In article ,
Gavin Staples writes:
My Comments:
I find this quite remarkable

Not for the first time, I have the feeling that you are rather easily
impressed. I don't see anything particularly remarkable in February
being two or more degrees colder than January. We are sometimes going to
have warm Januaries and/or cold Februaries, giving such a difference
between the months. It's not as though on average February is a much
warmer month than January - there isn't much between them.

and I wish I had
the means to produce info like this.

It's not too difficult. You can find all the CET monthly figures on the
Web. Just read them into a spreadsheet, as I did, and then you can play
with them to your heart's content. If you'd like my spreadsheet with all
the CET figures from 1659, then send me an email.

Just look at these differences. They
are significant and I wonder about how what this means with regard to long
range forecasting. Just look at 1853 - a mild January and a really cold
February.

From time to time, persistent high pressure develops over Scandinavia to
give a cold February with Easterlies or North-Easterlies following an
ordinary or mild January. 1986 and 1956 are recent examples. We almost
had that this year, but it didn't happen till mid-February and also the
cold was not that intense. Whether you can forecast such a development
far enough in advance for a useful long range forecast, perhaps using
data such as SST anomalies, I don't know. It does seem to happen more
often in February than earlier in the winter.
--
John Hall

"I am not young enough to know everything."
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)