15th November - Today's News: Quite Normal Late Autumn Cold Spell on Way for Britain

The first spell of proper wintry weather across the whole of  the country now looks certain for next week, with even a risk of a dusting of snow over hills in southern England as blast of winter on its way to Britain.  Yesterday the Express warned of 4" of snow, whilst the Star were warning of killer floods - but not to be outdone, today they have decided we'll have 6" of snow.   I wonder what the battle of the comics will produce tomorrow.....   And if they are right, then they will be right for not better reason than Piers Corbyn was right in predicting the St Jude's Day storm (see bottom of this blog entry).  And as pointed out in the Huffington Post Daily Express weather front page forgets snow happens every year.  Meanwhile, it seems the Irish Independent just doesn't understand the rules of the game, warning only that there'll be no big freeze but bitter weather is on the way.  Wot, no killer blizzards?!!!

btw the Star's flood story was based on Environment Agency warnings that, if we get more heavy/persistent rain, then England 'faces flood risk' amid wet autumn - but as my friend Laura is quoted as saying there, there's no sign of any significantly wet weather in the near future and so a repeat of last years floods looks unlikely.

Cornish 'tornado killed my chicken' claims Trevone woman whilst up at Sandbach 'mini tornado' hits area

Typhoon Haiyan: Philippine death toll up as aid arrives - the latest official figure is still well short of the initial prediction of 10,000 though

Somalia cyclone: 140 confirmed dead in Puntland

More cold weather for Victoria - temperatures won't even reach 20c.   Sounds fine to me!

Zany weather in Siberia confuses bears , ostriches ..... and weather experts

Indications are that 2013 'one of warmest' on record - certainly within the top ten, even though, allegedly, we're undergoing catastrophic global cooling and entering a new ice age.  Or summat.

Brazil says Amazon deforestation rose 28% in a year - although to be fair, the previous year saw the lowest amount for a long time.   And global forest change mapped by Google Earth - interesting to see the losses in Arctic Canada, Alaska and Siberia there, which I assume may be due to forest fires rather than logging?

Sun expected to 'flip upside down' as magnetic field reverses polarity - something it does every 11 years, although if the reversal coincides with Comet ISON's fly past, expect the tinfoil hats to insist a sinister connection ....

And finally, an update on Piers Corbyns 'prediction' of the St Jude's Day storm last month.   His forecasts for October are now online, and most usefully these ones showing the synoptics he was expecting during set periods through the month.   As can be seen, he did indeed forecast an Atlantic depression to track in from the west towards England and Wales during the period 29-31 Oct, though he expressed uncertainty as to the "penetration east of dartboard super low" (which, incidently, travlled as far east as Leningrad).  Not quite right, but still, he was close, right?   Well, no.   Firstly, here's the actual chart for 00z on 28th October.  Not quite the same.  Far from being a "dartboard" the storm was a small secondary low and not a particualrly large feature.   But then we look back and find that on the 25th there was a closer match.  So maybe that was the storm he predicted?   Or was it this one on the 22nd?  Or maybe he was a few days early and meant this one on the 2nd Nov?   Meanwhile, for the period 24-28 Oct he predicted high pressure over Britain ......   If he indeed predicted the Oct 28th storm, he very clearly failed to predict all the other storms preceding and following it during a spell of unsettled weather (albeit that for the period the storm was forecast, we enjoyed a brief settled spell un, er, high pressure ...).   Make you own mind up on whether Piers' claims that he alone has the "skill or success rate" to be worthy of being quoted by the media, is correct....