What Are Your 'gut Feelings' Of The Winter?

[leicsnow]

This has been on my mind lately and I have heard people say how they just think it will be mild over the winter, or cold in a certain month etc. I personally don't know what to think and was curious as to others' thoughts ('gut feeling' wise)?

[PMPhotography]

Gut feeling? .... Not good. don't know why but I think we'll be chasing cold and it'll be over before we know it!

[Summer Sun]

A mild winter nothing like December 2010.

[Cheese Rice]

Lol I hate peoples 'gut feeling' like when they do a long drawn out written forecast only to be followed by 'this is my gut feeling', 'it doesn't feel like other winters', 'I feel it in my bones', 'Theres something in the air' the list goes on...

[TEITS]

My gut feeling is we shall see a continuation of what we have already seen this month. However I feel we will experience one outbreak of E,lys during Jan or Feb but not to the severity of Jan 87 or Feb 91. I feel something like the E,ly of Dec 05.

[Backtrack]

I feel like a mild winter similar to Gavin. Although then my forecast would be wrong, it's been bang on so far.

So bring on the cold in January.

[Dorsetbred]

My gut feeling is we shall see a continuation of what we have already seen this month, which for the south coast is M I L D & wet.

[snow raven]

My gut feeling is that it will be a great big fat disapointment :lol:

[KTtom]

Got to agree with snow raven, everyone is hanging onto every word which GP types as well as any signs of a slight warning some 450 miles in the sky as a pre-curser to a possible frost, however my gut feeling is we'll still be saying 'the PV shows signs of slowing down' come the end of April! ..........Mild!

[Kentish Man]

My gut feeling is February will be the coldest month. Mild continuing to mid January at least, maybe later

[SnowObsessor90]

Gut feeling is that mainly see mild and wet conditions from this point onward's with the odd possible minor cold blip thrown like we've just had in February. So mild/ just above average overall really.

Nothing like we saw in last two winters, just more of what we had come to expect before then really.

[Gord]

You see, after spending January and February chasing cold spells that never happened last year, I was wondering if it set the tone for this winter. It kind of has and hasn't so far and so many places did quite well out of what could have been a poor set up, (here was not one of those places by the way!).

However, I do think that there will be a cold spell at some point over the next two months. Porblem I'm having is that many times in mild winters, we've come so close to getting a cold spell, (anyone still got the scars from 2001?) So far this winter...we're not even close to getting one. There's been no, 'if only it was 100 miles further west' or 'lets the move the UK 100 miles north', it really has been obvious that we are nowhere near this time around.

For someone like me who has a lot of learning to do, that makes it difficult. For my gut reactions, I can't decide between, 'That means that we must be stuck in this pattern for a long time' or 'That means that there is going to be a dramatic change that no-one saw'.

Now, if I then applied common sense, I would think, 'There's still a lot of winter left so there may be a slow evoluton towardes something cold eventually'.

So for my updated winter forecast, I'm going for a 93% chance of knee-jerk reactions which leaves me with a 7% chance of common sense!

[Rollo]

My feelings are that most on this thread are somewhat depressed given the standard the last two winters set. All the gut feelings in the world will not change the current pattern overnight but with the likes of GP on this site and his great input all is certainly not lost-be patient.

[Don]

Had it been this time three years ago my gut feeling with the current state of the atmosphere would be that the rest of the Winter would be mild or very mild overall. However, after the last three years I'm not so sure. I've tried not to get my hopes up about this Winter and going by what the models have been showing during the last few days has given me cause for concern. As ever plenty of time for major changes. If there's no improvement though come early January with a continued zonal outlook, then there's a good chance that Winter 2011/12 will go down as rather mild although not necessarily a stinker. Something similar perhaps to Winter 2004/05 when the cold synoptics arrived too late in mid Feb, which after the last three would certainly seem pretty poor!

[leicsnow]

Had it been this time three years ago my gut feeling with the current state of the atmosphere would be that the rest of the Winter would be mild or very mild overall. However, after the last three years I'm not so sure. I've tried not to get my hopes up about this Winter and going by what the models have been showing during the last few days has given me cause for concern. As ever plenty of time for major changes. If there's no improvement though come early January with a continued zonal outlook, then there's a good chance that Winter 2011/12 will go down as rather mild although not necessarily a stinker. Something similar perhaps to Winter 2004/05 when the cold synoptics arrived too late in mid Feb, which after the last three would certainly seem pretty poor!

And while people are currently saying "The past three winters have shown us that the weather in the UK is still capable of bringing up widespread, sustained cold and snowfall.", unfortunately we may soon be saying "This winter has shown us that the last few winters is not a new trend of colder winters similar to those seen years ago."

[Aaron]

My gut feeling is never to take any notice of peoples gut feelings as they have no factual base and are therefore useless.

And while people are currently saying "The past three winters have shown us that the weather in the UK is still capable of bringing up widespread, sustained cold and snowfall.", unfortunately we may soon be saying "This winter has shown us that the last few winters is not a new trend of colder winters similar to those seen years ago."

Or maybe we could be saying 'this winter has proven that the UK is not a subarctic island, but a maritime island in the Atlantic, and we should not expect sub-zero CET from every winter'

There is going to be so much wrist-slashing over the coming 2 months because December 2010 has not made an appearance in the form of January or February, so I hope I will not be around as it will make using this forum quite impossible!

[Isolated Frost]

I agree Aaron.

My gut feelings are that this thread is another winter prediction thread and should be locked, especially when we already have a winter discussion- too many threads dilute the discussion.

[leicsnow]

The reason I started this thread was because if I asked what people's 'gut feelings' were in the winter discussion topic, I would just get ignored.

[mandi35]

winter this year will prob be up and down like a yoyo as long as we get some snow in jan and feb should be fun

[Kentish Man]

The reason I started this thread was because if I asked what people's 'gut feelings' were in the winter discussion topic, I would just get ignored.

Agreed - unscientific hunches or gut feelings are a perfectly valid topic for a separate thread imo.

[Essan]

"...we will see some cold and perhaps snowy weather, most likely in December and January, but that for most people it will be nowhere near as harsh as last winter. We could see more milder, stormier, conditions at times as well. In other words, a normal mix of normal weather. Though like last year I also suspect we'll see an early spring set in in February"

http://weatherearthnews.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html

[Andy_]

I'd say get ready for an exciting January and February of weather, a mix of everything This upcoming mild period is the calm before the main event i say...

All change in 2012... Say goodbye to a tedious year of 2011 weather!

[I remember Atlantic 252]

Ian Brown certainly right, looks like no snow for at least 6 weeks here, as Ian says, this takes some shifting, but hopefully it will be mostly dry, high pressure dominating for the whole of Jan to the S and SE, most likely

[A Winter's Tale]

I'm still going for a significant cold spell later in the winter. However if the factors contributing to a colder second half fail, then my gut feeling would be:

NORTH: To benefit from a handful of topplers which shall bring some snow showers. Other wise, a mixture of mild and cool with some rain. SLIGHTLY BELOW AVERAGE

WEST: To do well from some brief NWlys. Otherwise, pretty wet and windy with predominatly mild-cool conditions. AVERAGE

EAST: May benefit from a few northerlys and maybe a lone easterly. Otherwise, drier and cool. SLIGHTLY ABOVE AVERAGE

SOUTH: Will struggle to get any cold or snow with polar maritimes failing to go south. ABOVE AVERAGE

So basically if our cold spell doesn't happen, the I'd expect the northern half to benefit from a few more snowfalls and some days of lying snow (particulary Cumbria Northwards). South of Manchester, well I feel that perhaps the north midlands may see one or two snowfalls. South of that then I'd expect no snow whatsoever and in the SW and SE I'll expect that there'll be very little cold at all with frosts becoming a rarety.

But anyway, that's the scenario if my gut feeling Northern Blocking fails to happen.

[BARRY]

I'd say get ready for an exciting January and February of weather, a mix of everything This upcoming mild period is the calm before the main event i say...

All change in 2012... Say goodbye to a tedious year of 2011 weather!

that's my feeling as well, i think the **** gonna hit the fan in 2012