Derp Patrol

I may be wrong, I just remember in past years someone posted something that said the 10th was the on average the coldest day in winter, anyhow it doesn't matter too much. I also love the temperature variations you get in March and April under a high pressure system. Waking up with glorious sunshine to a low of just a few degrees C, then an afternoon high in the mid/high teens is one of my favourite parts of Spring.

Yes I understand that we are in the heart of winter, but technically speaking, the coldest day is usually about the 10th or 11th January, and then it starts to (slowly) get warmer again.

It's now January, getting to that time of year when things start to warm up, and nature awakens again. In some past years, February has been more like early Spring here, so I'm definitely starting to look forward to Spring now. What are everyone else's hopes for Spring? Personally I would like a warm spring with plenty of sunshine. There's nothing like sitting on the patio in March in shorts and a T-Shirt.

After a brief cooler day on Thursday, it really looks like a return of mild weather with high pressure to the south bringing in winds from the western quadrant. No chance of any 'big freeze' conditions for the foreseeable as it looks like our weather will be dominated from the west

A pretty good year, with an unremarkable summer and end of winter. Spring was perfect for me - April was just brilliant, temperatures mostly above 20C and for a week we had temps of 25-28C Summer was ok but ended pretty badly as usual. June was decent and we had our highest temperature since 2006 at 33C July and August were pretty average with temps between 22-25C most of the time September and October were great, so close to 30C on the 1st of October I liked the mild November, in fact even recently on Christmas Eve when it was 14C I was out wearing just a T Shirt and it felt pleasant. So all in all, a decent year, but I really hope that 2012 can deliver a great summer. If we can get the same Spring as this year and the same Autumn as this year to go with a great summer, it will be brilliant.

Which is really the only part that should be looked at to make sense of the weather

Well the GFS is still showing atlantic dominated weather throughout. The reliable time frame shows a continuation of average-mild weather which really does not look like changing any time soon. All in all a pretty average winter outlook for the UK

Well it would be nice if certain people didn't nitpick all the time. How am I misleading people when I posted that chart as it shows that temperatures could get up to 14C which is quite noteworthy for January? Generally throughout the run it will be mild - yes cooler at times but only dropping to average which is still mild for most places. And what about all the misleading posts showing the cold charts in FI that will never happen.. of course this thread is cold biased in the winter so It's a lose lose situation, but it would be nice if some people had some perspective rather than constantly looking for cold and ignoring the reality

Another mild and Atlantic dominated run throughout. Mild and cloudy looks like the best bet for a while. High pressure to the south west looks like sticking around for a while yet and we could see some more mild temperatures of about 14-15C

Sorry to burst your bubble, but looking at the charts and the reliable time frame shows mild and a continuation of what we have been seeing. If we went by your post just now, then just about every post in here should be deleted, but because they are ramping cold it will never happen. All of the people forecasting cold in here are showing charts or patterns that are well into FI, which is called FI for a reason. All of these said posts are actually not helping people, not my post which was backed up using charts showing mild weather for the next 10 days at least.

Any changes will not take effect for at least 2 weeks, taking us to the middle of January. Even if we do get a colder spell it will take something special to make it as good as 2010 or other good Januarys. It isn't really that ridiculous a reply for my area. Yes for northern areas anything is possible for a while yet, but after early February we rarely see potent cold snaps down here lasting more than a day or two. Also just to clarify on my earlier post - the models are showing mild weather for the foreseeable. Too many people here are placing their bets on FI and the CFS which will of course throw up dream charts for cold lovers but are not realistic or accurate.

12Z showing high pressure to the south very much in control for the foreseeable with mild atlantic weather the norm for the next 10 days at least. To be honest I can't see a pattern change happening any time soon, any pattern change is always in FI. Time is running out for a cold spell now, from February at least in the southern half of the country it becomes much harder for snow to stay with the strengthening sun and longer days.

April snowfall here is definitely not common. I would say it's probably more common than November here, but November is still rare for snow. Someone above said that they see March as late winter, I definitely see March as Spring here, even the second half of February in recent years. March is the time when a sunny day can start to be warm instead of cold.

It was always going to be likely that we would get a normal winter after the past few cold ones we have had. Like it or not, this is what winter should be like for an Island exposed to prevailing winds from the second largest ocean in the world. Some people seem to think that the averages temperatures in December should be about 2C during the day! In reality they are from 8-10C along the south coast and South East. Personally I do like snow, but it's the days of 4-6C that I just hate. Nothing pleasant about freezing to death in a raw wind when there is no chance of snow. However I would happily take a December 2010 again, even though the chances of that happening again are very low.

Very typical set up for the time of year I'd day.. getting a tad cooler perhaps but it is nice weather, today was sunny and still warm enough to not wear a jumper during the day. Cold weather is nice but i'd rather save it for January/late December. I think people have forgotten that we are in the UK and the past few winters are not the norm for the UK, average November highs are still double figures in November for my area and aren't much lower elsewhere so people expecting ice days already are being a tad optimistic! It is nice to know that we are not too far from the time of year where days will start getting longer again and only 4 months till Spring.. for the meantime though it looks like staying mild for a while yet.

My favourite is of course warm sunshine... but I absolutely hate days of chilly winds and grey coud of 5-10C... it just feels unpleasant and there's no chance of snow so I can't understand why some people can like that! Today was fine for me, 15-18C under grey cloud is ok because at least you can walk outside and feel comfortable in a T shirt even.. it's muc better than the same type of weather but being freezing

What a spell of weather. It's weird we've had our 3 hot spells at funny times, firstly in April when we were touching 30C, and then when we got 33C in June here and now 30C in October... At least the next few days here should still be over 20C, but it is sad that this will be the last very warm day for a while. At least hopefully it will stay mild for the rest of this month, and then it will only be 3 and a half months before we start seeing spring like weather emerging again.

For newer members, I think it's a good lesson to only look up to T+120 to get an impression of what the weather will be like, anything after this time frame is very unreliable and most likely not correct. This is why posts claiming summer is over and that this is the last hot spell of summer will most likely be incorrect. The same people said this a few weeks ago and now the the majority of us have had a very nice week. There are 4 weeks left and as far as I know nobody on earth can forecast with even 50% accuracy that far ahead. As far as the models, go, it looks like a case of 'worse the further north you go' southern areas will hold onto some decent summery weather with temperatures from 20-25C, but unfortunately for the north it looks as though as usual it will be disappointing.

Yes very nice.. 25-30C for the next 5 days and lows of 15-18C.. nothing to complain about really. August I find is normally the best summer month, I don't know why some on here find it to be autumnal?

Just because the 80s was characterised by poor summers it doesn't mean that this is what's 'normal' I see a lot of posts always saying that 80s summers are typical British summers, which is total nonsense. How can you make a claim like that when the 90s were good summers? It's all opinion.

The short term outlook is great.. I can't see why there are so many complaints! warm and sunny for the next 5 days, today is a very nice day, it's clear and sunny and pleasantly warm at 22C, the next few days will get warmer here with 28C being forecast for Tuesday. Anything after 5 days I will ignore for now

Not awful, but not good really either. Last year was a good July but this year was worse

I'm just here to moan about the lack of sunshine, the temperatures are fine at the moment, where you'd expect them to be here in London in late July with 21-25C at the moment, but it's so annoying that there has to be so much cloud cover. That's the only problem I have with the climate of SE England, the summers are warm, but we are still affected with cloud like everywhere else, albeit probably less than most places. If London was actually a much sunnier city then it would be perfect climate wise I think, as we have the warmest summers in the UK and are also prone to very cold winters here.

A much better week in prospect, starting average with 23C tomorrow and the first few days and getting warmer, with enough sunshine

yes definitely agreed. You just need to look in the south east of France north of Nice it's predicting 10C haha, total tosh!