"I'm dreaming of a WET Christmas"??

Hold on to your brollies! Met Office forecasts disappointingly wet winter

Last updated at 16:11pm on 22nd November 2007 Comments (7)

Forget the winter woollies, hats and clothes. Over the next few months, a stout umbrella and sturdy raincoat are going to be much more useful.

According to the latest long range weather forecast for December, January and February, the UK is heading for a disappointingly wet and mild winter.

Despite the cold snap which brought a dusting of snow to much of England and Wales at the start of the week, the Met Office says a "traditional" winter is unlikely.

The forecast of a mild winter will come as a blow to a generation of children - many of whom have never lived through a really good snowy spell.

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Wet winter: children will need sturdy brollies to battle the rain

It also highlights how much Britain's winters have changed over the last 50 years - particularly for England.

Not only is snow a novelty, when it does arrive it rarely stays on the ground more than a couple of days.

"The last really cold, snowy winter in England was probably 1995-96, although we had a couple of snowy weeks in 2004," said Barry Gromett from the Met Office.

"Last year was the second mildest on winter - and if you look at the 10 coldest winters since 1914, only two came after 1964."

The long range winter forecast can only give a flavour of the sort of weather to come. More accurate predictions can only be made for the following five days.

The latest update, released yesterday, predicts that temperatures will be higher than the average winter temperature of 3.7C (38.6F).

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"Although a winter milder than the 1971-2000 average is favoured, temperatures are likely to be lower than those experienced in the very mild winter of last year," the forecast states. It adds: "For the UK as a whole, winter rainfall is slightly more likely to be near, or above average, than below average."

Normally, the UK gets 332 mm (13 inches) of rain, sleet and snow each winter.

The long term forecast is based on predictions well-studied weather phenomena such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and La Nina.

The NAO is the pattern of high and low pressure in the Atlantic. In years when pressure is relatively high in the north, cold, dry northerly winds are pushed across Britain, bringing snow and bitter chills.

However, this year the air pressure is expected to be relatively higher in the south west, sending warmer, wetter south-westerly winds over the UK.

The winter weather is also influenced by La Nina - the unusually cold surface water on the Pacific Ocean. There is evidence that in La Nina years, winters are warmer in Europe.

According to the Met Office's records, British winters have been getting warmer over the centuries.

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It never rains ... the Met Office has forecast a disappointingly wet Christmas

Its longest running set of temperature records - the Central England Temperature series - reveals that four of the warmest winters since 1659 were in the last 22 years - 1989, 1975, 2007 and 1990.

The top ten coldest winters, in contrast, include just one from recent history - the freezing winter of 1962-63 when snow covered much of the UK from Boxing Day to late March.

Despite the prediction of a mild December, January and February, there is still a taste of winter to come for the East of England with snow at the weekend.

The Met Office says wintery showers are forecast for Sunday down the east coast, with East Anglia particularly likely to get snow.

Last winter, the average daytime temperature was 8.3C (46.9F).