I spotted the long range weather prediction of this winter coming - piggin heck!

[Alison]

Very sceptical about any long range weather forecast, only last week they were predicting a very mild winter. It will be what it is and there's no way I'm going to start random hoarding on the back of it

[Potstubsdustbins]

My preferred way of forecasting the weather is to.......................look out the window in the morning, its very rarely wrong.

[Thelma Sanders]

I always get some extra stuff in ready for the winter, as I remember being snowed in for a week during winter 84/85 (I think) with 2 kids to feed.
It was a struggle I vowed never to repeat. Even at the end of the week the shops took a few days to re stock properly, a difficult time.

[Thelma Sanders]

That method is quite often wrong IMO.
Here, It's often sunny first thing, but by the time I've drunk my cuppa - the clouds have rolled in and rain is on it's way

Looking out of the window tells you what the weather is doing - it doesn't often give you any idea what the weather will be doing later

[Greenleaves]

Potty is obviously a curtain twitcher

[Potstubsdustbins]

Potty looks at the sky, checks the wind direction etc.

In my life time the long range forecasters have gone from expect a mini ice age that was in the 60s to global warming 90s and 2000s the latest to come from a uni up north last week is .................you've guessed it expect a mini ice age in the next 20 years due to a lack of solar activity.

I can only conclude that the lot of em are chancers and really have no idea of what's really going to happen.

[Alison]

Looking out of the window tells you what the weather is doing - it doesn't often give you any idea what the weather will be doing later

It's still more accurate than the long range forecasts though!

[Lumpy]

I agree that very long range forecasts are more often than not wrong but at least it will allow me to keep this small possibility in mind when I am planting my later seeds and looking at all the end of season discounts on fleece etc.

[Sarico]

As

That method is quite often wrong IMO.
Here, It's often sunny first thing, but by the time I've drunk my cuppa - the clouds have rolled in and rain is on it's way

Looking out of the window tells you what the weather is doing - it doesn't often give you any idea what the weather will be doing later

mor wich window to look. Wake up in the morning looking at my south facing windows look nice and sunny got ready to go out in my back garden was like the movie the day after tomorrow lol. Back in and look at front sunny again lol.

[Jay22]

I have a preppers cupboard too but I'm not telling anyone!

[Knight of Albion]

Salt ... pinch of

[Knight of Albion]

Animals are a much better and more reliable indicator of impending winter weather than the Met Office's multi-million pound computer!
How many times have they messed up on 5 days time, never mind 5 months time?!
I rest my case.

[Kirk]

Try having an interest in astronomy, you will find that the weather they forecast for 4 hours time is wrong so how they can give any idea of 4 to 6 months is a joke.

Anyway weather here ends at 16:00, after that there isn't any.
No idea why but Look East weather forecasts stop at 16:00.

I do find they will occasionally report what the weather was yesterday and somehow still get that wrong. How ???

Have heard of this freezing extreme winter we are to get, the cause seems to be the El Nino in the Pacific, it must squeeze through the Panama Canal I suppose to get to the Atlantic as last I looked North and South America blocked everything, and the absence of sunspots.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Forecasting solar activity is much more accurate. At the moment we have had a poor solar maximum and are now on the way to a solar minimum, this 11 year cycle dictates some of our weather.

The problem we have at the moment is that the Sun never reached a true solar maximum and is declining at such a rate that a possible Maunder Minimum is a distinct possibility in the coming decades.

If this happens you can forget Global Warming, the last Maunder Minimum was in the 17th century and we held 'frost fairs' on the frozen river Thames, crops failed etc.

I won't be around to see it but I pity the poor bu--ers who will have to put up with that.

[Lumpy]

Thanks Potty - This will keep me busy Goggling for an hour or two. I didn't know astronomy was so exciting.