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German website wobleibtdieglobaleerwaermung (WBDGE) here reports some autumn halftime statistics for Central Europe. It turns out that earlier predictions by Germany’s Deutsche Wetterdienst DWD for a warm fall have been shattered so far, just the latest in a string of blunders we’ve been witnessing from the DWD.

The WBDGE site tells us:

After an already cool September, an historic cold wave with snow reaching into the flatland during the first half of October saw mean temperatures in parts of Germany clearly well below the 30-year mean as the following chart shows:”

NOAA reanalysis of the 2m temperature deviation from the internationally commonly used WMO climate mean of 1981-2010 for western Europe and Germany. The widespread blue and lilac colored surfaces show a cold Western Europe for the September 1 – October 16 period. Source: www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/composites/day/. Hat-tip: WBDGE.

Back in September Germany’s DWD Weather Service had forecast October in Germany to be “warm”. However so far the exact opposite has been the case. This is in part the result of the deeper than expected cold spell that just occurred.

How cold was it? Wetteronline.de here reports that some places saw all-time record lows for the date. The site writes:

On Wednesday winter started at what may be a record early date. At times a blanket of snow formed in the lowlands. At some locations it was colder than ever recorded since temperature records began. On Wednesday new record low temperatures were set across a large region. In the west the thermometer showed high temperatures of only 5°C. At some locations, such as Cologne and Essen, it was the coldest since records began back in 1881. From Thuringia, across western Saxony, and down into northern Bavaria high temperatures reached only 1 – 3°C.

Björn Alexander blames 2015 cold on 2012 Arctic ice extent!

Comically the unexpected extreme cold had parts of the German media scrambling to explain it, blaming it all global warming. For example meteorologist Bjorn Alexander of German NTV public television site here said the cold was due to the widespread Arctic ice cap melt – of 2012! NTV tells its readers:

Why such cold days in times of climate change? As absurd as it may sound: Especially because of global warming Europe will see record breaking cold more often. That is increasingly so because of greater ice melt in the Arctic. Models show: The less sea ice there is in the Arctic, the more probable it is that a high forms up there and brings cold to Europe.”

The link he provides, however, takes the reader to the 2012 record low sea ice extent, and not this year’s sea ice extent – which is now close to a 10-year high for this time of the year. Alexander also seems to be unaware that the models he refers to were slapped together by red-faced PIK scientists after the cold winters began hitting Europe back in 2009. These models have since been dismissed by a number of scientists and meteorologists

Temperatures in Central Europe are expected to moderate in the days ahead. However, recent GFS models show that winter maybe returning by the end of the month. See here.