Recurring weather patterns at certain times of the year are well known. The ‘Buchan Cold Spell’, ‘European Monsoon’ and Indian / St Martin’s Summer are all phenomena that have been studied extensively.
An article by the late meteorologist and broadcaster Philip Eden a number of years ago considered many of these patterns and found that, to varying degrees of reliability, they provided a guide to what the weather would be like at any given time of the year.
Considering climate change I wondered how much these patterns could still be relied on. Using my own pressure, rainfall and ‘wind run’ data (the total amount of daily wind) going back to the start of 2013 I had a look at the singularities for January and February
January patterns at the beginning, middle and end of the month appear to be the most reliable. However, it is only the ‘mid-Jan settled’ period that is most reliable.
The early Feb settled spell occurs with very low probability: just 56 per cent. And this year the pressure, according to the GFS model, plotted below by WXCharts.eu, is predicted to be around 1040mb by February 2!
Looking at the results of the past 5 years it could be concluded that the patterns do still occur but because of the nature of the jet stream, which seems to meander far more readily than in the past, these stormy / quiet episodes are becoming shorter than they were in previous studies.
Wanstead Meteo 
Hi, I am a bit of an amateur meteorologist and I enjoy your e mail updates. I’m not 100% certain as to how “Wind Run” is calculated but if it is what I think it is then the winds during the recent storm must have been pretty high on that scale. I cannot remember such extended gusts. Thanks for the updates
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Many thanks. Wind run is the amount of times the three anemometer cups turn, the distance they would cover if they were running along the ground. Because the anemometer of my station has the least ideal exposure, considering meteorological standards, it is merely a guide. On saying that because the exposure has been the same since set up in 2012 it can still provide a good guide to just how windy any given day was.
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