Greater Manchester is set for another bitterly cold winter according to a local forecaster who believes Europe could be in the midst of a ‘mini ice-age’.

 

Amateur weatherman Harry Kershaw, 85, from Sale, correctly predicted that January 2010 would be as bad as the 1979 ‘winter of discontent’, when the country was hit by strikes and freezing weather.

 

Now he fears this winter could be as cold as that of 1812-13 – when freezing temperatures forced Napoleon to retreat from Moscow during his attempt to seize the Russian capital when day-time temperatures reached no more than -9C.

 

Only 20,000 of the 400,000 soldiers in Napoleon’s Grand Army who had marched into Russia survived the disastrous campaign and the freezing retreat.

 

Harry said: “It looks like we could be on the same weather cycle that occurred before Napoleon’s retreat.”

 

Harry, who began forecasting as a merchant seaman, uses a system developed by the German army during the Second World War known as ‘similarity forecasting’.

 

He matches conditions with those of previous years and then predicts the future weather will follow a similar pattern – often with uncanny accuracy.

 

In early 2007, his predictions of a miserable summer were at odds with official forecasts, but he was right.

 

He also warned of wet weather in 2009 when the Met Office told the nation to prepare for a ‘barbecue summer’.

 

Harry has been monitoring data from sun spots and barometer readings from the North Pole in readiness for drawing together his winter forecast.

 

He says the data suggests Europe could be in the middle of a ‘mini ice-age’ similar to the one that happened in the four years from 1812 to 1815.

 

The number of spots on the sun, thought to affect the weather, are the same this year and last year as 1812 and 1813.

 

Harry says North Pole barometer readings in August suggest Europe will experience a repeat of last winter.

 

He said: “If it follows the pattern of 1812-13, it will be mild up to as late as December 21. This is what happened in 1962. It was mild until Christmas Eve then we had an appalling winter.”

 

 

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1464867_brrr-ace-yourselves-amateur-weatherman-predicts-ice-age-winter-for-greater-manchester

Greater Manchester is set for another bitterly cold winter according to a local forecaster who believes Europe could be in the midst of a ‘mini ice-age’.

So for those whol live just outside of Greater Manchester it will be warm and sunny. Hooray! :D

BBC One had an hour long program trying to find out what the weather would be like, and if anything they all thought it would be warmer than last year, but you just cant tell. Last year's cold weather was a siberian storm pushing our warm jet stream away.

 

...Also, he was a seman :laugh1: