Don

Yes, I remember the last 10 days of November 1990 being cold after a mild first half. It seemed quite similar to 2005 to a certain degree and I remember South Wales having quite a bit of snow around the 24th.

I also think that December could well be colder than average this year. I feel that it could be the coldest month of the Winter and that we have the winteriest weather earlier on this year, rather than during the 2nd half of February as has been the general trend of the last 5 years. My thoughts are based on the possible moderate to strong La Nina developing. We shall see.

There's a surprise! :blush:

I suspect it would have been in 1993 due to the fact it was a cold month, whereas November 1994 was the mildest November on record! I know it snowed around the 19/20th November 1993 when London and the South East were affected. :lol:

Certainly a very cold Winter by todays standard. It was the same overall temperature wise as 1990/91.

Oh dear...that dreaded 1988 seems to be haunting us a bit at the moment. Christmas Daffodils anyone? :lol:

This Haloween will be a far cry from 1934 then!

Didn't realise it was that high!

Well, October looks like finishing at 11C. Slightly above average, but still a full 2C lower than the last two Octobers. If November follows suit, we will be looking at an Autumn very close to average temperature wise. :lol:

Doesn't look good for a cold frosty Bonfire night then?

Thanks for that Paul.

I certainly remember October and November 1993 being very cold. I think it was around the 20th November where a large group of us did an overnight hike and we were in the middle of that cold north easterly blast and it was very icy and snowing on and off too. We had to camp afterwards and I tell you it was flippin cold!

Just out of interest, Paul. In the forecast where the differences for temperature and precipitation are, there is now less detail than what there was last month. This isn't a criticism in any way, just interested to know why this part has changed slightly? I know the full detail is available in NW Extra. :lol:

I'm not sure that I'd expect too much decent 'old' style cold even if ENSO was neutral, given our current climate!

Obviously those CFS charts are very much F.I. but they have consistently pointed towards a cold Spring for some time now, much like they have been consistent with the coming Winter months. They're bound to change, but it looks like a trend could be emerging.

Well done Netweather. I like the format with the added discussion I fully agree with what others have said about not being able to go into too much detail with LRF's so I won't go into my reasons here as it will just be repeating what others have said. Detailed and sensational LRF's may make an interesting read, but at the end of the day, realistically you can only go by probabilities. I also believe it's a good idea to update LRF's regularly. I know some forecasters like to stick with their original forecast right through to the end of the season and then analyse the accuracy, but at the end of the day inevitably things will change, and this needs to be reflected in the forecast.

Who would have thought this possible at the end of April?!

No. It's too late in the month to have that much of an impact on the overall CET. It may push it up a touch, but not a lot. I think a CET of around 11 looks pretty good now.

Well, I don't see anything wrong with the Met Office long range forecast either. You can't go any further at this stage than mere probabilities and I think that it will be many years if ever that we will. They accurately predicted the last two Winter's and I think they'll do well with this one too, although I hope it will be colder than they expect! :lol:

The forecast is exactly what I expected. This Winter is unlikely to be any great shakes, but may provide some interest at times. Could be likely that December will be the coldest month of Winter like it was often during the 90's.

Indeed, the last 10 years have certainly been exceptional. However, I don't feel that we've warmed that much to say at this stage it's unlikely that we will go below 10. I do think though that it's unlikely that we will go below 9.5 and highly unlikely to go below 9 at the moment.

Well, I think my comment regarding the overall CET finishing around the 12 mark last night could be somewhat off the mark now, with the CET probably taking more of a dip than I expected!

Well, colder than expected in Woking last night and had to scrape the windscreen this morning!

I think it's very unlikely that the CET this month will come in lower than my original estimate of 11.4C. I think we could see the final figure come in around the 12 mark.