The shops are heading into Christmas mode, and it is feeling like winter isn't far away. What should we do with the headline information?
Flood chaos, snow chaos, killer freeze 60/70/80/90/100 mph gales. Coldest/hottest winter/summer/autumn/May EVER. -20C +88F Storm chaos, beast from the East. Got your attention?
By now after the ‘100 days of snow’ episode last year, we all know where to find this kind of stuff; some people still know where to buy it. Rather than the Oh ‘they’ say it is going to be a really bad winter being overheard. Now more people are asking, is this true? It is an intrigue and opens up the discussion space of What will the UK winter hold? Which everyone wants to be answered now.
How to write a Weather article for a tabloid:
You’re hooked, having a cuppa, chatting, skim reading the body text, Oh “Met Office” is mentioned, must be true then.
Please, other newspapers, don’t think this is a meteorological winner. Mmmm too late, The Independent Nov 10th. Quoting:
"cold snap, exceedingly cold over Christmas". We have “forecasters are also predicting that temperatures could drop to as low as -10C around New Year as Russian winds – carrying a ‘Beast from the East’ – sweep in and spell a week or more of freezing weather.”
That is not Christmas in anyone’s book. Followed by a misleading quote from the Met Office about heavy rain and wind over the Southeast of England, which is for the SOUTHWEST this week. That is the Met Office map's fault. Actually re-reading the Indie piece, I can’t see where the cold snap, Russian air -10C info comes from. (except The Mirror Nov 9th).
These latest headlines seem to be spinning off from the Met Office Contingency Planners forecast, and every time they issue their 3 month ahead guide for Contingency planners they must bang their head against the wall and the Press office stand poised.
They explain AGAIN, that this forecast is not for public broadcast and is like a horse race, the favourite doesn’t always win but the headline writers don’t care, they can lift the 2 lines about temp and rainfall and predict a white Christmas, or not.
Even for forecasters, it shows the difficulty of presenting a winter forecast. At that range (up to 3 months ahead), there will be many solutions, some being more favoured and stronger, others more as outsiders but not to be dismissed. And if you are a snow loving coldie at heart, the draw of the “‘beast from the East’ Siberian cold blast with a Scandinavian High blocking all the Atlantic weather” solution will be appearing in Neon during your research.
Trying to keep neutral and deal with all these spreads of cold/mild/dry/wet/ windy conditions against the average is hard. It’s tricky forecasting out to day 5 in some setups.
The Scottish Ski industry won’t mind another wet and mild winter like last year, as the height up the mountains was enough to turn all that wet Atlantic rain into mega snow. Anyone who still has an unused sledge from last year will be hoping for a change, even if stormy winters are becoming more and more frequent.
So the real UK Weather headline for now is: Britain set for a spell of wet and blustery but fairly mild weather from the Atlantic.
The Netweather Winter forecast will be published at the end of November
