Sforzando

Hopefully the run is so cold it's frozen

First frosts across a good swathe of the south last night. Benson -1.8, Shobdon -1.1, even my local station of Northolt recorded 0.1. A lovely nip in the air this morning and blue sky to boot.

Absolutely hoobling it down with rain in N14. Glad I'm not driving anywhere.

If it's going to be mild we might as well break some records. Mildest winter on record goes all the way back to 1868-69. Mildest January 1916. Mildest February 1779! Surely one of those has to go some time soon?

Any higher than 12.5C would put it in the all time top ten. Seven out of the top ten Octobers have occurred since 1995 which is a remarkable stat especially when you consider that the equivalent number for May is zero. That is after the 7th warmest September so potentially two top ten months in a row. Warmest autumn on record was 2006 with 12.63C, so with Sept at 15.9 and Oct at 12.5, November would have to be 9.5 or higher to beat that record. That is top 3 or 4 territory but you never know.

Given all the record cold minima in April it feels like a weird kind of payback.

Forgive the ignorance of a total newbie (well have been lurking for a while)... but interested by this concept and what it may mean for the winter - is there any objective measure of how meridional the jet has been over the last few months? I know the last few months have been exceptionally unwindy - is that any good as a proxy?