The story so far for Britain is mild
The first half of the winter has been characterised by mild and often changeable conditions with very little frost and snow overall. The exception to this was just before Christmas when high pressure built across the country bringing much drier and in places colder weather with overnight frosts for several days. Despite this spell of colder weather the month still ended up being about 2C warmer than the 1961-90 average for December which is 4.6C. So in summary it was a mild month! The daily temperature plot below for December shows how mild things were!

Unsettled, mild and at times stormy weather returned for the New Year and this set the theme for the first half of January. Temperatures have remained well above the seasonal average and little snow has fallen across the UK. In the last 15 years or so January snow has become increasingly rare and the first half of the month followed this theme. Our daily central England temperature plot for the first half of January can be seen below.

Europe has also been mild
It’s not just Britain which has been mild. Much of the northern hemisphere has been warmer than average so far and the vast majority of Europe has been very mild with even Moscow in Russia remaining above 0c for much of the time! Many ski resorts in the Alps have had a poor start to the season with above average temperatures and below average snowfall.

So what about the rest of winter?
The TWO winter forecast issued at the end of November 2006 is still online here and we think it has progressed quite well so do not see any need to update it. The pattern of recent winters in the UK has been for colder conditions to develop during the second half of the winter and again we expect there will be some colder weather during the second half of January and for a time in February. However, we don’t expect prolonged cold spells to develop and snow in southern areas may well be in short supply once again. Overall our view is that the second half of winter will be colder than the first half, but that on balance it is still likely to be milder than the 1961 – 90 average.

Overview
The autumn forecast we issued took into account historic weather patterns to give an indication of what may happen this year. When this was produced we took the results further forward to see what it suggested would happen this winter. A couple of caveats are needed at this point! Firstly, as ever remember that all long range forecasts for this part of the world tend to be inaccurate. Secondly, this is not our winter forecast, as this will be issued in November and will take into account the autumn weather that actually does develop. Given these considerations, let’s take a quick look at what our initial thoughts on the coming winter are.

December
Here there was no bias towards cold, average or mild conditions. In other words, any of these outcomes are equally possible using our approach.

January
The bias here was towards cold and stormy conditions with heavy snowfall likely in northern areas, and possibly further south on occasion. Overall bias was towards Central England Temperatures falling 2C below the seasonal average. Here is an example of the synoptic set up which was suggested.

February
The bias here was towards settled and blocked conditions. The problem here is that a slight change in the orientation of a high pressure cell can make the difference between very cold or very mild conditions. However, the most likely outcome according to our initial thoughts is for a mild or very mild southerly air flow to become established across the UK. There would be a moderate possibility of cooler or colder conditions filtering into the south east at time. Here are a couple of examples of the sort of synoptic set up which could develop.