Scorcher

Yes we compete well with places in the south in a direct southerly like that. Yesterday was held back here by cloud cover, which was fairly substantial during the morning.

27C in 2011- not sure of the exact figure as the local station Rostherne that I use for the observations wasn't operating in 2011. It certainly exceeded 27.0C on the 1st in 2011.

21.3C in Manchester yesterday. Although not as warm as it was looking a few days ago, it's still the highest October temp here since October 10th 2018 so not insignificant.

I don't think it's common by mid October at all for most of England. In fact in this part of the country we don't record a single figure maximum at all in the vast majority Octobers. In the last decade here, only two Octobers have recorded single figure maxes and all of the days were well into the 2nd half of the month.

No point talking any sense to him as there's no chance of him taking it on board. Some people will play anything warm down- even a historic 10 day September hot spell!

I disagree with a lot of this. The GFS has backed down on its idea of the colder air penetrating as far south as Yorkshire for Saturday, which it showed early yesterday. 20C+ north of the Midlands in October is not something just be to brushed off- it certainly doesn't happen every year. It looks like we will have at least 3 days over 20C here and Sunday looks slightly warmer again now. A northerly is by no means certain either- the ECM shows how we could almost completely avoid one or at least a brief and not particularly potent one.

The Met Office aren't having those extreme temps the GFS is showing for Scotland though- nowhere near. Looks like it could be wet up there on Saturday but even places like Inverness will still reach double figures according to the Met Office.

There's no way the ECM is wrong less than 48 hours out. What is going on with the GFS seriously? The ECM shows the 16C isotherm over my area, compared to barely 13C for the GFS (which was an increase on the 06Z run).

It's only really the GFS though that's so aggressive with the colder air penetrating south. It's more of a knife-edge than it was looking a couple of days ago but I think it will correct north again enough to allow most of England a warm to very warm day on Saturday. You're probably slightly more vulnerable to the cooler air in the east than we are in the west, if things end up as close as the GFS has been suggesting. Slightly frustrating that what looked like a historic day with the 850 hPa temps has been watered down a bit so close to the time.

If this warm spell does collapse it will be by far the latest flip I've ever seen in the models with regard to a warm spell. I must say I'm concerned now the GFS has stuck to its guns with the 06Z run for Saturday. The warmth is still nailed on for the south although I'm now more concerned we may miss out here.

One of the models is going to be seriously wrong- I'm almost certain it will be the GFS. I'm thinking it's an extreme outlier- but it's something you'd never expect 48 hours out. A really bizarre turn of events.

Is anyone seriously backing the GFS to be correct for the weekend? It's been all over the place this week. The ECM still looks rock solid in terms of the very warm air being widespread. Crazy that the GFS still can't nail the details for Saturday when it's only 48 hrs away now. Not sure I've ever seen such a late shift

Quite a few places on the continent last December/January that are virtually on the same latitude as the UK reached 20C.

Not an outlier but the op and the control are firmly on the lower end and among the coldest. A good chance of a cold spell not happening at all. Plenty of lines above the long term mean still.

Completely disagree with this. 20C could easily have been reached in late December/early January last year if we'd tapped into the exceptional warmth that Central and Eastern Europe experienced. Places in Germany that had never recorded 20C in winter before exceeded it and Warsaw smashed its all-time January record by 5.1C- recording 18.9C. Some meteorologists thought it was the most remarkable warm spell ever at any time of year. I remarked at the time that if the warmth had been further north and we'd had those sorts of uppers over the UK, places like North Wales, parts of Scotland and even eastern England would have been close to or exceeded 20C.

December 2001 really stands out for me. Lots of crystal clear blue skies and temps in low single figures. I was young but I distinctly remember thinking this must be what continental winters are like.

Doesn't look likely going by the ECM ensembles above. Most stay above the long term mean. In any case it wouldn't be like winter this early in the month. It's the last third of the month when single figure maxes become possible.

You'll have to hope he predicts the mildest on record if you want a cold one!

The fact you've posted probably means it will be an absolute scorcher now. Last time you predicted the historic September hot spell would be 'blink and you'll miss it' away from the south. We ended up having 10 days of it up here. That's also a Met Office automated forecast which are notoriously too low with temps. Expect those to rise as the weekend gets closer.

Saturday looking hugely disappointing here if those charts are correct. I hope they're way off the mark as 20C seems very low in such a setup, even in October.

I'm taking it the GFS is having another wobble? It's been all over the place for the weekend while the ECM has barely shifted at all.

They're not shaking about a warm up- it's definitely going to get a lot warmer as we move towards the weekend.

Rostherne reached 20.4C on Sunday 24th and is the official site for the area. Also 19.7C on the 26th and 19.0C on Friday. Personally I don't think that's really autumnal. There were a lot of days cooler than that in July this year. Light-wise it's very autumnal now of course with the days rapidly shortening. Trees are slowly changing yes but I noticed some were changing colour at the end of August this year.

Depends how you define autumnal- at Rostherne almost every day in September was above average- even in the 2nd half. Very few nights in single figures.

It's inevitable a cool down will come at some point next week. It will be interesting to see if the warmth can be extended though into Tuesday and perhaps slightly beyond. The GFS has hinted at this possibility in its latest run.