Optimus Prime

Fantastic debate in here today and good energy. That's emphatically a great chart to wind up autumn and prelude to December.

Though slightly ironic that you are using that same long-range forecasting as an example of people looking too far ahead?

The frigid air mass sitting strong anomalously over Siberia/mid Russia and northern Kazakhstan really starting to intensify and spread south now; This will help start to extend the snow cover south and west I feel. If the current models are correct, that cold and snow could spread far wester into northern and western Europe in the weeks to come.

-19.0°c at some frost hollow in Scotland no doubt.

Antarctica would be the last place on earth to feel the affects of anthropogenic GW...

I think people just like to look for emerging patterns and links when often there isn't one. In reality, the storm of 1987 would have had no impact on the climate, not even at a local scale. It was mostly a just coincidence that it came before a spike in global temperature. Christmas was very mild but the first half was of December '87 was cold.

Only short-lived periods of mild weather expected. Perhaps 1:3 Mild to cold. 5.3°c and the coldest for 9 years.

Fairly recently we had a December to remember (hint; not 2015) perhaps it's time for a November to remember?

Best' Tied 1st 2009-10 & 2010-11 2nd 1986-1987 3rd 1990-1991 4th 1995-1996 5th 2012-2013 Worst 1st 2015-2016 2nd 2013-2014 3rd 1997-1998 4th 1987-1988 5th 2006-2007

Looks like a very warm one to me. Starting to close in on potentially the warmest year on record. 16.0°c

Anthroprogenic warming has been occurring since the 1960's in terms of a subtle background forcing. It's actually probable that human activity was having an impact before the 1960's. Natural cooling during these years was sufficient enough to dilute out a great deal of the warming produced from humans.

Lets go with 19.3°c

16.3°c

Warmer than December 2015...lol

12.2°c

Probably going to finish on 9.7°c after adjustments. Some regional variation where the south will have the highest anomaly again (possibly over 2.0°c) whereas the north will probably be within 1.0°c of the 71-2000 average.

9.6°c

Today, another set of model runs, another set of changes. Tomorrow, a different set of model runs, a different set of changes. Don't need to have a mind that's capable of cracking string theory down to 4 dimensions to realise things are looking far from certain, as usual.

It's a fine comparison. Different type of pattern obviously but have a look at the chart posted by SS? and where is the 0°c isotherm in 2000? It's barely over Luton at the time of the wet snow (nearly 10cm fell) I guess my point was, we're using one aspect to make a statement like 'no snow away from the highest ground' which is obviously not true. Based entirely on on those atmospheric temperatures, Sleet could fall quite widely there and snow would be found relatively low down (200-300m roughly)

Luton airport wasn't closed as a result of this then?

In all fairness you might be right but it's the reductionist view that can sometimes come across as frustrating. A proportion of people seem to just stare at the 850's and produce a forecast based solely on those, when in actuality, there are a number of other variables (some of which are more important) when it comes to forecasting and marginalising precipitation type. Like all analytical science, forecasting requires an holistic approach. Looking at the wider picture, I don't think we need to worry about temperatures for snowfall. As a shower passes over it will fall as snow, pretty much nationwide. It's the dry periods and sunshine between the snow showers that may reduce/prevent the snow building up. At night snow will probably fall everywhere and settle.

Have our judgements all of a sudden been clouded by one cold March? Perhaps we need reminding how exceptionally warm the last one was...

Going by the ECM Saturday is looking very cold for the time of year Temperatures will be barely above freezing for many.

Atmospheric temperature anomaly profile for Saturday Certainly looking like some exceptionally cold air coming our way. 10°c - 12°c below normal.

We still haven't learnt, have we?