Jonnie G

6th 7th and 8th Feb 2007 all sub zero cet days. December 28th and 29th 2005 were last December ones.

The next ten days should see a conservative CET figure of 2C it could easily be closer to 1C. By the 20th the CET should be close to the December average, and below average for the time of the month, possibly in the 4's.

I remember Jan 84 very well, it was so frustrating to see all the systems giving snowfall after snowfall to Scotland, whereas here in the north midlands it was just loads of rain - that was until about the 20th when a system ran far enough south and gave 8'' of snow, then another the next night gave a further 4''. Several weeks later and long after it had turned mild I remember Ian macaskil commenting 'Eskadalemuir still has 22'' of lying snow' .

I will go for 5.7C please, which would mean 2007 had the lowest range in CET, beating 1974 by 0.1c

Indeed, an utterly pathetic and ridiculous forecast. It's worth commenting that the categories chosen - below average, close to average and above average are terciles, that is, the cut off temperature range defining each category has been selected so that each category has occured with equal frequency in the historical record. I seem to recall reading, that this year they were claiming that the winter season has a 41% chance of falling in the above average category, higher than the long term 33.3%. Even if these are true odds i.e. their forecasting theory is sound, it still implies a 59% chance that the winter season will be either close to average or below average. It would have been far better and less irritating had they simply said that no strong signal has been detected this year.

Why are the average temperature figures quoted so high? Are they daily maximums?

Impossible Roger as 13.996 x 60 = 839.76!

I've just been through the daily CET data, and the lowest daily figures are: -11.9 20/01/1838 -10.8 25/12/1796 -9.3 04/01/1867 -9.2 08/01/1841 -8.9 10/01/1823 and 25/01/1795 -8.8 09/02/1816 I guess this pretty much answers the question of best time of year for cold synoptics. It's from aorund Christmas day until the second week of February. The most recent low one was -8.5 on 12/12/1981.

I guess it snowed pretty hard in South Wales that day?

Another nice looking chart, but the 850's aren't that low:- here The '79 event had really low 850's:- here Just spotted how cold Newfoundland and quebec were that day!

Yes its one hell of a chart. The other comparably huge snowfall here in the East Midlands in my time was the 8th of December 1990. Around 12 to 15 inches of fairly level snow fell, but the 1979 event had very strong winds combined with low temperatures which caused the snow to form amazing structures of a scale comparable to the surrounding buildings. It was one bleak day.

For me (also born 67) I would have to say February 1979 was the greatest winter month of my life, mainly due to the extraordinary blizzard of the 15th, which kept us sledging until early April. You know it's serious when there's a snow drift in your living room!

February 1986 had six sub zero maxima in the CET record. I'm sure many of these were sunny days - low maxima easily achieved in February if the air mass is cold enough and especially with a snow cover. As recently as 02/02/2006 the maximum temperature in the CET record is -0.4, and this without a snow cover or fog.

I've just been through the daily CET data, and the lowest daily figures are: -11.9 20/01/1838 -10.8 25/12/1796 -9.3 04/01/1867 -9.2 08/01/1841 -8.9 10/01/1823 -8.8 09/02/1816 The most recent low one was -8.5 on 12/12/1981.

It's okay Roger, I was being stupid. Just spotted the format link next to the data link.

Very good point about the wild card factor Roger. Perhaps the sea ice will decide to extend itself much further than usual on the European side of the arctic, although I somehow dought it.

Roger, I have found some daily CET data at hadobs.metoffice.com site. Is this where you found the daily data? Call me stupid, but the data is in an array, and I can't see how to interpret it.

In actual fact clear skies are not necessary for an inversion to develop. One of the most bizzare weather phenomena I've ever seen here in the East midlands was the inversion of early February 2006 under a cloudy high. The temperature began to fall late morning and just continued to fall for about 3 hours. By mid afternoon the temperature had fallen to -1 having been at +2 in late morning, and all under a cloud cover. What's more, the forecast temperatures bore no resemblance to what happened - I think 6 or 7 degrees was predicted, with 850's at close to 10 degrees making cairngorm summit the warmest spot in the UK. Of course the event was discussed on this forum at the time but I never understood how it could have happened as it did.