Stratos Ferric

With added interest I'd say. My projections suggest a landing at around 4.3-4.4C now. Tamara, repeating the same canard over and over doesn't make it any less untrue. Coming out with "there are plenty" really just emphasises my point; reproduce one [of the examples othe comments you previously referred to] and I for one will have more sympathy with your protests. Thank heavens the rule of law requires more evidence than the bland say so of someone with an axe to grind and no willingness to concede that perhaps they bear a prejudice. As to my placing benchmarks, I don't think I need to. There were a fair few early this month gloating rather too early about the 'benchmark' falling, and it hasn't - not that you were amongst them of course. These are not idle made up facts, they are there for all to see. Refusing to look at them doesn't make them any less true I'm afraid. I too may find them unpalatable, but wishing that the world were otherwise changes nought.

Perhaps you'll go and find those emphatic assertions and copy them into here Tamara - I certainly have not made any such claim, and I don't recall reading anyone else making them either. To suggest below average cannot happen consecutively would be ludicrous in the extreme. All that I have ever stated is that I believe 3C in a winter calendar month may now be out of reach. One of the more tiresome aspects of N-W is people attempting to gain ground in an argument by stating patent exaggerations of things that might have been said by people. Perhaps it would be a service to everyone if some people took more time to check what actually was said, and if they cannot find concrete proof then to be more careful about their replaying. The risk, otherwise, is that people appear to be attempting to make their own position seem better by the pouring of false scorn on others' argument. Given what you, and one or two others, wrote in this thread around mid month it can appear like sour grapes, which I'm sure isn't your intention. After all, as I believe you have generally tried to point out several times, this whole 3C thing is really an artificial line, and as I also believe you generally argue, it means very little. Quite why, given this latter view, you continue to make argument I do not know. Maybe you're just a contrarian.

Pretty much the same ones that have always been used. When they do switch stations (for example Ringway was traded for Stonyhurst) they run for a few years in parallel, and make some additional back comparison where possible, to enable an adjustment to be made for micro-climatic variation. Just in case you're angling for this being a cause of apparent warming, it would stand out like a sore thumb if the CET suddenly showed a step change, whilst all other UK stations showed no similar movement.

I run a lot, and I am getting older. Many people run, and the fact that running, like weather, lends itself to impericism, allows a lot of detailed statistical analysis to be carried out. One truism, absolutely undeniable, is that as we age we slow - beyond our mid to late twenties - for any given level of fitness. Not to say that I can't run faster next year than I did this, but to do so there would have to be potential left in my tank for my age. I would love to run 6' miles for a 10k race: I have done it for 5 miles, and it would be tempting to extrapolate from there to 6.21, but would I have run the extra 20% as quickly - probably not. Yes, this year's 31 days does indeed suggest that a calendar month could land sub 3C, but my argument is predicated on a BELIEF that we are now teetering at the point where it's hard to achieve in a favourable year; favourable years don't seem to come along very often. SM is right, and I have already said the same thing, maybe the weather will try again next year, or the year after, and perhaps it might succeed. But what IF we wait another fiftenn years, or twenty three years, for a Hale winter; and if in the meantime we warm as much as we have since 1986? However, like it or not, in a warming climate, all other things being equal, there comes a time when certain low end benchmarks become so improbable as to be not worth waiting or hoping for. If I train really hard this year I might get down to 37'12" or so required for the 6' mile equivalent, but if I don't do it this year, irrespective of how close I come, it is possible that next year it might be beyond me. A warming climate with respect to cold weather is rather like an aging body with respect to running speed. Your arguments (Yeti and SM) would be absolutely irrefutable IF we were thirty years back in time, and the climate was not obviously warming, BUT it is warming - whatever the variation in weather, and because we are warming certain outer limits (e.g. the ten year return event, the fifty year return event, the 100 year return event) all move in the same direction as the central trend. In purely statistical terms there comes a point when "nearly" no longer means it might still happen. (Actually, the discussion about 3C might fog the issue for many people because it "feels" too warm to be emotionally or rationally acceptable: so what say 1C? I doubt anyone on here would argue strongly that a 1C month is still possible, and none of the gerrymandering of the numbers that has been used to make a case for 3C would come remortely close to creating 1C for a 31 day period this year. We are currently in a run of 22 years without a sub 1C month: this has been beaten once in CET history, from 1717-39, a run of 23 years; but that sequence included 7 sub 2 months. The current sequence includes just one, and that was 18 years ago. If we're not careful we'll be arguing that freezing months are still possible, and from there we soon reach a point where mathematically we can no longer argue that the climate has warmed. The fact is that, excluding freak events, there are always bounds within which weather falls for the climate; if the climate changes then the ipso facto the weather moves with it). It might seem a silly analogy, but actually it fits well. Say a train operates from A to B twice a day, then the service gets reduced to once a day, then every other day, then once a week, then once a month, then once a year, then once a decade...and so on. Eventually the span between a train arriving is longer than my life expectancy, and the wait for a train - if I don't know the timetable, only the frequency - becomes futile. The point is very simple. When the mean of what is otherwise an almost normally distributed pattern of data starts to increase, the upper and lower limits of the distribution must move in sympathy, and by increments the absolute limits into which all data points fall will also, therefore, move. Within that movement there will be the first time that some upper mark is reached, and the last time that some lower point is hit. The problem is, one never knows the last time something has happened for sure, and the incidence of an outcome close to an assumed limit might well suggest that that limit can be breached, but to argue that it MUST do is incorrect. The fact remains, 3C in a calendar month might still be behind us.

And even more remarkable, for all the fact that those who would rather it weren't true continue to protest, the record book says it hasn't happened. The facts are stark, and this winter makes abundently clear the issue: to get a calendar month (and THAT IS what goes in the record books I'm afraid) sub 3C requires four and more weeks of sustained and unbroken cold, or else intense cold to compenstae for any less cold conditions. People can blather on all they like, I say it every year, and have been doing for several now. It simply doesn't happen any more, and with each year that passes with the situation not having been challenged, it becomes less likely - unless and until the local impact of GW ceases. Since there's no hard evidence for the latter at present I can't see an argument. I live in hope (though I'm not holding my breath) that one day one of the people of the "I quite agree" set will actually stop just writing easy words that, so far as I can evidence are based on no more than personal preference, and will actually produced a fact based argument to show that a sub 3C month might happen. Claiming that we've averaged less than 3C for a longer period doesn't make a compelling case: if it did then perhaps someone will explain why it has NOT converted to a 3C calendar month. Or perhaps, like Benjamin Button applied to the weather, what it shows is that it is now tantalisingly out of reach? I really think it needs to happen in the next 2-3 years, otherwise all we'll be left with is the hope for an occasional extraordinary happening.

I think that's a very good observation Reef. The psychology of weather tends to be both short-term, and hugely biased to outstanding singleton events. Cold asssessment of the facts across a longer timeframe suggests that perception regarding the last two summers in the UK is as much a product of slowly changed expectations as it is actual poor weather. The caveat I'd attach to that is whilst they have been coolish summers, they have also tended to be persistently damp; just as winters seem to be defined in people's mind by snow more than anything else, so I think are summers defined by sunshine.

I've never seen anyone suggest a below average winter was impossible. Given a fair degree of variation in any aspect of weather around the mean in any month, then landing three consecutive months one side of the mean or the other is still going to happen at least once in most years. In a awarming climate the dice is slightly loaded. I like Reef's (I think) analogy of the roll of the dice; where once it was three cold sides and three warm (meaning that the odds on three months of consecutive polarity were around 1/ :lol: , nowadays it's more like a 4-2 bias - and with that the warm tends to be warmer than the cold is cold. That 4-2 split reduces the chances of three colds in succession to around 1/27. Let's be clear, cold side events still happen, and they will happen fairly randomly - as they always have, notwithstanding some reasonably apparent patterns - but they do so with far less frequency and, it seems, less intensity. To this month, the latest scatters continue to suggest a high 3s finish. The CET thread often makes amusing, and sobering, reading; this month's is a classic.

Tamara, the 3C barrier is no more a matter of psychology than is the variation in the boiling point of water with pressure. If mere will power was all that was required to return cold winter months then on the basis of the mindset of many on here we would achieve them in abandon. Like it or not, and you clearly do not, we no longer seem to be returning very cold calendar months here in the UK, particularly in winter. This is not conjecture, hyperbole or hubris, it is a matter of [not so] cold fact.

I'll tell you what Roger, three weeks on the world looks a very different place!

Indeed. From early mid-month 3C started to seem possible, but I have to say that I am more than a little surprised to be sitting here this evening observing that even SM's suggestion that three sub 4C winter months is now far from being a definite. In many ways this turnaround makes a telling example of modern winters. Nobody has ever argued that we cannot still get cold spells - if rarely as severly cold as they used to be, nor as frequent; the 'problem' is that mild is never far away, either temporally, or spatially. Snowray opines that cold was nearby - that has often been the case in the even larger teapot; I grow tired of reflecting that the models either look like evolving projections for cold air further E (indeed, one such discussion was had a week ago when observing the patterns for this month end and whether we could stay under 3C - and look what's happened; the basic synoptic is actualy mor or less there, it's just that the whole pattern has been shifted around 750 miles E), or that that outcome has actually arisen. The observation that cold is nearby betrays the ever present N-W bias, people looking in only one direction. It would be far more presient to point out that though cold might be nearby (to be expected geogrpahically given the massive continent to our E), mild is generally even nearer at hand. ...a minor footnote to the winter; despite this being the coldest winter in 10-20 years (depending on how we assess this), the thirty year rolling mean values for both January and February now reside at all time highs; January this year came in 3.6C higher than the month that it replaces dropping out of the back of the series (Jan 79); February looks like coming in around 2.5C higher. Even when it's cold we still get warmer! Unless we are entering a period of winter cool (I'm not holding my breath) expect those rolling averages to climb steeply now for the next 5-6 years as the cold of the early-mid 80s winters drops out of the long series. Scary. It's funny how the mental frame moves quickly from a perception of a winter of old a couple of weeks ago, to a sense of nothing more than a decent wintry spell. Still too soon to judge the winter overall; as I've said elsewhere, the marker of winters of old was persistence into March - let's see how this year pans out.

Exactly Yeti, exactly. I sympathise with Tamara to one slight extent, and that is that 3C seems to have been been made very absolute. When I first made my post on the matter several years ago, the real point was VERY cold months no longer occur. People can sit on this thread and argue all they like about possibility, but they have turned their back on an ever more compelling set of facts: It is 38 years since 4C was last breached downside in March; the previous longest run without such an outturn was 17 years; the 18 years since 2C was breached in February equals the longest gap in the record; the 22 years since 2.5C was last breached in January is already three years longer than the previous longest interval; only December still stands clear of a record run without marked cold - the current run of 27 years since 2C was breached is still four yesrs shy of the series that ended in 1715. I very much suspect that come 2013 that final marker too will have fallen. Finally, it is now 54 winter months since the last occurrence of a 2C or lower: there is no other period of its like in the CET series. How long do you have to wait for a bus before you start to suspect that, just perhaps, the bus no longer runs?

Maybe by some Tamara, but then some on here will grab any straw that's going. I had an off line discussion with Philip Eden a year or so back, talking about cold and patterns, and he was - I hope this doesn't do his position a disservice - very much tending to a view that if the hale winter didn't deliver then it would be increasingly hard to see where cold winter might come from. He was also very much of the view that Hale was the one pattern in the UL climate that he subscribed to: the driver wasn't apparent, but the pattern was clear. Anyway, given some of your hubris little more than week back, I'm wondering what you're making of the fact that at the current rate of development, the final outcome for the month looks like being not far shy of 4C. As to whether this year or next is the Hale, the pattern in recent years has very definitely been at 23 years. I posted somewhere else the pattern for Hale vs Hale+1; in every case in recent times the following year has been warmer. Let's see what next winter turns up.

Roger, all very sensible, and it might well happen, but the argument seems to have moved on in the past few years. Nowadays the argument is whether we might creep under 3C. Nobody is anywhere, even in this pseudo-retro winter of 2009, even in Tamaraland, striking a blow for sub 2C. As I've always said, and religiously every winter in the on-line age of weather debate, with every passing year in which 3C is not breached the probability of future occurrence diminishes a bit more, given changes generally accepted as going on in our climate. To appease Stu and co, the door may not yet be closed, but it is fast closing. The mathematical conundrum you pose is not so strange. In a cyclical pattern it is possible to shift the average up or down of any given point simply by extending the period over which data is collected. Consider the sequence: 1,1,1,1,1,9,9,9,9,9,1,1,1,1,1,9,9,9,9,9,1,1,1,1,1... Over any period of 30 days the daily average value will be 5, but I can easily move that average either upwards, or downwards, by extending the interval being averaged by specific sets of five days at a time at one end or the other. What I can never do is alter the total average of all the days in the series. The "problem" this winter re the calendar month is that we have not sustained consistent cold, or else the cold has simply not been cold enough to pull the average down below 3C for a specific calendar month. In order to land the 3C average in the calendar month, it must happen otherwise with reasonable frequency for ANY 31 day period. Some of the discussion on here this month has been as if to imply that in previous years it was lucky that the cold coincided with the calendar month, where this year it hasn't. That's a bit like the speeding motorist claiming that he has been unlucky to keep driving quickly where there were speed traps: the reality is that the more I drive quickly, the more likely I am to be caught driving quickly. I suggest that any analysis of years gone by would reveal that not only did 31 day averages of 3C and below occasionally fall within the calendar month, they were also more frequent at any time in winter than they are nowadays. The even larger teapot is slightly less cold, and within that it is less consistently and persistently cold. Not the same as saying we cannot get cold spells, or occasional intense cold, but by slow degrees the margins continue to erode, on average, across the years. I suspect we will breach 3C towards the end of next weekend.

Good post Eye, very measured assessment. Os's challenge is a good one too, because it highlights the difference between outcomes and drivers: there is no firm causality in weather that says that 1+2 always leads to 3. These threads always descend into mild farce. The usual suspects harping on about cold or mild, too often relying on hubris rather than data to continue trotting out partisan points of view. It may be unpopular to some people, but Steve's assessment is bang on, there is little if anything in the FACTS of this winter to suggest that we can ever again get sustained deep cold of the type that we used to get, occasionally, not so long ago. Every year the same people come on carping on about keeping the faith; every year the last concrete image of sustained cold grows smaller in the rear view mirror. If you don't hold that the climate is warming then it's possible to argue that cold winters will return; if you do then it's hard legitimately to hold that view. There are indeed some very notable features in the pattern of temperature over the past few months, and who's to say that this pattern may not continue? Spring and summer will be interesting for sure - in fact there is always interest to be found somewhere in the numbers, that is part of the fascination that that the weather holds for some of us - as we start to encroach on some of last year's low values. The difficulty that we will always face is not being able to play the same meteorological hand at a different table. Who's to say that twenty years ago the drivers we have this winter might not have yielded something more severe? We can never say. All we can look at is absolutes, and for all that this winter is relatively cold by recent comparison, and for sure has sutained general cold across the winter, it has NOT been as cold as benchmark winters of the past. For sure they didn't happen all the time, but when they did the events WERE colder, and whatever level you choose as the 'trap', they occurred more frequently. Facts is facts!

Certainly there's been a long cold run, but if we're going to massage the numbers we need to massage reference periods equally. So, if I were to go see 1979, or 1983, or 1986, I suspect it would be possible to find longer runs that span months that were even lower than the monthly values stated for those periods. To use a silly analogy, say one liked cream but hated sponge, and one was presented with a Victoria sponge cake; there are a few on here who would skim the cream from the cake and then conveniently ignore the presence of all that sponge, before going on to claim a much higher ratio of cream to sponge than was actually the case. Ignore the 3C line, you could draw it wherever you like, the plain fact is that the incidence of sustained cold, CONSISTENTLY below any given level, is now less than it used to be. The basic math dictates that this ought to be the case: you cannot increase an average, all other things being equal, and not touch the outher limits. The other feature of the wintry weather this season has been it's patchiness. It certainly has been more than localised, but it hasn't been consistently extensive and significant.

Very much agree. Oddly enough I recall being with my Dad on his calls in the February of 1978 following the one-off serious storm of that winter in early Feb, the Fri-Sat at the start of half-term I recall. From the bottom of Garrowby Hill (on the A166 between York and Driffield) to the top, a climb of 750' or so onto the Wolds, we went from around 2-3" of snow to a road that had literally been buldozed clear to a single line between the hedges. Apparently it had only opened the day before. Thinking back to my Dad's rota that would have been the Wednesday, so five days to clear, and save for the passage over the Col de la Madeleine last March, the only time in my life I've driven through drifts above the top of the car.

Admittedly there are only ten degrees between freezing and the rough benchmarks I gave, as opposed to sixteen more to the record low, however were one to look at the distribution of minima for any given location then I'd suggest that values lower than -10C are rare indeed. The UKMO will have formal qualitative labels that they attach to temperatures, and this has been discussed on occasion on here somewhere: so far as I recall the most extreme label relative to temperature on any given day is only about 5C wide of the daily average, giving a two tail range of 10C. I haven't check, but I'd reckon certainly 2, and perhaps around 3SDs of data fall within the range, i.e. over 99%. Severe in this case, therefore, is intended to mean "extreme by local standards", rather than absolutely cold. Re snowfall: the two years for which I (fortuitously, as it happens( kept my own detailed stats were 1978 and 1979. In 1978 snow fell on 32 days in NW Leeds from Jan-Apr, I don't have data for December but back then it would have been unlikely for the month to pass snowless. In 78-9 it fell on 62 occasions, every month from November through to May. It lay for 78 days, including as late as the morning of May 4th, and consecutively from December 29th to February 24th. The individual snowfall that I noted included "about 7"" on December 31st; 15" from the blizzard of January 20-21st; 3" on the 28th; 11" from the blizzards on Feb 12-13th, and 5" more on the 15th; and in March, 13" across the 16-17th. There were various odd days of comparatively slight snowfall, but that lot together amounts to around 54" of snowfall. I haven't had 54" in total in the ten winters that I've lived up here at a much higher, and rural (rather than sub-urban) location. I doubt I've even had 2/3rds of that total. For the benefit of those with delicate sensibilities I shall never say never, but let's say that I do not expect to see its like again in my lifetime - and those who saw 1963 said 1979 wasn't a patch, which when you see the archive photos and read the stories is beyond sensible debate.

Impressive stuff Tom. Re many on here posting as if the world only began after 1980 I suspect that it's because, for many on here, it did. In the use of superlatives, and some hyperbole, I tend, therefore, to cut some of our younger posters a bit of slack, and that's importnat in responding to a question like this one. I'm going to hold back with a personal response until we're through March, but right now my take is that it's an impressive winter in any context, and exceptional in the modern series (since 1987). Mr D's stats, although for his own locale only, neatly sum up my own PERCEPTION though. This month is just about at the top table in the recent record, but by no means anything like outstanding or severe. There has been some short lived intense cold, during the second week in January for example, when temperatures widely got down to -10C an lower, but the prevalence of this has been less marked than in some previous extreme spells. There has been periodic snow, but not persistent snow (as happened in 1963 and 1979, say), and that that fell fell heavily in localised patches rather than widely; "heavy" also came in below 12" in all but a few localised instances, and generally I suspect 6" was closer to the mark - personally I'd file under "moderate". We have had cold right through since December, but without any staggeringly cold months; two things drive this - the lack of sustained deep cold, and the occasional mild incursions. My own records for 1979 for example, show that from Jan 1 - Feb 21, 5C was breached on only two days. It was frosty on 30 nights in January, and 27 in February. We then had more heavy snow in March, and cover again in April, and at the start of May! It's too soon to put together a complete post-mortem on the winter; March may provide some interesting footnotes. What we can say is that winter is unlikely to come in as cold as 1995/6 overall (the average that winter was 3.03C, and March came in at 4.5C)

Stu, I think my original post has taken on a life of its own, far beyond the original intent. All I ever did was post a hypothesis - several years ago now; it's there for people to agree with or not. There are one or two who choose to disagree, berate me for this or that, but who never post a robust argument beyond disliking my own style of argument or my own position. I know you took issue with the stats earlier this month - well, post some of your own to make an alternative case. I may be wrong, but I cannot ever remember you making a strong case for the alternative, other than to suggest that my hypothesis was too bold. You suggest the stats are poor, but do not then go on to explain to me, or at least the casual reader, how they might be improved. I say it many times on N-W, this place is full of people who readily knock things down, or who come out with bland statements which boil down to little more than personal preference. My reasoning for saying that sub 3 might well be out of reach was there for all to see and will be in the archives somewhere - if this comes across to you or others as arrogant, then so be it, you read as you choose. Me (or anyone else) stating an opinion no more makes things happen than does King Canute exhorting the sea to retreat. I put these markers down in the same way a bookie lays a finishing score to make betting on a one-sided match more interesting. The broader point, irrespective of whether or not 3C is breached, is that we are unlikely to lower the previous (already raised) low mark of recent winters. If you choose to see this as repositioning then I suggest that you are allowing your personal difference with me to cloud the point. Quite why you, and one or two others, get so het up about this I don't know. It would be very hard indeed for our climate to warm and for this trend not to be the case. Or are you still undecided about whether or not the climate is warming? Style points are well made, and there are one or two contributors to this thread who might do well to reread some of their posts from earlier in the month before taking the critical high ground. There's more than one way to be a boor. The likelihood, as Stu has already said, is that the last week will need to be well below par for 3C to be beaten on the low side. The models persist in something less mild, and have done consistently for a week now, but there has been huge variation in the detail. In any other winter the caution in these situations would be for the cold weather to miss us to the E, in which case we might end up with HP more or less overhead. This, however, has already proven that it's not "any other winter". I still suspect above three, but there is no sound rationale for that other than that I expect this week to come in a tad above the projection, and I doubt that we would then get a full week beyond that averaging only around 2. The 12z certainly won't verify - it's far too messy a chart.

Yeti, that's a very generous post, thank you, and I'm sure that I'm not alone amongst those on here who occasionally attract the ire of others in saying that we're all big enough to know that at the end of the day whatever disagreements we have are nothing but idle sport, however vigorously fought. I doubt that any of us would ever take our bat home, and the thought never crosses my mind for one moment. Your observation re temperatures today is consistent with a point in my narrative. On these westerlies, particularly in the warm sector, if the cloud breaks temperatures can soar. Pershore may well post some markedly higer maxima than suggested by the broad forecast; points E (e.g. Rothamstead) certainly won't be much cooler by day, if they are cooler at all. I suspect that against my baseline there's a bit of upside this week, and that as we saw in January we may end up well clear of the 3C line - before any moderation post the month end. To SM's point, I think that all this week will do is move us to a "last frame decider". I can't see us being far from 3C come next Sunday. Recent form suggests a slow northerly, come late Feb, can stills see max temps rise to 6-7C in the south; all would then hinge on night-time minima The other interesting factor here and now is the speed with which the snow cover has gone from large swathes of the country. The flip from cold to warm has been a bit faster than was factored in. When margins are very tight, on such fractions do major outcome lie. It could still go either side of 3, as you say, though I doubt by very much.

Have you tested the other tail? Do all winters with Canadian warming lead to cold spells hereabouts. If not then we might be looking at a poor correlation wiothin which it is possible to cherry pick - inappropriately - an apparent pattern. It's a bit like me saying that every morning when I go for the train a train comes, therefore my arrival presages that of the train. A more thorough assessment of the facts MIGHT reveal a rather different pattern, onto which I have conveniently alighted. What happens if you leave your fridge door open?

That was always the original rationale for using Phil's data, plus the fact that it makes a nod in the direction of someone who has contributed hugely to the online 'amateur' community.

With a minor caveat - exactly! Micro climate is the caveat, and sometimes that requires presence and experience (though even this can be gained remotely with the right sensing), but seeing as most forecasting occurs at meso scale upwards, this subtlety would be an issue wherever a forecasting body were to be based relative to the area for which a forecast is being given, save for when it sits right in its hinterland.

Ireland has it's own currency (sort of), it's own unique passport, a completely separate legislature. It's like saying France has it's own met office. Hardly a robust argument I'm afraid. As Osmposm says: if the Scots want to fund it, let them have it. I suspect that the start up and operating costs for NO marginal beenfit whatsoever would place it way down the list of priorities, even if we weren't in straitened times.

Here's my mid-month narrative and update. Those who don't like people expressing opinions might be best served by not bothering to read, those who appreciate the effort that goes in - enjoy, or not. Headlines: 3C+ still very much in play - I'd say it's about an evens shout at present, and moving towards slight odds-on territory at present. I very much doubt that from here we will breach the low marks of any recent cold winter months: 1.7C (Feb 91) is gone - short of an asteroid strike. 2.3C (Dec '95) is all but gone. The 2.5's (Feb '95, Jan '96) from other cold even larger teapot months are long-ish odds against a breach, but not yet absolutely out of the question. As somebody nearly said earlier in the month - or at least I think this was the point they were making, it seems that the weather makes a mockery of those who crow too early. A good point well made, and too easily forgotten in the understandable parochial interest that we all take in the CET. It's important NOT to extrapolate from the CET globally. Even in the warmest hemispheric winters there are season long pockets of cold, and within the pattern it becomes ever more likely that for short periods there are more instances of cold, and more intense cold. Do you know Lancia, I agree with you. Off with their heads I say. Perhaps you'll point me towards who these people are with their "wild and unfounded assumptions".