I see The Weather Outlook has changed its mind again!!!
Their forecast for thewinter is a mild one....
and yet today they change their front page to say that in the next 45 days we are likley to see loads of snow!!!!
Is this just a case of no one knows due to the knife edge we are on, or is it just condradiction so no matter what happens they will have been right!!!!

Bring on Global warming and the Gulf Stream Stopped in its tracks!! Ski-ing down my back garden (Steep enough to be a Black Run!!) in July & August seems rather cool!!!!

No Andy, I'm in my final year of medicine at Aberdeen Uni.

Yeah, I just had a look at TWO. I think it's because in their heart of hearts they want a cold, snowy winter like us. They had similar threads last season also. From what it sounds like tho, it is kinda knife-edge. I'm sure we all know what side WE want it to fall down on ;-)

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In reply to Alpine Skier:

The overall TWO winter forecast does not rule out cold periods with snow! However the temperatures are based on the Central England Temperature, so there is more to this than simply saying it will be that mild across the UK. But I think we are on a knife edge, but if you haven't already, read the thread on the TWO winter forecast. It might cheer you up a bit!

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So that's what CET stands for. I couldn't care less what the temperature in Birmingham and Manchester is, it's the temperatures from the border north that I'm worried about ;-) I suppose their forecast is for the whole of the UK not just Scotland. OK the UK isn't that big, but still...

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The reason why it's used (though the 1961-90 subset is used for met office to refer to avg temps) is that CET record is known to be accurate back to 1659. Thus it's often used in pattern matching, If you read the TWO forums there are is a pattern matching forecast which suggests an 90% probablitiy of an average or colder winter. Using the same teqhnique to do "hindcasts" this method apparently had a 65% success rate.

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Sorry Alan, you've lost me a bit there.

CET's used because we've got accurate records of it back til 1659, so it's used a lot with long-term forecasting in Britain. I get that bit, but what's this about a TWO forcast of a 90% chance of a average/cold winter? Also what's a "hindcast". I guess it can't be a forecast for the past as we've known what happened. Or is a hindcast using this non-CET technique to predict the long-term forecast using the data we would have had available then?

Sorry.

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Hindcasts are used to check whether forecasting methodolgy can correctly predict past weather events in order to verify the potential accuracy of the forecasting method. A forecast for the past is exactly what it is, because we know what happened, we can check the forecasts accuracy without waiting for it to happen.

I'm not going to explain the in's and outs, but basically the TWO community and The Weather Outlook are two seperate entities. One of the members of the TWO forum produced this forecast:

Quote:

Number of matching years: 10 (medium)
Confidence in forecast: Moderate

Exceptionally mild (>6.5c): 0%
Very mild (>6c): 5%
Mild (>5c): 5%
Average (+/- 4.2c): 50%
Rather cold (<3.5c): 30%
Very cold (<2.5c): 5%
Severe (<1.5c): 5%

Trend: Average or rather cold
Average CET forecast: 3.7c
Coldest month: February (3.2c)

Having used the same method to hindcast the winters of the 70's, 80's and 90's the success rate was 63%, generally the method worked more accurately with winters that were closer to the average, rather than ones which were forecast to be exceptionally mild, or cold.

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12 degrees C (54 f) on Cairngorm at the moment - surely not!!!?
has someone lit a bonfire up there
There was still frost by river Don at lunchtime in Aberdeen went i went for a lunchtime jaunt

Anyone else thinking back to last year (with exception of October) reckon there has generally been snow lying longer on the hills this autumn/winter?
albeit not that much

andy

Hi,

Must be a temperature inversion - its probably a lot colder in Aveimore.

Cheers
Dave.

PS I was surprised when i saw the temp a few minutes ago!!

There's definitely more snow lying on the hills this year vs last year (October excluded).

OK , there's not that much, but given how mild it's been at times and how much yo-yoing the temps doing, there's a bit lying.

I was up Meagaidh on sunday and the views were amazing and there was a lot of (albeit thin) cover on all the hills.

Dec 1 last year and there was nearly none.

This season can easily still happen - it's all going in roughly the right direction.

EB

That's all well and good, but can anyone explain why it's 14c in Aberdeen at the moment?

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Aye, temp inversion atm

Looking a lot more wintry from about next Thursday onwards - could be a week or so of snowy weather on the way Should set things up nicely for xmas!

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Boarder posted:

Quote:

Looks likely that next weekend could see a northerly with snow down to low levels. Though with it still being a week away alot could still change. Hopefully a good northerly plunge with plenty of snow higher up could get lecht opened up! Fingers crossed everyone

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In the late 1980's I attended a few courses at Glenmore Lodge ran by Keith Geddes. Does anyone know what he is upto nowadays ??

guys, is it just me or is there a UFO on the cairngorm carpark webcam? What on earth....?