Fingers

Don't worry, Gleissberg minimum, cold AMO, east based La Niña's, -QBO, -PDO, mini Ice ages, volcanic eruptions.. .. and some of that next year! There's always stuff to dream about, the next generation may come out better than us! Clem

Looking at the 3 month means for the NAO attached, it appears that once locked in to a strong positive or negative NAO pattern of around +2/-2 (as we are currently in) they can be dominant for quite a period of time..... Sadly! It's only a mean but this leans towards a much more mobile pattern with limited chance of sustained cold likely with limited blocking over Greenland and the pole. Need that current last red spike to be as thin as possible and not fat bottomed! Looking at previous cycles, there's not too many periods of short lived 2+ NAO rapidly leading to a super negative NAO. 78/79 looks like our closest comparison. Interesting to also see the set up around the 1997 Nino with a negative NAO but not a cold winter and what we'd give for a 2010 set up! Clem

Not too much hope of incoming cold when you have the forecast NAO at these levels, along with the AO of similar positivity, with low pressure camped over the pole. There is always one though.............!! #trendsetter!!

Has anyone got the link for 2015-2016 OPI figure? Riccardo? This may not have delivered last year but the correlation on previous years is pretty good and I would like to watch it develop, though maybe not as intensely as last year!

Solar sunpots have been on the rise recently and today are up to 145 from an average around 60 for the last 2 months. We are running very close to solar cycle 12 and that had one last hoorah before entering solar minimum. Could this peak be just at the wrong time as we enter our winter??!! Hope not!

60% cold is my prediction with the cooler Atlantic, more southerly jet and reducing sunspot activity leading us to be -0.5'c to -1'c below average. Fear the south may just get cold and wet, especially early winter, whilst the north have the better of it with a more northerly influences. Potentially a colder end to the winter with the Nino effect at least giving us something to get excited about down south. Would be great if this is the first of a cluster of colder than average winters if we get La Niña conditions following this winter, the Atlantic entering it's cooler phase, solar minimum (following the path of cycle 12) and a cooler North Pacific, you never know we may see The Beast making a reappearance and be able to wax up those sledges!!!

Massive loss of 137kmsq yesterday which may prove to be an error as that's a big loss at any time of year but especially now. If correct, it's taken us below 2011 and closing in on the second worst melt season of 2007.

Great to see the countdown to winter is underway! Approx 2 1/2 weeks of the ice melt season remaining before we see the uptick and the re-freeze commence around the 17th Sept. Figures look like we're on a par with 2011 but no-where the catastrophic melt season of 2012. https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/data/graph/plot_extent_n_v2.csv Let the fun and games begin!!! Clem

A couple of lows diving southwest out of Central Europe to prop up the high and send it to Scandinavia leads to a low coming up in to the southeast at day 9! A long wait to the 12z to see if it's a trend or an outlier! Everything crossed.

Afternoon all. With a few things like MJO etc looking more favourable in the upcoming period, can a reduction in sunspot activity to around 60 from a high of 146 on the 10/1 help support HLB in the immediate or does the sunspot trend have to be over a longer sustained period? If so, is there a correlation before it's seen in the models?

Evening all. The warm sector took us up to 10'c this evening but a massive drop of 4'c in 51 minutes since midnight is fairly impressive! Very strong gusty winds here too. Looking forward to some calm frosty nights this week.

-2.19 from the 00z with just one days forecast left to confirm. Looking good!

Great read Steve and very well presented. Let's hope we pull off some of those low CET's. Would be great to get 1 month with a negative CET if the timing of the cold permits! Looking forward to watching this develop within the models. Clem

Agree. Certainly has been an upward tick at the mo. Need it quieten like it did 13/14.

After watching Gavs 2nd winter model update it's only the Jamstec that has anything remotely wintry for us and the the whole of mainland Europe. With the OPI looking at being between -2.0/-2.5 this, without exception from the sample data we have, will deliver some colder than average months to Europe even if we are unlucky and miss out with the bulk of the cold plunging SW through Europe and in to France. As Steve said with the potential for one super AO and at least 2 junior AO's, a strong negative QBO, a developing although weak El Niño, fairly low sunspot activity and great advance of snow build up through Siberia I am quietly optimistic we will see something very good through the winter period although maybe towards the mid/latter end. Clem

After watching Gavs 2nd winter model update it's only the Jamstec that has anything remotely wintry for us and the the whole of mainland Europe. With the OPI looking at being between -2.0/-2.5 this, without exception from the sample data we have, will deliver some colder than average months to Europe even if we are unlucky and miss out with the bulk of the cold plunging SW through Europe and in to France. As Steve said with the potential for one super AO and at least 2 junior AO's, a strong negative QBO, a developing although weak El Niño, fairly low sunspot activity and great advance of snow build up through Siberia I am quietly optimistic we will see something very good through the winter period although maybe towards the mid/latter end. Clem

Only 8 days of forecasting left, get that down to 5 and we are at the business end!

Back to where we were this time yesterday at -2.75. Let's hope it doesn't rise on the 12z.

A month is a long time in terms of weather. It looks like the first half of the month will potentially be more negative than the second half. Is there any correlation for that to deliver a colder winter with a weaker/positioned vortex or would it be better to trend positive and finish the month more negative where the vortex isn't developing?

You almost want to extract the forecast element until the 27th when the GFS is in the semi reliable time frame and you've had 26 days of data. Last year though looked pretty reliable from the 21st to be fair. Let's just keep the daily Opi negative for now!

Slightly controversial. That's the problem, we haven't got solid data due to the forecast element of the opi figure as it reads. Ideally you need a published daily month to date rolling figure (the trend) + a 10 day forecast figure. From this mornings 00z we could, emphasise could, have a positive opi for the month so far with the forecast 10 day period bringing it back to a negative -0.76 figure. Very unlikely but until we get very close to month end we can only go by our observations and hope the vortex remains subdued and delivers -1.5 as the trend appears to be negative.

Update of -0.76 from the 00z. 5 days time until we can see the month end prediction with, hopefully, less swings and fluctuations through the final 10 days as actual data overrides forecasts. Let's hope for the usual drop by the 18z! One quick question. We obviously don't take the data from the 18z pub run with the daily figure polling from 12z and the figure (generally, but not always) does trend lower through the day. Am I right in assuming that the 12z is considered the most accurate GFS run as the 00z is too progressive etc? Clem

Daily figures up to and including 11/10 @ 18z: -1.2, -0.8, -0.3, -0.2, -2.2, -2.1, -3.42, -3.57, -3.85, -1.13, -2.0, Mean at -1.89 Clem

Phew...... Winter could have been over with one small typo!

Updated on the 12z and is now at -2.0. I thought it updated on every run apart from the 18z? (That's better!!!) 😃😃