Preliminary analogues for Autumn 2018

It has come to the time you all have been waiting for. It's been a while coming with the many analogues we've looked at for Autumn 2018 but here we are, this post is going to be revealing the preliminary analogues for Autumn 2018. These are the analogues where we combine all the analogues we've done this season together and find the years which cropped up most. In order for a year to qualify, it must appear at least 5 times in the analogues to be considered an "important year" for Autumn 2018. The more times the year appears doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be the most similar to the season thus why I consider this criteria to be good. The Summer 2018 preliminary analogues have worked out extremely well and I'm really happy with them especially as they're the hardest ones I've worked on so far, I'm hoping my Autumn ones fare similar performance.

The years to appear the most in our preliminary analogues for Autumn 2018 were 1887, 1911, 1913, 1925, 1947, 1975, 1976, 1979, 1983, 1984, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2010. There is a variety of Autumns in here from the really cold season of 1887 to the record breaking warm Autumn of 2006. However, we will see the general theme of the Autumn in the 500mb height anomaly reanalysis charts containing all these years.

The Autumns overall look unsettled with a westerly regime taking hold but there lies the chance of some colder weather as above average heights sit over Greenland which would push cold air into the below average heights over the UK and Ireland.

The Septembers look very cool and unsettled with above average heights in the Atlantic and below average heights to the south and east of the UK. The mean wind direction is a north to northeasterly. 1995 is in the analogue and this reanalysis draws very similar comparisons to that month which was cool and very wet to the east of the UK whilst it was drier, sunnier with close to average temperatures over Ireland and the west of the UK.

The Octobers look very anticyclonic and quiet with above average heights over the Arctic Circle, Greenland and over us with below average heights over Scandinavia. We're on the periphery of a very cold northerly blast as the cold is going into Scandinavia so the signal is just quiet, settled and temperatures would be close to average or relatively above average but the main thing would be the dry nature of the month.

The Novembers look exceptionally wet, stormy and mild with deep below average heights right over top of the UK and Ireland. There are above average heights over Greenland but the trough is too far north to be delivering cold weather and not to mention, there are above average heights over the southeast of Europe which is not supportive of cold weather.

Overall, a very mixed Autumn but reminds me of Autumn 1995 a lot in how it evolves, a cool and unsettled September, an anticyclonic and mild October whilst a mild and wet November. Would be interesting to see if this came off.