[Lomond Snowstorm's Winter Forecast 2012/13]

nicely composed LS, I'd be happy enough if your forecast comes to even 50% of all that cold potential. Here we go again eh !

[Lomond Snowstorm's 2011/12 Winter Forecast]

Thanks LS, always appreciate your take on things given your decent local track record on short and medium term forecasts.

I suspect a lot of punters had been expecting the "same again" as if the last 2 winters had set a new pattern of early and well-established cold. I'd actually kidded myself into it as well ... maybe it was a "new paradigm". OK its not panning out... However like you (except I'm not doing the work on it !) if we allow ourselves to make a few assumptions then it wouldn't be surprsing to see a cold pattern set-up - and remain - later in the winter. The story of the past year seems to be based partly on such patterns establishing and sticking ... even if that means the last few weeks haven't been wintry, they have at least shown long-running consistency of type.

On that basis alone the "cold-second half" hypothesis seems emminently plausible. I'm not heavily invested though if it doesn't pan out at all. The last 2 winters in particular were a sharp reminder that cold and snow are NOT a thing of the past. And I'm glad we experienced them ... very memorable events. But equally it doesn't mean I expect or need them every year. Anyway all part of the fun and will be watching keenly to see if yours and netweather's end up with similar cold outcomes. Cheers for doing it !