Nov to end on a mild note...but what about early Dec?
After an exceptionally mild first half of Nov, the cold last weekend did come as a bit of a shock, but despite the normal hysterics from certain individuals and parts of the print media, most of us were only forced to dig out our coats and scarfs - rather than our cars and houses!
Once again this morning we find the normal suspects calling for all kinds of snow&icemageddon (we like that one!) during December and the start of meteorological Winter, but the inescapable truth provided by the current modelling suggests the month will at least start, mild, even very mild, with winds predominating from the SW. Whether we will see the kind of anomalous warmth of early November remains rather uncertain, but a return to mid teen highs and double digit lows really do not look out of the question for some areas, especially across the south and west.
So why the warmth I hear you say? Well without wishing to overcomplicate matters, the expected synoptic pattern going into December is an all too familiar and all too frustrating one for those fans of cold, wintry conditions, with low pressure to the North and a big fat slug of a high sat over Iberia and mainland Europe. This set up see's warm, moisture laden air fired northeastwards from the sub tropics across all parts of the UK (often referred to as blowtorch conditions), but occasionally it can relent sufficiently to allow colder weather to edge south into Scotland, whilst the high across Europe can occasionally ridge far enough north to allow drier, slighter colder air to influence the south....very much what we are likely to see to start the new month.
Currently all the available medium range guidance suggests this kind of pattern will predominate for much of week one, but events further afield over Canada and more particularly Siberia give cold lovers at least some hope that next months early warmth will only be temporary...something our Winter 15/16 forecast to be issued next Monday will cover in far greater detail.