November not giving any hints for the coming winter in Jyväskylä

As I mentioned yesterday in the November progression post, daily maximums in Jyväskylä this month, despite being somewhat average in the long run, have been a bit strange compared to previous years.

Warm days were common in the first 12 days of the month with eight of those exceeding 5C. The warmest November temperature since 2005 was also seen. Other than that though, maximums have been mostly below 0C. In between temperatures have been rare. Only three days have recorded maximums between 0C and 5C, and those three readings were all below 1C. This differs quite a lot from the previous six Novembers.

As the graph below shows, there have been eight days apiece for maximums below 0C and above 5C so far this November. The below 0C figure is clearly the highest of the past seven years, while the 2014 figure for days above 5C sits fairly high also, alongside 2011 and 2013.

Number of daily maximums at various levels at Jyväskylä Airport as of November 19 for the years 2008-2014

I've been looking at the daily figures quite closely since mid-September, trying to see if there's a connection between the warmer years and the cooler years, but 2014 doesn't seem to want to give itself away just yet.

As I've mentioned before, both 2011 and 2013 carried their rather warm October and November temperatures into December, and even into early January of the following year. The columns for 2011 and 2013 in the graph above are quite similar.

In contrast, 2009, 2010 and 2012 saw fewer days above 5C at this time of the year, with both 2009 and 2010 recording the second and third most number of days below 0C. Each of these three years went on to record very cold Decembers.

2008 saw a comparatively cold November despite recording only one maximum below zero, but the subsequent December was similar to those seen in 2011 and 2013.

Let's have a look at the minimums for the first 19 days of November in the past seven years.

Number of daily minimums at various levels at Jyväskylä Airport as of November 19 for the years 2008-2014

The columns for 2014 in the above graph look a lot more similar to those of 2009 and 2010. 2012 is somewhat surprising here as December was cold even from the very beginning. Temperatures did drop towards the end of November in that year though.

2011 and 2013 unsurprisingly have tall red columns, the number of the days with a minimum above 0C, with either only one or no days below -5C after the 19th day of the month.

If we based a winter prediction solely on the graphs above, it would be fair to say that the winter of 2014/15 will be a cold one. Long term forecasts released by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), however, predict a warmer than normal winter. Northern Europe is forecast to see temperatures a couple of degrees above average.