On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 14:41:11 +0100, "Gavin Staples"
inspired by Deep Thought wrote:

Just think about
October and November 1978 - and then what happened after all that.



Which bears out my theory that as the weather this year has very much followed
the same pattern as 1978, we will get a cold winter this year. We have already
had a very cold early July, a wet August and a dry, sunny & warm September, all
exactly as per 1978. November 1978 was indeed mild and very wet - and then the
winter really closed its grip on us in mid December - snow lay on the ground
continuously in Solihull where I lived at the time for ten weeks and we were
still getting snowfalls in late March 1979!! We shall see!

I think some people were a little harsh on those predicting cold weather last
week: most weather runs showed a real cold northerly blast over the UK with
850mB temps -5C or lower over most of the UK. What happened was that the jet
stream plunged south further to the west than expected and then turned
north-east bringing in very mild SW winds to the UK instead of arctic
northerlies as expected. This situation can prove very unpredictable with such
strongly meridional types of jet that we have seen a lot of this year: i.e the
jet can flip very quickly and bring in very cold weather within a day or two and
vice versa.

Nigel

Aagh! Every time I learn something new... it pushes something old out of my brain!