It's October, so that can only mean one thing... The freezing winter headlines in the media are back!
It's that time of the year again, where newspaper headlines (particularly in the Daily Express) start screaming about a cold winter, it's as regular as clockwork - remember the 100 days of snow headlines last year?
The truth is that at this stage there is no way to definitively know what this winter will bring, most winter's bring some colder spells, some more severe than others, so it's never a bad thing to be prepared for that eventuality as the season draws nearer, but the hype and headlines (and there are sure to be more following this one) are just that with a very low probability of being close to the actual weather which occurs this winter.
So what do we know about the second half of Autumn and winter seasons? So far Autumn has been a pretty mild one, September was nearly 2c above average according to the temperature tracker, and October is running 2.2c above the norm at the time of writing. There's currently no immediate sign of any real change to that as we stay in an often unsettled pattern with milder than or close to average temperatures expected to continue in the main, although some cooler intervals are possible as any low pressure systems move through.
Beyond that, and we're into the realms of longer term forecasts, so we're looking at probabilities, levels of confidence and overall patterns rather than definitive outcomes, currently the most likely scenario is that November will be close to average in terms of both rainfall and temperature. Although our last long range forecast update showed how the CFS model is forecasting northern blocking in November and December (one of the elements which can bring colder air over the UK), it's by no means certain at this range, and even if northern blocking is in place it doesn't guarantee cold across the UK.
Overall though, headlines are often designed to sell newspapers and this one is no different, so please don't take it literally.
