Hiya

i don't think its the spraying crops that kills them, its to do with rainfall. Wasps tend to flourish in dry conditions, cause their nests are made of paper, wet/humid conditions ruin their nests, if its very wet then they have to make smaller nests that are 100% protected from the damp and it reduces their numbers. Thats why the wet years at the end of the 90's killed off a lot of population from the mid-90's and they have never recovered.

13.6

I know the stats don't deliever the snow on the ground, but they can instill a bit of confidence do they not? Since: 1. It links up with the forcasts for the year to end with a cool autumn, therefore continuing the downward trend. 2. You can clearly see that its not always hit and miss with regards to a cooler winter, so just now the conditions are good for them stats point of view for a better winter. 3. you can see from the last 15 years that the pattern is a bit disrupted, for whatever reason, and we also saw the mysterious post feb-2005 change, who knows what thats gonna bring? But i think we'll know by the end of this winter.

u only have to go back 2 years. I don't even need toput any lines in this graph, u can clearly see a pattern.

the mid 90's - be prepared to do the 100m sprint when u pop anything in a public bin in september. that cloud of angry wasps that rises forth and attacks u.

as requested and a little bit more last 20 years expressed as a 4th degree polynomial: i like that one - things are on the way down... last 20 years as a rolling 3 year average: last 20 years with a lineof best fit: that last one is a bit skewed due to the data limits but its still valid to say "in the last 20 years there has been an average increase in CET by over 1 degree" I love graphs btw using the numbers i generated according to the 20 year stats this year should have a CET of 10.67 but according to the data from the last 4 years 10.38, which sounds more realistic. Scotaidh

now i'm not even gonna pretend i have the knowledge of SF and people who post in here but i thought i'd point something out. No one has mentioned the period of 1997-2001 for cooling, now i know the year in the middle was a buck to the trend, but if you knock it into excel u get a gradient of -0.124 or for those who like pictures: for 2002-05 the gradient is -0.05: But the cooling resets itself 2002 and if we take the trend over the whole period- 1997 to 2005 - is only 0.0017, virtually nothing: heres a nice wavy graph to illustate that: Anyway, by the end of this year i would expect that if we added it on to the above graph we'd be into a -ve gradient over the last 9 years. I really like using the numbers to all sorts of statistical ends and at the end of the winter this year it'll be really interestingcause then there will be enough data to start analysing the post-feb 2005 change to the weather. PS don't pan for only using 9 years, i'm only pointing out short term trends Scotaidh

Last winters easterly topplers where not bad for Scotland, first one produced 10cm's of snow, then it rained, second one produced 28cm's of snow. I'll certainly take a few of those! I always seem to be so disspointed with northely topplers. This winter I can think that a 3 week pattern will develop more fully, like we've been seeing more of the last two winters, with a easterly-westerly cycle, probably creating endless boring weatherless days. No science or evidance for those remarks, just some applied instinct.

I have often thought about this. Mr Data you point out about the phoney war in 1939-40 winter, so you can't use munitions as evidance, but perhaps it was industrial build up, or something else caused by human activity? If i recall winter 1914-15 was the coldest winter in memory, but would 2 months of conflict before winter started effect the weather, or was it maybe a years buildup of something else?

See for your last link, can u give me the like to the page where i can access that on the GFS runs? Can't speak German and wouldn't know where to look!

Plenty of Light snow about in Glasgow city centre

some heavy wet snow showers in Glasgow city centre

Snow and sleet shows on and off all morning, becoming more frequant and intense in Glasgow city centre.

After some heavy rain and hail there was a brief snow shower and then some sleet for 5 minutes in Glasgow city centre.

2 cm on the ground and still falling moderately in Glasgow city centre