Agree with you there. Looking at the outlook for the next 7 days the pressure charts and position of the jet stream

are more reminisant of a summer chart ie jet flowing north of uk and hp building over the south of the uk.

Imo I think the azores high is going to have the biggest influence on the uk this winter and we might only get

one shot at a proper cold spell probably after xmas and it will be 50/50 weather it comes off or not.

Given the meterological winter starts in 3 days time where is TWO`S winter forecast??

So would I. Those zonal Bartlett styles winters are the absolute worst down here IMO. Possibly not quite as bad in your location with some decently interesting mobile weather zipping through.

Under lock and key. Will be released on February 28th so you can verify it. 

Not me... Last Winter was so relentlessly wet and grey. I remember commenting back in late February-ish that I couldn't remember the last time it didn't rain. I felt like Aberdeen Richard by the end of it.

We get that up here anyway

Actually, last winter wasn't that bad here, as the flow was generally SSW-WSW, which gives us a bit of a rain shadow effect from the Snowdon range. In the run of poor summers, I grew to hate westerlies, as they tended to channel bands of cloud & PPN along the N Wales coastline and into NW England.

Oh my! That bad, huh?

MY WINTER FORECAST 2014-15

I use my own pattern matching method, basically comparing rainfall, temperatures and wind direction trends of this year’s Summer and Autumn with the past 30 years or so. So, it’ll be interesting to see if my method suggests a similar outcome this Winter to other forecasters using the more common methods such as ENSO, PDO, sunspots etc…..

I’m pretty confident now of the general theme for the coming Winter. So I’ll start with the main features that I think will be evident during Winter 2014-15.

• Likely to be a significant High Pressure anomaly over Russia that will wax and wane. Later in the Winter, the emphasis of the cold block will shift into NW Russia, Scandinavia, with ridging across to Iceland at times. Likely to be a severe Winter in much of mainland Central and Northern Europe and western Russia.


• A Low Pressure anomaly is likely through the Mediterranean throughout the Winter, so a fairly wet Winter likely here.


• A frequent occurrence will be Atlantic depressions tending to stall and fill in the Atlantic before reaching the UK, so I’m confident that the coming Winter will be far less stormy and wet than last Winter.

So, for the UK...

The first half of December will be relatively mild with a chance of a cold snap. Through the second half of December, I think the risk gradually increases of colder weather, with a fairly strong signal for cold at the end of December, into the start of January. This then fades for a time, and milder Atlantic air encroaches into the UK at times for the middle two weeks of January.

However, I think there will be much more significant period of cold towards the end of January and lasting until the middle of February. Certainly a strong risk of snowfall associated with this. Probably drier and less cold in the second half of February.

So, my prognosis is as follows for each month for the UK:
December 2014: Near average rainfall and temperatures. 
January 2015: Rather cold, near normal rainfall
February 2015: Rather cold and dry, (drier further north, colder further south-east)

Summary: 

Winter 2014-15 likely to be a slightly cold Winter with rainfall near average, although probably quite dry in some northern areas. However, as most of northern Europe looks like having quite a severe Winter, it’s not going to take too much effort from the cold block to change our Winter into a significantly cold one. I would say there is a chance of that, but on balance I don’t think the signals are truly there for a very cold UK winter this time.

My gut feeling about this Winter is that it will be a good one, in terms of at least a few snow events and plenty of frost and fog!

Some years, like last year, the temperature is annoyingly up and down, meandering around 12C for most of the autumn and winter... yuck! But on years when the temperature starts falling decisively over the autumn, then I tend to feel that it won't take much to drop below freezing once winter begins! This seems to prove pretty spot on most years. Of course, it doesn't mean the whole winter will be sub-zero and snowmaggedon, but it opens the door for seasonal conditions. This year, even 2 months ago I could tell the temperature was falling away very quickly from the summer heatwave, enough to see that by December this pattern could lead to single-digit maxima, which now seems likely. So chin up everyone, a few more weeks and we may yet get our White Christmas! 

I can only assume you are talking nationally, Saint because the only special thing about last winter for our area was the lack of wintriness.

Rainfall wise it was nowt, no outstanding mild spells, the gales were not that particularly special. It was pretty boring for me.

I've said elsewhere on here that this region got away with it somewhat last winter (the flow was predominantly from the SW'ly quadrant, with the N Wales mountains giving us some rainshadow relief)

However, December was not without interest - I remember the coastline of Liverpool Bay being swamped by a combination of storms & high tides.

Thanks Andy. Interesting forecast.

  Very much looking mild in the early part of winter. 

1. Roaring jet (wont flip soon IMHO)

2. The feel of the weather.

3.  In my view, the British weather seems prone in recent years to getting stuck in a rut for months on end.  We are currently in a mobile phase which I can see lasting beyond Xmas with only minimal interruptions by anticyclones and ridges. 

These were my thoughts last November (2013) regarding the forthcoming winter.  Check out the old forecasts, they are all there amongst the old threads.

So what of this year...For the UK..

Winter 2014-15 will be slightly Milder than average (1981-2010).Drier than average.  Less windy than average.  Pressure higher than average.  Little snow, many places having their second consecutive snow-free winter. Though being anti-cyclonic, foggy and frostier than average -away from the coasts.  The colder nights will go some way to compensating for the mild daytime temperatures.

Best chance of snow will come in early February from Arctic northerlies.  The winter will get progressively a little colder D- J -F, and wetter, and generally more unsettled with time, though still drier than average as a whole. 

WI

Here's some interesting points regarding stratosphere taken from a post by 'Webberweather53' in the Jeff Master's blog comments (on wunderground):

"...the recent relatively minor stratospheric warming has been impressive to say the least, w/ new daily records for the satellite era being set for zonal mean temperatures in the arctic at 10mb..."

"100mb Heat flux also nearly tied records several days ago, this certainly bodes well for more significant disruption of the polar vortex & a major SSWE to take over later in the winter."

"As the MJO returns once again into the Pacific by the 2nd week of December & cranks up the predominant GOA/Aleutian trough w/ the potential recurvature 95W possibly adding insult to injury, I would expect another surge in heat flux to commence as we get deeper into Dec and the AO/NAO indices should subsequently begin to fall. On a side note, I'm personally not buying the model's assertion to push the MJO into the COD as it enters the Pacific given the current state of affairs w/ the weaker than normal Walker Cell & extensive warm pool, which if anything should encourage the MJO to migrate further east than normal w/ amplitude into the Pacific as opposed to dissipation. I've seen this happen all too often..."

I get the stuff about strat. temps, poleward heat flux, the MJO and the potential impacts of the Pacific tropical system 95W, so can second the above comments regarding those.

The other stuff I'm not so sure about but I have seen such talk in other stratospheric discussions over the years so it seems to add up 

The two images posted were originally in this seminar by Christophe Cassou. Can't say I've heard of them before but then this was all posted on a U.S. site.

Thanks Gavin,  looking forward to your Winter forecast video!

Very interesting, thanks James.

Hi Andy J

Here is your forecast for 2013-14, which, ended up being pretty wide of the mark.  What changes have you made to your methodologies in the light of your efforts from last year?

WI

 MY WINTER 2013-2014 FORECAST

This is purely based on my own pattern matching method which compares weather pattern types, temperature and rainfall tendencies.  A very interesting and fascinating set up for this Winter! , especially Jan-Feb.

December 2013 - first half

Seems to be a signal for rather cool and dry conditions through this period.  High Pressure will be never too far away from the UK, with some transient cold NW to Northerly episodes giving some wintry precipitation mainly in the north.

December 2013- second half

Becoming more unsettled and also milder with S to SW winds becoming more dominant.  Wet in the west, rainfall closer to normal further east.

January 2014

Some very interesting signals developing for January.   Firstly, I think there will be quite a strong zonal influence throughout this month, with frequent depressions tracking towards the UK bringing gales and bands of rain and showers to all parts.  But to complicate matters, it looks like cold conditions are slightly more likely to dominate than mild conditions through this period.  This leads me to believe we’ll be seeing some form of “Cold Zonality” through January, resulting in a few significant snow events.  In this situation, I would expect the most significant snowfalls will occur further north, with more transient lighter snowfalls further south. 

February 2014 - first half

Probably the wettest part of the whole Winter, and although it will be less cold,  there’s still the risk of a cold outbreak in this period.

February 2014 - second half

A strong cold signal is suggested for this period. However it looks more likely to be drier too, so it could suggest more Anticyclonic conditions developing.  However, it looks like there’ll be a fairly strong Continental influence too.  So I would say that for many it will be a fairly dry but cold and frosty spell, with some wintry precipitation possible in eastern areas especially.

In Summary:

DECEMBER:  Rather dry, near normal temperatures.

JANUARY:   Likely to be a rather cold, snowy and wet month in the north of the UK, a closer to average month overall in the south due to more influence from warm sector conditions.

FEBRUARY:  Rather cold, near normal rainfall.

WINTER OVERALL:  Slightly dry generally, but wet in the north.  Rather cold Winter, especially in the north.

great forecast weather idle, a good read to hope your right

Nice forecast!

I hope I'm wrong, but there you go!

In collaboration with Matty here's our LRF

IT'S ALL B'LLOCKS!

in that case your end of Nov, beginning of Dec forecast was spot on. Total bollox  

purely for reference purposes:

Thanks for your question - I never realised older forecasts were kept on here!!

If I remember correctly, by the time we got to late November last year, I had 1989 as the best match for 2013.  However I think the problem last year was that there were some very contradictory signals, as the top 6 or 7 matches that I'd established for 2013 contained some very contrasting Winters - some very cold (ie. 1984-85) and some very mild.   To be honest, I should've not done a Winter forecast because the signals were too conflicting.

However, this year the top analogues to 2014 suggest to me there is a common theme developing for this Winter.  In fact here are the best matches to Summer/ Autumn 2014 from my own pattern matching technique: 

2009, 1984, 2002, 2011, 1995, 1982

All of the following Winters featured some decent wintry outbreaks in many places, with early Jan and early Feb seeming to be the focal point for snowy conditions.  Hope that's made it a bit clearer!