haiku if needs be, as long as they are what you really think. And by the way, I only make "forecasts" to myself. Just a hobby when I can't sleep!

Ah yes, I want and hope for snow, always, every year, but having proper extreme weather on the Telly every night, netweather.tv -coloured Jetstream pics on every decent weather forecast, people starting to have whole shows discussing the effects of climate and hydrology on where people should be living in the UK..... It was great! So I will be not be sad if we have another windy rainfest this winter, but I would much rather see if you lot are all right and things turn colder.

Not just the winter, now camping in summer has to be preceded by a thorough check for any approaching hurricanes, then all other potential hurricanes, then a few pages about hurricane formation, etc. I will be quite sad if we never get another winter like last year, I found it very amusing to see so many storms chasing each other. But I do want it to be cold and snowy this year.

am I right in thinking that every time a big dump of cold air pours down off the Actic in our direction, then an equally large blob of warm air swaps places with it and melts a bit more of Greenland? Has winter always been like that? I get a feeling I am watching a car crash in very slow motion, and no matter how much I would like a bit of snow, maybe I would settle for muddy or sunny uk if it meant the arctic could stay as cold as it can. no amount of slushy rubbish tobogganning and woolly hats can justify polar bears having to walk around on rocks to hunt for shellfish.

I suppose the problem is we get used to calling the solstice "midwinter" and it really is at the start, not mid.

Am I right in thinking that this strongly negative index just means a slower flow if the jetstream and more meandering, and that the likelihood of us being caught in a cold section of the meanders is more due to other indices? Or is the fact that the map on the TIL OPI page shows Europe saying that we in the UK have a very high chance of having cold weather? What could influence the length of the cold snap between now and "winter" if it turns out that the final OPI is -2? Sorry if my questions are too obvious, I may have missed something.

Maybe to see if the final value becomes clear at some point during the month? Maybe it doesn't change much after the third week of October? Or the second?

Still no storm but I took all the washing in just in case those massive clouds break. No rain in Oxford.

Is it because the jetstream was split in half?

Misty here (Oxford). Last night it was very clear, stars and moon visible with very spooky long lasting vapor trails lit up by the moonlight. We never normally see them at night, was it because there was a temperature inversion because of the high pressure at the moment?

We usually cook up outside more in the autumn after clearing bits of the garden, by burning dried weeds and hedge clippings and some logs, and trying to cook up our garden harvest on that. Much more real and fun to cook outside in autumn than trying cooking sausages on a day that is already roasting hot.

Massively huge piles of barbecue charcoal stacked up in the porch of our local Tesco, while outside it was torrential rain. It's not going to go off, why don't they just pack it up for next year?!

Typical back-to-school weather, then buckets of rain for the last few late summer events next w/e

Am I right in thinking it is normal if you are on the extreme right-hand side of an approaching hurricane that you would feel very hot air swept along in front of the edge of the storm? We had strong persistent warm winds before both the low pressure area on Friday night and then Bertha on Sunday morning, on the Suffolk coast.

Camping in Walberswick: Friday night, before Bertha, Very Hot all night, torrential rainstorm from 1:30 am to 3 am, and poor bell tent shaken a lot. Saturday fine, hot and sunny. Sunday morning woken by Bertha starting up at about 5 am, wind got stirred up and moderate rain, so we headed into Southwold to find more fun, got to the pier in time to play on silly alternative arcade games before 60+ mph gusts caused pier to be shut. Then Huge Wall of Cloud and very hot air passed over, followed by sun and breeze, we all saw three little waterspout bases forming off the coast of Southwold, but they didn't go up into a funnel, and then later on hot back to camp to find tent had been really shaken up, lovely tent neighbour had go e around the whole camp hammering down escaping bell tents. Best fun ever Bertha, cheers! Bell tents and hurricanes are pretty good mix!

Just a quick question before July really starts in the morning: what is the likelihood of this sort of summer leading up to a Very Cold Winter? What is the main model to look at to understand the impact of one season on the next?

As the kids are coming home with lovely little bits of melted tar from the playground, and I have young plants to nurture on the allotment, I am very happy with the idea that we get a little bit of warmth and occasionally some rain , changeable is manageable, the prospect of endless heat is not really something I welcome. What I want to know is how far round the globe can you see weather developing which stays, and is it likely that the weather happening now over USA will predict the weather we get in 10 days time (or longer/shorter) , or is that only a thing which is easy to see in winter?

I guess the cold front they talked about earlier just came over, I have never seen anything like it, gigantic silent clouds moving very fast above with almost no wind on the surface. Bye bye sunny weather! Edited later: I guess it was just a storm, hot and sunny again here, oops!

As it looks now like next weekend will be fine ( for camping and birthday party) what is the probability one week away that it will stay like that, and how far into next week could a pattern shift enough to make it a washout weekend? The other question is, when you look at the models from above the arctic and see lows developing west of the Atlantic, how persistent are they and is it possible to tell by the way they are developing if they will keep their identity as far as us?

That was the most amazing lightning we have had for ages. Oxford Light Night. I finally had to stop watching at 12:30 am but it carried on for a lot longer. Big Purple streaks, and the whole storm moving so slowly that I had plenty of time to run around and look at it from all sides. Not very fresh here this morning, muggy but cooler.