OglanderJ

I am afraid that it is currently impossible for Britain to have a severe winter because there is so little ice nowadays in the European side of the Arctic. The Arctic ice pack looks like a giant biscuit which is still fully intact from eastern Siberia to the Canadian Arctic, but has a great chunk bitten out from NE Greenland, going north of Spitzbergen, and does not reach the Russian coast until well east of Novaya Zemlya. America still has regular severe winters because the American side of the Arctic Ocean is still covered with ice. The only hope of a severe winter is if a major volcanic eruption occurs. The 2009/10 and 2010/11 cold winters occurred in the aftermath of the Icelandic volcanic eruption of 2009, which cancelled all the flights, and the 1991/98 cold winter occurred after the Mt Pinatubo eruption of 1991. The lack of Arctic ice in the European side of the Arctic trumps all other El Nino and other oscillations or cycles, so that the only question is whether we have a mild wet winter or a mild dry winter. The only way for England to have a cold spell is if we are under a static anticyclone making home grown cold coming up from the SE from France or Germany.