In article
,
Richard Dixon writes:
On Jan 4, 5:37*pm, "Keith (Southend)G"
wrote:

Mmm, do I sense a carrot Will, I'm beginning to lean towards my
original 'it was an early winter so Jan/Feb will be average' thoughts,
but a long time to go yet ;-)

Certainly sounds reasonable from the viewpoint of "things balance out
after a while" point of view.

But is there any reason for thinking that they will do so over a period
of 2 or 3 months? I would have thought that if anything there would be a
slight tendency towards persistence, in particular because sea
temperature anomalies will often persist and are likely to be a factor
in "driving" the weather. The last two winters have tended to bear that
out, with all three months being below normal (though in the case of one
of the 6 months only marginally so).

FWIW, after the 6 previous negative CET Decembers in the CET record,
there were 3 followed by cold Januaries (Jan 1879, -0,7; Jan 1891, 1.3;
Jan 1789, 1.5). 2 were followed by averageish (for the period) Januaries
(Jan 1677, 3; Jan 1796, 3.5). Only one was mild (Jan 1875, 6.5). However
the Februaries were a pretty uninspiring bunch, the coldest having a
mean of 2.3 and the remainder ranging between 3.1 and 5.0.

Although you'd have been waiting a long
time in 62/63 for that compensatory milder spell...!

Richard


--
John Hall
"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly,
will hardly mind anything else."
Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84)