CFS is increasingly going for a typical stormy and wet winter... this is Feb:

brian - that was a strange thing to post. the strat thread on NW has been fairly realistic re trop developments as a consequence of strat ones. most idea around any cold around early dec were re the westward movement of the siberian high. what did the failure that have to do with the strat ??

Here is some more pattern matching.

The  high autumn temperatures mean we have had three consecutive seasons that  were very warm.

This is highly unusual.In the preceding 141 years there were only four other years that achieved this.They were 1959,1997,2004 and 2005.FWIW the CET anomalies for those years were +0.8,+2.0,+ 1.1 and 0.0 respectively.The sample is too small to be satistically significant but does piont to a good chance of another winter on the warm side

Hi Roger, I'm not sure where you drew the line between "very warm" and just "warm".  For me, Summer 2014 was only "warm", according to the Met Office figures, about 0.6C above average.

Having said that, we've now had six consecutive warmer than average seasons.  I wonder how many times that has happened in the past?  And if it has happened before, what did it lead to?

Maybe this? http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/ancient_earth/Snowball_Earth 

The meto 32 dayer hasnt said anything for ages.  it may as well have just said 'there will be weather in weeks 3 and 4.  nothing too warm and nothing too cold. nothing too wet and nothing too dry.'  if you diont believe me, have a look back in the media thread both on here and on NW !

the fact is that there has been no strong guidance to conditions week 3 and 4. they plumped for a souwesterly flow. we havent really had a proper sustained souwesterly flow

And the man still spouts out the same crap over on twatter.

He's a reverse Faily Express. 

Andy think when i id this classification anomalies were calculated against the  mean of the 140 years between 1873-2012.Will check back but think 0.8C anomaly was dividing line between warm and very warm.Will also look tom see if any more examples of 6 consecutive warmer than average seasons.

Indeed he is truly the  Madden of mild

Just going to leave this here so we can review at end of winter:

GavsWeatherVids Winter 2014/15 forecast;

http://www.gavsweathervids.com/winter14-15.php

IMO it's a wonder that anyone still bothers to read his nonsensical ramblings. I'd get more sense about weather forecasting from a five-year-old!

Andy my classification was based on 140 years 1873 - 2012 with anomalies against the seasonal  means of the 140 years.The dividing line between  Summer warm and very warm was +1.0C. It looks as if against this you are right as 2014 anomaly would be below this figure.

Going back  to the 1873 -2102 classification there is no adjustment for global warming so inevitably the later years have more warm seasons.

Taking your 6 warm seasons in a row and searching the 140 years I came up with this list.

Autumn 1913 - Winter 14/15. 6

Autumn 1920 - Winter 21/22  6

Winter 1942/43 -Summer 44 .7

Autumn 1948 -Spring 50        8

Spring 1959 -Spring 61          7

Winter 1988/89 - Autumn 90  7

Spring 1991-  Summer 92      6

Winter 1993-Autumn 95         7

Autumn 1998 -Autumn 2005  29

The first thing to say is that there are more instances than you might expect. Of the nine runs,3 were followed by warm winters 6 cold but hardly likely to be statistically significant.

The staggering run is the Autumn 1998 to Autumn 05  29 seasons and clearly a warm period v the 1873-2012 means.

However it explains why in the early years of Two the run of 7 warm winters created a cold famine which sent coldies berserk and clutching at any sign of cold no matter how far away on the model output.! 

Roger, many thanks for this great piece of research! , and as you say, I'm very surprised there have been quite a few of these 6+ mild seasonal runs in the past.  Obviously the last one is truly amazing, and unprecedented in the records!    Interesting that more cold winters followed these runs than mild ones, but as you say, it's not a clear cut thing.   

One more thought - notice that the only instances of these runs finishing in Autumns are 1990, 1995 and 2005.  All three of the Winters that followed were cold, and two of them (1990 and 1995) produced significant cold and widespread snow events in the following Winters!

The above metoffice link shows 2 meter air temperatures, not sea temperatures - I think,

The QBO figure for November is -23.65 so just very slightly higher than for October.

There have only been two years since 1948 where the QBO was more negative (easterly) than this year in November which were 2005 and 2007. Neither of which were followed by particularly cold winters it should be said, although 2005/6 was slightly below average.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/qbo.data

Sunspot activity has been relatively high over the past week after a bit of a lull.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/DSD.txt

No unusual activity expected in the stratosphere in the foreseeable future. The warming last month has now abated and the low temperatures are expected to be symmetrical around the pole over the next 10 days. Here is the T240 forecast from GFS.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t10_nh_f240.gif

Arctic index expected to oscillate around zero in the coming days with a period a little above zero and a period below zero

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.sprd2.gif

After a brief dip back towards zero this weekend the NAO is currently forecast to be in positive territory (again this is GFS)

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.sprd2.gif

So although we could see some slightly cooler than average conditions at the surface over the next 10 days there are no obvious signs at the moment of a sustained period of significantly cold weather in the first half of December.   

After a dip in performance about a week ago, the models have been performing well in the last few days. ECM and UKMO doing especially well with a return of about 0.93 to 0.94 for T120 forecasts.

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day5_HGT_P500_G2NHX.png

Roger, fantastic research.  The run of 29 seasons 1998-2005 is staggering and indicative.

Perhaps, in the fullness of time, the period 2006-13 will be a blip in an unrelenting trend to warmer climes?  Unpalatable but possible.

The link was to the ensemble mean maps:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/gpc-outlooks/ens-mean

The ensemble based probability forecast maps are here:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/gpc-outlooks/glob-seas-prob

These reverted to showing the October update a while ago but I don't know why.

The November probability charts which were available also favoured a milder outlook.

My guess it the mean maps are being skewed by some very cold outlier runs.

update from ukwf

At the moment a potential mild start to the winter is expected as we move into early December. However the current expectations are that as the winter progresses the risk of increasingly colder spells will develop and with the first cold spell of weather potentially arriving during the second half of December and with then a risk of cold weather, at times, continuing throughout the remainder of the winter period. Even during the coldest winters milder interludes are possible and these are still expected at times. However, between December and the end of February colder than average conditions are expected overall and especially when compared with last winter, with a much greater frequency of winter weather which includes snow, frosts and below average temperatures. 

Good Ramp

Given that we are more than likely set a new cet record this year,it could be the start of another long period of above average seasons

and that record of 29 could very well be broken.One thing for sure is the sheer number of extremes that have occurred between 2006-2013

indicates  a significant change in weather patterns for the uk.

Just a brief point with regards to the Cohen theory that has been discussed a lot on certain other forums over the past two months.

It predicts that from where we are now, a truly immense Siberian High should develop, which then drives wave breaking into the stratosphere and initiates a warming event.

Above, we see that clearly depicted in the GFS 12z op run, and this is consistent with many recent run, though the 12z actually gives it a harder time in the middle part of lower-res (starting with a sudden loss of the ridge into the Arctic on day 8, just as the drop in resolution occurs, not supported by the ECM 12z op run).

The consequence for the stratosphere is a new warming event that starts off in East Asia days 8-9 and propagates across the Pacific to the U.S.:

So reasons to remain hopeful for some notable cold spells hitting the UK in the heart of winter, maybe sooner if the MJO plays ball