I can't help but think whether we want this particular weather pattern
during the summer, or not.

The fact that it will be a woeful, wet summer notwithstanding, it could
be, on one hand, a very GOOD SIGN that these so-called "1980s-type"
North Atlantic weather patterns are now reoccurring, but also a bad
sign, because we could use up in the summer what we really needed to
see for the following winter, à la 1992.

What do you think? Come April, once it is clear that "winter", per se,
really is truly over, and September is in sight on the long-ranger, I
will start looking at the NCEP SLRs again, for signs of September. I
had a *very* funny dream the other day, though, that the chart for
September 2005, particularly over the North Atlantic, including,
amazingly, over the UK, would be, overwhelmingly BLUE. Let's hope
so.:-p

D.