Well, its that time of year where we start wondering about the winter to come. Will it be mild, wet, stormy or buckets of snow for all?
Of course it is impossible to tell, last years guesscast went quite well, but probably down to luck and vagueness of words 
There is much talk of El Nino - and it is a very strong one at present. NOAA give a 95% probability of El Nino persisting through this winter. El Nino afftects temperatures in the Pacific – warming parts of it. This can have a knock on effect for us, though not always as great as people seem to think. However it cannot be ignored. It seems to be associated with cold winters, but not exclusively, mild and wet winters have also occurred during El Nino.
The North Atlantic Oscillation can also have an affect. It is hard to forecast this more than a couple of weeks in advance – there seem to be a wide spread of solutions in two weeks. To predict it we need to look at the temperatures in the Atlantic. The north Atlantic is colder than usual but the tropical Atlantic is warmer than usual. Interesting. The met office seem to think this will lead to a positive NOA led winter – which tends to be mild.
As a result of their positive NOA prediction the met office are suggesting that it is more likely to be a warmer than average Oct-Dec than a colder than average winter. here Somewhat amusingly though they also suggest that the Oct-Dec period is more likely to be wetter than average. Well, half way through Oct and looking forward, this forecast doesn’t seem to be playing out. Their next issue will be in about 10 days time .
Another factor to look at is towards the east – any long lasting cold air tends to come from that direction. And we have an impressive start to the season. Russia has had widespread snowfall, in fact, some are saying that it is a record start. If it doesn’t thaw (it is very early in the season!) this is good news for cold weather.
So where are we at? Conflicting ideas – it could be a very cold winter, there are indications to support that but equally many factors contradict those signals. We will just have to wait and see.
Next update, end of half term :)