DR Hosking

I will go for a slightly below average 3.8c

would think today wont make an impact on the CET, may even lower it, this fog is very persistant, here we had a low of -0.5c and it is currently stil 0c in this fog, were just on the edge of the cet zone.

Unexpected hard frost and fog this morning, at 8:30 am it was reading -3c in my car.

For me the thing that puts the cold spell into a very cold category is the number of days where the average temperature was below freezing, we had 7 days averaging below freezing, and another averaging just 0.1c This is unheard off in recent history, especially as 4 of the days were in a row. Also the temperature reached -10 on 2 occasions, again this hasent happened for many years. I cant ever remember seeing temperatures of -3 at midday and -6 at 5:30 pm, this happened on a couple of occasions.

Dont really have any figures but the current cold spell was certainly the coldest since 1996/97, may even have been colder, although as others have said 96/97 was pretty snowy too. So far this winter ive had 3 snow events, the coldest december for a decade, the coldest start to January for over a decade and were only half way through, no complaints so far!

Its actually getting colder as the day goes on here, when I came into work it was -1 at 8:30 this morning, now at nearly 11am its -3! The fog has moved in and its getting gloomier by the minute.

Not sure how official this site is, they say they get there figures from Hadley. They say 3.6c for December. http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley...av_temperat.htm

my guess is 3.9c

I agree, when I was a lad in the 70's and 80's -5 would be a regular occurance on cold winter nights and -10 was not unusual, and that was in Surrey only 30 miles outside london. I live in deepest rural Northamtonshire now and you would expect some very cold nights being smack bang in the centre of England almost as far from the coast as you can get, however the coldest temperature reached here since 2002 is -7c the next coldest -6.4 and the next coldest -5.8c. In fact there has only been 5 days with sub -5c temperatures. So nothing like we would get 20 years ago.

Excellent, finished 11th in my first year! That with very little knowledge compared to most on this site! Either im lucky or have a good natural instinct as that is what most of my guesses are based on! Thanks to everyone who workd on the competition and particularly the statistics for the competition, great job!

Hurrah, I won! think thats the second time ive got it spot on this year, 22nd overall, dont like to gloat but thats pretty good considering im no meteorologits, dont understand most of the charts and base most of my guesses on instinct and odds rather than knowledge or charts, im doing better than a fair few of the experienced guys I look up too on this site!

Think I will go for 5.2c may change it on Sunday though!

Was in Central Norfolk this weekend, white out between about 5pm and 10pm on Saturday and then again Sunday morning, there was about 4-5 inches of snow on level ground on Sunday, had great fun with my three year old bulding a nowman. I must be fairly lucky, snow in October at home and now this weekend, my daughter is beginning to think it snows every other week! And its not even winter yet!

looks like there should be plenty of lasting snow after today! http://www.winterhighland.info/testcam/

Firefly, Given the forecast for next week of sub zero temperatures for the highlands, even in the daytime and substancial snow forecast, it looks to me like by this time next week we will have had the first lasting snow and as such could say that these patches have lasted? Or is it too early to count our chickens on that front?

WET!

I will go for 16.3c

Is that an official site though? I know it seems petty but there was a long debate (many pages) on this Forum last year about whether 30c was actually reached officially in 2007, and the conclussion was that it was not reached at a fully official site, it was reached at one or two unofficial sites but these could not be included as an official statistic as they do not meet the requirements for the positioning of the station, I seem to remember that one was on a roof top in an urban area. Anyway just thought I would mention it, Mr Data will have the official stats for last years highest temperature im sure.

I will go for 15.9c please

15.3c please

After 30 seconds of thought I will go for 7.6c

Winter here averaged 5.566c thats 0.7 above average. I actually think this winter has been ok, OK if you want snow then its been a disaster for this area but it was 0.66c colder than last winter. I happen to think that because a winter is mild its not necessarily a disaster in terms of snow, that is more determined by weather patterns. As I said last winter was 0.66c warmer than this and the mildest winter for an age, however last winter was the snowiest here for a decade! we had 3 decent snow events, the best giving us 10 inches of snow. This winter we have had none! On the other hand we have had far more frosts then last winter, I havent counted them up but I reckon this winter has been the frostiest for a while where I live. I assume people on here talking about a frostless January are talking about air frost and not ground frosts? I live in the south yet I had several ground frosts in January and at least one air frost.

6.5c for me please.

Had 4 air frosts and 6 ground frosts here so doing ok considering how mild the month has been, I do live in a frost hollow though.

for no reason other than picking a number out of thin air im going for 10.5c for annual 2008 cet.