The bookies should be offering very long odds on that.  Based on recent evidence I reckon record warm months are exceeding record cold ones by about 20:1

The written media are claiming it is the warmest winter on record with a CET of 7.0C

Unless February is about a degree out with the provisional data, I don't see how it can be.

Those quotes seem to be based on provisional data to Feb 24th.

Nothing like it here. Mean was 4.40C whereas 1988/89 was over 6C. 2006/07 (4.73C), 2007/08 (4.43C) and 2013/14 (4.90C) were milder in recent years with 2005/06 only fractionally colder (4.37C). Only December was mild with January having an anomaly of +0.1C and February -0.5C.

As with many recent winters W and SW winds seem to deliver much colder than expected temperatures especially compared with the 90s. Despite the pitiful lack of proper winter weather there hasn't really been a lot of mild weather since 2011 - just Feb 2012, winter 13/14 and Dec 2015. Just seem to be stuck with near average temperatures the vast majority of the time with an unbelievable lack of extremesNothing like the mildness of the late 80s and 90s that's for sure. Today was the first day to reach 10C for exactly one month.

Initial data from the Met Office here

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2016/winter-statistics

Warmest winter for England and Wales on record but this series only goes back to 1910. We know from the CET data that 1868/9 was warmer than this year - at least in Central England.

Yes they are. The media have been blindly quoting it as the final position for the winter which is complete rubbish and shows just how much lack of effort newspaper journalists make to check what they write. Very annoying. The Met Office have confirmed in their news release I posted above that this was the second warmest winter CET on record as I expected.

The Met Office got it wrong themselves which didn't help this inaccurate reporting either (via the BBC weather report on 27th)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/feeds/35678575

[quote=Andy Woodcock;771367]

On the Beeb forecast tonight Helen Willetts said this winter look like being the mildest in England and Wales on record.

I have to say I am surprised, up here in the north the winter has felt very mild yes but not exceptionally so and nothing like as mild as 1988/89 or 1974/75.

Yes December was exceptionally mild but both January and February had mean temperatures less than 1c above normal with some frosts and occasional snow.

Is Helen referring to the long standing CET or the more recent UK post 1914 average?

In Cumbria winter 2015/16 was certainly mild but record breaking no chance.

Anyone out there got the figures? Over to you Kevin.

Andy

 👍🏼😎

Certainly mild esp 1st half . Just about squeezed in a snow morning here so not snowless. If the pre-Christmas mildness continued then records would have been smashed.

The Met Office didn't get anything wrong. They made it quite clear the data was provisional to the 24th. At that point it was at a record level. But we dipped below the record once the data for the final five days was added. The report you link above was published on the 27th. By definition no final data can be provided on the 27th as the winter had not yet finished. 

Have another look

On that video (at 41sec) the heading on the chart is Winter 2015/6 and Matt says about the CET zone marked on screen "In that zone we saw the highest temperatures ever for the season"