On Apr 1, 5:30 pm, Dawlish wrote:
On Apr 1, 4:58 pm, Alastair wrote:



On Apr 1, 9:46 am, Alan Gardiner wrote:

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:13:45 +0100, Keith (Southend) wrote:
Something I mentioned to my Wife who was getting fed up with the cool
and wet weather of this spring was that it's a good sign for a better
summer. I then just stumbled across this from Philip Eden quoting
similar years which include 1975, 1976 and 1987 which I think were
probably some of the warmest summer months this century in the UK

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-a...&LANG=en&MENU=...

Only last year April gave so many people a sence of a long hot summer
and then it all went terribly wrong. Looking at the trends in the models
April looks like being plagued with easterlies with most of the rain in
the south. A long way to go yet, but anyone wanting some real summery
weather will have to wait till May.

Just my personal thoughts.

My daughter is convinced it will be a fine summer as she will be back in
the office after returning from maternity leave. The office is unbearably
hot in warm weather which she finds particularly unpleasant.

Alan

Whereas weather tends to be persistent with a high probability of
tomorrow's weather being similar to today's, and a good season
following a good season, on a annual basis this appears to me to be
the converse of the truth. Inspecting the CET record, it seems that
if last year's temperature was higher than the previous year then this
year's temperature will be lower than last year, and vice versa. Thus
since 2007 was cooler than 2006, then 2008 should be warmer than
2007.

This reversing trend seems to be even more true where one is
considering months.All the months June, July, August and September
were cooler in 2007 than in 2006, therefore I am predicting that they
will be warmer than 2007 this year. There'll be a hot summer in
central England this year!

Where do place my bet, Paul?

Cheers, Alastair.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Ha! All in virtual tipples Alistair! All for fun. 9 pints to win 2.
I'll pay out after the summer. Your reasoning is good, I reckon.

I like the element of "play your cards right" in your statistics. Call
lower after higher. You'll win more times than you lose, but there's
still that warming trend to contend with, which has produced more
warmer years (higher cards) than one might expect and more thus
unexpectedly even warmer years than the warm year previous. Since
1985, an even cooler summer, following a cooler summer is a rarity. No
the same with an even warmer summer following a warmer one - not
common, but less of a rarity. For the coming summer,

I would think it is a much better call to call warmer after cooler
than it is to call cooler after slightly cooler, in the present
warming climate, but I still hold to the position that it is not
possible to call wetter, or drier, and thus no-one could even call,
say "warmer and drier" with any long-term accuracy. Anything more
detailed than that, eg August will be much warmer/coooler than
average, with LRF in its present state, is no more than an inspired
guess, IMO, whatever convincing-looking pre-season reasoning is
employed. The Met Office's hopeless precipitation forecast before the
record-breaking wetness of 2007, fits that assertion.

Paul

Hi Paul,

After I sent my post, I wondered if the oscillation was a mathematical
inevitability, That was not what inspired my thinking.

During the sixties I noticed that good summers seemed to follow bad
summers, and when I mentioned this to a German he said he had thought
that too about the weather in Gemany. Also, at that time is was
believed that the best vintages of French wine.were from odd numbered
years. Of course it a biennial oscillation is a mathematial certainty
then those anecdotes are not surprising.

There is more technical evidence for this thogh. There is a little
known quasi-biennial oscilation in the stratosphere with a period of
about 27 months. This seems to have an effect on the Arctic
Oscillation, so it could be responsible for this quasi-oscillation I
am describing. Also, there was a report on this newgroup that the
annual temperature from the CET centred around two peaks. That would
be explained if there was a biennial oscillation.

Of course with globasl warming happening, then I am on a "dead cert"
predicting a hotter summer this year when the last was one of the
coolest in the last ten years. On the other hand, we are still in a
solar minimum, so although I would like to predict a nother 100 F
temperature, it would be rathre rash at this stage in the solar
cycle.

To a large extent summer tempeatures are controlled by cloud cover,
ansd so if we have a hot summer there will be no clouds and even less
rain. So despite your reservations I am saying it will be drier this
summer too.

Now, where do I have to go to collect my winnings? Or do you want to
come to sunny Dorset and try out one of our country pubs? But you
might find that expensive if Martin Rowley and others down here decide
to join us.

Cheers, Alastair.