An article in The Independent on Monday claimed that "unless we are hit by a
sustained freeze of Arctic proportions in the next three weeks, the current 12
months will prove the hottest in the whole of the Central England Temperature
Record"

Yet using data for January to October on the Hadley Centre website plus the
provisional 8.1C for November supplied by the Met Office I find the average for
January to November to have been 11.02C(comapred with 11.05C in 2002 and 11.15C
in 1999). Therefore the December CET would have to be at least 6.5C to beat the
1990 figure of 10.63C and to equal this figure a value of 6.3C for December
would be required. The 1971-2000 average is only 5.1C.

It is thus clear that far from an arctic style freeze-up is needed to prevent
2003 being the warmest year on record. Only a spell of exceptionally mild
weather from now until the end of the year would result in record warmth. In
fact December 2003 would have to be the warmest since 1988.

To be as warm as the 10.65C that the Independent expects the year to be, the
December mean would have to be 6.6C. Somewhat unlikely I think considering the
month has not been particularly warm so far. Even if December does turn out to
be a much milder than average month it is still unlikely to be warm enough to
ensure record warmth for 2003.

Richard Slessor,
Aberdeen