May CET -- Your Forecasts

[damianslaw]

This month's CET is doing something very similiar to Februarys' CET - shooting up at a rapid rate after a very cool start, except unlike Feb, the CET is rocketing at a faster rate in a much shorter timescale. We now look like seeing an above average month, a week ago this seemed unlikely.

[Don]

Since January 2011, apart from last summer and April 2012 we seem to have slipped back into the 1997-2008 period. I think us cold lovers are in for a rough ride over the next few years or more. In fact I have a feeling the next few years will be warmer than the 97-08 period! May has certainly turned out to be a very frustrating month indeed.....

Edited May 26, 2012 by Don

[Backtrack]

I went for 12.5C.

I wonder if I was on the money? The Net Weather tracker is on 11.56C, and there's 3 more days of warmth and sunshine to go for the majority.

[Roger J Smith]

For the last ten days of May, the warmest CET values are:

16.8 (1992)

16.7 (1922)

16.4 (1947)

In 1922, the CET on the 21st was 10.8, and the late warm spell boosted the month to 12.7 ... the other two were both at 12.1 before the late warm spells. Will update this in June with the final data to see how 2012 compares.

[Kentish Man]

Another 0.3C jump today. Hadley is now on 11.5C (May 1 -27).

[TonyH]

I consider a result getting within 1c.

[DAVID SNOW]

I consider a result getting within 1c.

Very true,even net weathers own GP stopped entering months ago, the one person i would like to see taking part is...and still is IMO, the best forecaster on NW. i give you John Holmes.

Come on John, take part .

(for those not sure,this a genuine request)

[damianslaw]

Suspect the finishing figure with downward adjustments will come in the range 11.6-11.8 degrees meaning a slightly above average month but not indicative of the conditions we have experienced, with a cool first two thirds followed by a very warm last third.

It will be the third season in a row with appreciably above average temps, will the summer follow suit? - last time we saw a consecutive 4 season period of above average CET values was I believe back in 2006-2007.

[johnholmes]

Very true,even net weathers own GP stopped entering months ago, the one person i would like to see taking part is...and still is IMO, the best forecaster on NW. i give you John Holmes.

Come on John, take part .

(for those not sure,this a genuine request)

not for me David I've never felt capable of forecasting a month in advance.

[Don]

"Coldest May for 100 years". You have to laugh + all the posters who

jumped on the band wagon. Piers is clueless a fool but he reeled in quite

a few from this forum.

I think that although the coldest May in 100 years was always highly unlikely, this month has fooled a lot of us on here including me in that no one was expecting such a warm final third. Around the 20th, I thought the upper limit of this month would be a shade over 11C. In reality, it's going to be close to 1C higher than that!

Edited May 31, 2012 by Don

[Methuselah]

Tut Tut CC, no need for calling the man a fool.

None whatsoever! Sometimes the irony just rolls off the keyboard...

[Roger J Smith]

That thread was closed so I can't update, but you may recall that I speculated we would see the 35th coldest May in a hundred years which equated to 11.2 ... even that will prove a bit on the cold side, would bet now that we'll see the 50th coldest May or thereabouts. As to nobody foreseeing the warm end to May, probably true in general, but anyone who predicted above 12 must have foreseen something like this, otherwise why go that high? Craig Evans excluded, because his approach is to test out the theory of continuous record warmth although I recall he went as low as 6 in December 2010.

We have seen a number of interesting mid-month reversals in recent months, such as warm to cold in Nov 2010 and May 2011, cold to warm in Feb 2012 and now this past month. There was also quite a contrast from record cold in late August 2011 to record warmth at end of September and start of October. The reversals have been quite abrupt when you compare first and last thirds in the months I mentioned, and in each case have been close to all-time record variations. I think this may indicate that the "modern warm period" however caused is now coming under some stress from a background cooling trend that seems associated mostly with Pacific and solar factors. One could say the Atlantic-European regime is trying to maintain a warm signal against these competing signals. It makes for some very challenging forecast problems, and I suspect there will be more abrupt changes in the next year or two.

[J10]

That thread was closed so I can't update, but you may recall that I speculated we would see the 35th coldest May in a hundred years which equated to 11.2 ... even that will prove a bit on the cold side, would bet now that we'll see the 50th coldest May or thereabouts. As to nobody foreseeing the warm end to May, probably true in general, but anyone who predicted above 12 must have foreseen something like this, otherwise why go that high? Craig Evans excluded, because his approach is to test out the theory of continuous record warmth although I recall he went as low as 6 in December 2010.

We have seen a number of interesting mid-month reversals in recent months, such as warm to cold in Nov 2010 and May 2011, cold to warm in Feb 2012 and now this past month. There was also quite a contrast from record cold in late August 2011 to record warmth at end of September and start of October. The reversals have been quite abrupt when you compare first and last thirds in the months I mentioned, and in each case have been close to all-time record variations. I think this may indicate that the "modern warm period" however caused is now coming under some stress from a background cooling trend that seems associated mostly with Pacific and solar factors. One could say the Atlantic-European regime is trying to maintain a warm signal against these competing signals. It makes for some very challenging forecast problems, and I suspect there will be more abrupt changes in the next year or two.

My forecast was 11.8c, forecast a mild end to offset the cold start, so in general terms I was quite close, which is better than my normal guesses... [bottom half overall] so I'll take it.

[johnholmes]

Now at 12.0 very impressed as was that the temperature was probably higher. If I am right it will be a back of the net result.

forgive me but is it possible to write that again in English please?

to answer Stewfox I am NOT being awkward I genuinely do not understand part of the post I referred to?

Edited May 31, 2012 by johnholmes

[stewfox]

forgive me but is it possible to write that again in English please?

One of the pleasures of this site it attracts people of all ages and back grounds so I don't see a need for that.

Downward adjustment could see me close again re May CET

ps I'm 47 and my teacher always said trying writing English not your own dialect

[BornFromTheVoid]

Looks likely to be 11.7 methinks, based on the finalised data that has been updated so far. Just the 9th and 10th missing.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_mean_2012

[Methuselah]

I never expected my 11.3 to come out too low!

That said, if I'd taken Piers Corbyn's 'forecast' into consideration I'd have gone for about 7!

[Roger J Smith]

From those posted daily data (from BornFromTheVoid's post above) I checked the values for the last ten days, re my earlier post, and this is how 2012 stacks up (tied for second all-time) ...

16.8 (1992)

16.7 (1922 and 2012)

16.4 (1947)

It was running ahead until the last day of the period which was only 14.2 ... the 24th to 28th averaged 18.1 C.

[DAVID SNOW]

Hadley has May at -327.7

Thats one hell of a downward correction

[BornFromTheVoid]

Somewhere in the CET zone must have briefly slipped into another Universe where absolute zero is much lower than here.

Even with a CET lower than physics will allow, we still miss out on snow

[Methuselah]

Hadley has May at -327.7

Thats one hell of a downward correction

[J10]

So CET is confirmed as absolute zero [well -54.55k to absolute zero], results to follow later.

[AderynCoch]

Looks like Piers has had the last laugh after all.

[Relativistic]

What on Earth is going on with Hadley?!

[Roger J Smith]

LOL, of course the strange number comes from their default value for missing data which is -32768 or something like that. The data posted have 9th and 10th missing but if you assume a mean of 10.0 for them (about what was being discussed at that time in the thread), the current posted values would give 11.6 C. In more detail, there are currently 48.4 deg in the bank over 10.0 for the month so that comes out to 11.56, the final value by my reckoning would be 11.6 for any 9th-10th average 9.7 to 11.4, and 11.5 for the month for any plausible value below 9.7 for those two days.