On Dec 19, 6:13*pm, John Hall wrote:
It now seems unlikely that the CET of this month will be any higher than
1.0C and it could well be quite a bit lower than that. I decided to see
how it might rank amongst cold Decembers of the past. Here are the
coldest Decembers in the CET record:

1890 * *-0.8
1676 * *-0.5
1788 * *-0.3
1796 * *-0.3
1878 * *-0.3
1874 * *-0.2
1784 * * 0.3
1981 * * 0.3
1844 * * 0.4
1673 * * 0.5
1678 * * 0.5
1683 * * 0.5
1846 * * 0.5
1870 * * 0.6
1879 * * 0.7
1680 * * 1.0

Should this December manage to beat 1981, then it will be the coldest
since 1890. The number of cold Decembers at the end of the 17th century
isn't surprising, but the number in the 1870s is interesting. 1870,
1874, 1878 and 1879 were all cold (and of course 1890 was the coldest of
all).

Incidentally, the calendar year 2010 is now certain to have the lowest
CET since at least 1996, and could well be the coldest since 1986:

All very interesting reading.

Am hoping that those in the "climatological know" might try and
understand why we're more blocked of late which obviously contributes
to this cold - or whether it's still seen just as natural variability
enough not to warrant research on the last few (2 in particular)
winters.

Richard