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A Warm January
Prediction the future is a pastime for people who think highly of themselves and who look foolish as their predictions prove wrong but I run those risks of being so thought; I venture to predict that this January may well turn out to be the warmest on record.
In London we have had many days so far (and the month is nearly half way through) when day time temperatures have been around a comfortable 13⁰ Celsius. This is warm for a January day; it is not shirt sleeve weather, but it is not over coat weather either. The warm sea is the answer and the prevailing weather has come from the south west where the Gulf Stream current brings us warm weather from the Caribbean. It has kept away the cold from the European plains and the Arctic, so far.
As I look outside my window this morning I see that my foolish prediction may prove to be wrong sooner rather than later. For the second consecutive day the cars parking in the street outside my home are covered with frost and for those who drive them this will be the second consecutive day this winter when they will have had to scrape off the ice from the windscreen.
Weather, like form in a footballer, is ephemeral but climate, like class, is permanent. A cold or warm January is part of our climate and we should not look to a season, or a year or even a decade to find a trend that will teach us where the climate will be in a hundred years time, anymore than we could use the weather of last week to predict next week’s weather.
Filed under: climate change, weather Tagged: Gulf Stream, shirt sleeve weather, warm sea, warm weather 
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