There are some headlines in the media today which suggest the Met Office is warning of exceptionally cold weather for three months.

However, the Met Office hasn’t issued a warning along these lines and we have not highlighted months of ‘exceptionally cold’ weather ahead. If there is any sign of significantly cold weather or disruptive snow in the forecast, we will keep the country up to date through our forecasts and warnings.

The news stories are based on information taken from our three month outlook for contingency planners, so let’s take a closer look at that.

What does our three month outlook say?

This outlook is not like our other forecasts because, as we have discussed previously, it’s not currently scientifically possible to provide a detailed forecast over these long timescales.

Instead, the outlook assesses the level of risk connected to five different scenarios for both temperature and rain/snowfall. It’s a bit like the science-equivalent of factoring the odds on a horse race.

The current outlook for December-January-February says the chance of the coldest scenario happening is between 20 and 25% and the chances that the period will fall into the warmest scenario is between 10 and 15%.

So while uncertainty is quite large, below average temperatures are more likely than above average (for note, average maximum temperatures for the UK in winter are about 6.6C and average minimum temps are about 0.9C).

However, as with any horse race, it’s always possible that the favourite won’t win – so these probability scenarios have to be used in the right context. This is why they’re useful for contingency planners who plan ahead based on risk, but not that useful for the general public.

So what will winter be like?

Obviously there’s always a lot of interest to know what winter will be like – how cold will it be, how much snow will we get and where and when will it fall?

The Met Office is working with research partners around the world to improve longer range forecasting, but it’s not currently possible to forecast snow or exact temperatures three months ahead.

However, our 30-day outlook (under the text forecast tab) provides a look ahead to the general type of weather we’re likely to see in the UK.

Currently it says that after today, we’ll see settled weather and fairly normal temperatures into the first week of December before the chance of some colder, more changeable weather towards the end of next week. This may last a few days before giving way to milder and unsettled weather.

For the mid to latter part of December, there are indications that temperatures are likely to remain near or slightly below average for the time of year, but otherwise fairly normal conditions for early winter are most likely.

With regards to forecasting snow, because there are so many factors involved, generally that can only be discussed in any detail in our five day forecasts.

If there is any sign of significantly cold weather or disruptive snow in the forecast, we will keep the country up to date through our forecasts and warnings.