Guest post by Paul Homewood
The UK Met Office report that the UK has just had its coldest autumn for nineteen years, leaving 2012 on course to be second coldest year since 1996.
Mean temperature in November was 0.4C below the 1981-2010 average, the third month in a row when temperatures have been well down on normal.
The average temperature for the autumn in the UK was 8.6C, compared to the long term average of 9.5C and the coldest since 1993. It is also the sixth coldest autumn in the last 50 years.
The year as a whole is currently running as the second coldest since 1996, beaten only by the exceptionally cold year of 2010. Temperatures so far in December are 2 degrees below normal, and the Met Office are forecasting that this will continue for the foreseeable future.
One of the features this autumn is just how persistent the cold weather has been. There have not been any exceptionally cold interludes, as, for instance, we saw with the heavy snow in November 2010. Instead, the weather has just been consistently cold.
Figure 1
Rainfall
Rainfall totals for the UK during the autumn amounted to 374mm, about 8% above normal, but nothing exceptional. For instance, this total has been beaten six times in the last 30 years.
Figure 2
Several areas were affected by floods towards the end of November, particularly in SW England and Wales, and the map below shows rainfall totals were well above normal there during the month.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/
However, as Figures 3 & 4 show, the rainfall totals just experienced in that part of the country, during both November and the autumn as a whole, are actually very commonplace. Indeed, it can be seen just how variable the UK’s weather can be!
Figure 3
Figure 4
Met Office Autumn Forecast
At the end of August, the Met Office 3-month outlook forecast:-
The balance of probabilities suggests that September will be slightly warmer than average whilst for the period September-October-November UK-averaged temperatures will be near the 1981-2010 climate mean.
For UK averaged rainfall the predicted probabilities weakly favour below normal values during September. For the period September/October/November as a whole the forecast favours a slightly higher than usual risk of above average rainfall, whilst the risk of dry conditions remains around climatological levels.
Woefully wrong on temperatures, but a bit better on rainfall. I’ll give them a C+ overall!
All Met Office data is available here.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/datasets/
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A famine year here in Northern Ireland if it weren’t for imports…cold and dull since March,,to the n,e, of jet stream and air flow from Greenland much of the time .If the ice goes we could feel very exposed to a new pattern that locks out the south except to supply the snow.
Silver Ralph says:
December 8, 2012 at 8:47 am
…..
My dear Vuk…..you seem to have autumn temperatures colder than winter temperatures. Can you check your graph again.
My dear Silver
If you were so good at looking at the graph as rushing to your keyboard you would see, that it says in the plain English:
“Left Scale: Annual , Winter & Spring” while summer and the Autumn are on the right, you even copied in your wasted complaint: “Autumn’s temp’s are shown in brown, the right hand side scale.”
Not that are you would expect you to apologize, but it would do you lot of good if you did.
Hi-ho Silver.
“Robuk says:
December 9, 2012 at 9:47 am”
Really interesting links, nice to see the before and now type comprison pictures. With regards to river flow etc, there is more warm water inflow from power stations and the like these days, but it is mostly a slow moving river that meanders through London for the most part. It still is much much cleaner than it was.
According to my folks back in the Old Country, it’s VERY VERY cold reminiscent of the ’70’s apparently.
SAMURAI says:
December 7, 2012 at 9:34 pm
How long is this stupid hoax/fraud going to continue?????
_______________________________________________
Forever. I just had some nice Lady at a church event explain to me how CO2 can not only cause Global Warming but Global Cooling too. I had to go ‘on stage’ before I could even start debating that statement. (sigh)
We lost the fight when the Propaganda Machine (aka mas media) went to work changing CAGW to Climate Change and better yet Climate Weirding.
Unfortunately too many people have zero science or logic training and swallow the propaganda whole.
The amount of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere for October seems to be increasing. graph
Here is The October 2012 Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent
Here is The September 2012 Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent
The equinox is September 22 BTW.
Gail Combs says:
December 10, 2012 at 7:42 am
The amount of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere for October seems to be increasing. graph
And it changes over at about 16 years ago!!
DirkH says:
December 8, 2012 at 10:10 am
…Some Russian working at the PIK has a paper “predicting” this. (One of the many protective hypothesis that shield the body of the HMS Warmism)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Is that Dr. Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Head of the Russian-Ukrainian Astrometria project on the board of the Russian segment of the International Space Station and Head of Space Research of the Sun Sector at the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences?
His Project
Sparks says:
December 8, 2012 at 10:29 am
If we are entering a new solar minimum predicted by Ted Landscheidt we should obviously be calling it Landscheidt solar minimum, I wouldn’t have any objections if it were called The Landscheidt Eddy solar minimum, TBH I have been under the impression that the coming solar minimum if it occurs will be named Landscheidt solar minimum after the person who predicted it.
___________________________________
Landerscheidt is Persona-non grata in solar physics circles. That is why they refuse to call the coming minimum after him. It would give credence to his theories that the planets influence the sun.
Notice how Anthony normally bans any mention of Landscheidt or ‘Cyclomania’ in most cases Example of an exception do a find on ‘Cyclomania’
“The UK Met Office report that the UK has just had its coldest autumn for nineteen years…”
Partly due to the very strong easterly QBO phase that has been happening this Autumn.
Steven Mosher says:
December 7, 2012 at 8:35 pm
“yes, when you have big ice losses in the NP, two of the expected results are colder and more snowy winters in the NH.”
That’s back to front. With colder winters more warmer sea water is transported northwards, and there is more air exchange between the Arctic and mid latitudes, both of these help to reduce sea ice. Higher levels of ice happen typically with a very positive North Atlantic Oscillator, as in late 1978 and late 1986. The effects the NAO are well obvious through summer months too, with the lower levels of minimum summer ice usually occurring with a negative NAO, like in 2012, 2007 and of course 1958. QBO phase could well play a role too.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2012/global-temperatures-2012
This historical global temperature graph posted by Kev-in-UK well illustrates two past 60 year climate cycles with peaks at 1880, 1940 and 2000. valleys at 1910 and 1970,s, major EL Ninos at 1877/78,1940/41/42 and 1977/78 . There are two flat or cooler period 1880-1920 and again 1940-1980. The global temperature anomalies dropped during the two cooler periods by about 0.42 C and rose during the two warmer periods by about 0.77 C . The total temperature rise during the period 1880-2000 was about 0.6C. If I was a betting man[climate science is really a fancy name for what is really a crap shoot for no one can really predict climate 100 years ahead], would I bet on a similar pattern as in the past to continue or rise by 4 C by 2060 or 3-6 C by 2100., i would go with the former. The two curves namely the observed pattern and the IPCC/Met Office projections are starting to diverge dramatically.
Robuk says:
December 9, 2012 at 9:47
When was that photo taken? If it was recently and the Thames froze over, obviously it was man made global warming. (Now where did I put that big bag of reality for people bicycling on thin ice?)
Gail Combs says:
December 10, 2012 at 8:23 am
Gail,
Every astronomer knows how planetary orbits effect our earth, there are astronomers who are observing and measuring planetary distances from our earth to every planet there is. Planets go up and down as well as around and round. Landscheidt did good. To be honest, No one can predict the future, If the sun exploded into a super-solar-maximum like the other so-called “scientists” had predicted way back during solar cycle 23 for solar cycle 24, which is this cycle, (Let’s not pick on people) and all that crap. for something as complex as a geometric planetary variable influence on our star.
Gail, 🙂