Gavin P

Very unsettled, mild month. Frequent areas of low pressure giving wet amd windy conditions. One spell of fine and warm weather, sometime around the 15th-21st, but otherwise a low pressure dominated month. CET; 14.2 Rainfall; 180% Sunshine; 80% I may move the CET up or down a bit, before September 1st.

Kev, I realise 1906 had that tremendous heatwave in the first day or so, but still came out with a CET under 14c. However, 1906 was a long time ago, and what I'm basing my prediction on, that an early September heatwave would give us a CET above 14c, is whats been going on in recent years. Personally I'd like a September like 92, 93, 94 or 95 - Just for the novelty factor.

What would we need to get a sub 10c yearly CET?

The important thing will be whether we see any crazy heat in the opening week or so of the month. I anticipate a fairly warm month, probably in the low to mid 14's, but without any crazy hot days, and by crazy hot I'm talking 27c+ Of course if we have a crazy heatwave early on, it'll be a good deal higher than low to mid 14's!

What you have to remember about SST's, is that it not as simple as saying; Negative anomolies lead to cold weather and positive anomolies lead to warm weather. Whats absolutely critical is where these anomolies are. If you want a cold winter, warm waters south of Greenland are actually good news, as long as you have cold anomolies around New Foundland and the Eastern Seaboard of the US. So, even if the whole of the Atlantic was cooler than average, it wouldn't be a guarentee of colder weather.

Stratos Feric, the last run of continuous below average months was 1993 (July to November) I'm looking more at 1998, than 1993, for a match to whats going to happen through the autumn, though.

Agreed. Its looking a very average month now.

Not that sure but at the moment I'm looking at a wet and mild September, a very wet and cold October and a cold and dry-ish November. VERY differant autumn to what we've seen over the last couple of years.

Perhaps Philip Eden's on holiday?

By horrid I take it you mean mild and zonal? Like the La Nina winters of 88/89, 98/99 and 99/00?

Yeah, low 17's is my best guess now.

I find UCL are generally pretty good at picking up the correct signal, i.e. whether the NAO will be positive, negative or neutral, but they are less good at picking up extreme's. For instance, last winter they went weakly positive, and as we know, it was very positive.

Or maybe it'll just show that we have a very warm final week, to neagte the warm days and cool nights that have off-set one another through the first three weeks of August?

UCL NAO Forecast for winter 2007/2008. (You will need Adobe Reader) http://climate.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/docs/NAO2007-8Forecast.pdf Going for a slightly negative NAO, with a higher probability for a colder than average winter, with average precipitation in North-West Europe. Previous NAO forecasts and verifications, going back to 1999/2000, can be found here; http://forecast.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/for_nao.html

Well, of course Ian, you have to look at the overall warming trend and even though its a Hale Winter, the warming trend would mitigate the cold to some degree. These days, I think a winter like 95-96 would probably be about the best we can hope for and with the warming trend would probably be comparable with 1985. A winter like 1979 would be comparable these days with 1963 and I can't really see anything like that happening right now. So, something like 95-96 would be a pretty realistic winter to aim for at best, IMO. Of course all of this about the Hale Cycle might just be another in a long list of red herrings.

I would imagine that right around now the Met are getting very nervous that they have may have failed to forecast Englands first colder than average summer for 9 years.

Theres a little bit of information about the Hale Cycle contained in this paprer that Terry Scholey wrote a couple of years ago; http://www.binghamheritage.org.uk/history/...ams_weather.htm For anybody interested.

I should also point out that according to Terry Scholey before a cold Hale winter, you often find a "warning" takes place, where-by you can get some individually cold and wet months, which act as a warning of whats coming. I've never looked into this to see how true it is, though.

The "Hale Cycle" is a 22/23 year solar cycle that appears to coincide with cold or even severe winters in the UK. So, lets start from 1895; 1895 1917 1940 1963 1985 2008????? Obviously you shouldn't read too much into this, but just keep an eye out over the next few months for what happens.

2007/2008 will be a Hale Winter. Philip Eden also pointed out a few years back, how 2007/2008 had a higher probability of being cold, than most winters in the christmas pudding. Infact, in his 1st January 2000 column I believe he joked it could be the last severe winter of the third millennium? Anyway, being a Hale Winter, this is probably where Bill Giles got his idea's from? As for the November chart, it certainly looks good, but just remember the saying; Ice to bear a duck, there will be nothing left but slush and muck.... Very wet and reasonably mild would do me for November.

It did hit 30c, but NOT at an official Met Office station, which means that the record books will say NON, unless theres a footnote.

I'll wait and see how this weeks relatively low minima effect things, and see what the situation is around August 15th, before I throw in the towel on my CET prediction.

Yes SB, I'm expecting a cooler autumn than in recent years, but nothing as extreme as you've got there!

Its really too early to be second guessing whats going to happen. You have to remember that as August goes along, the potential for cooler minimum's increase's substantially, as nights rapidly start to draw in. Going off the GFS ensembles, we shouldn't be too far from average by the 15th, IMO.

Yeah, if August comes in under par, then we can kiss good bye to an 11c CET year, IMO.