On Tuesday, January 7, 2014 10:35:32 PM UTC, Graham wrote:
The 'winter of best fit' following a December such as this one (using

+/-10% on temperature and rainfall) is 1910 and 1919. Apart from January

1910 which was slightly colder, both years had mild winters.



Did say a few weeks ago it reminds me of the 1988/89 Winter in which January

was completely snowless with high pressure to the South west, looks like

happening again



Warmest December since 2006 here with a mean of 5.2c, but quite dry despite

all the storms with just 65% of the normal rainfall.





Graham (North Staffs)

While it has been similar to that very mild winter here it has been a different story in the Alps. Some resorts around the south side of the range have seen over 2.5m of snow since Christmas Day above around 1,000m. In 1988/89 the Euro high was virtually impregnable with little snow across the range for at least 6 weeks. It wasn't until March that snow began to fall in any quantity. I think it hastened the development of artificial snowmaking