I've written at length about the excessive rainfall the UK has experienced, particularly last year but also since the late 1990's; six out of the years from 1998 to 2012 are in the top ten wettest on record, based on Met Office rainfall data which began in 1910.

There are various theories as to why our summers have been so wet, and why the jet stream has been further south than normal.

It's worth remembering as exceptional as the last few years have seemed, climate history shows us that flooding in the UK has always been normal.

This point is highlighted in research which was carried out by Durham University following the serious summer floods in 2007 and highlighted on the Watts Up With That website this week.

The research is five years old, but it rings very true today, and the prediction made in 2008 of increased flooding and heavy rainfall in subsequent years has proved to be all too correct.

The author Professor Stuart Lane looked back at rainfall patterns starting in the mid 1700's.

He concluded that our climate has always fluctuated between very wet and very dry periods, some of which lasted for a few decades.

Crucially the period from the early 1960's to the late 1990's saw far fewer river flooding episodes compared with before the 1960's and after the 1990's.

Ominously, he points out that because more than three quarters of our flood records started during the 1960's, when there were far fewer river flooding episodes, we have underestimated the frequency of flooding.

And this has a knock on effect as to how much flood plain development local authorities will allow.

It's a vicious circle as more flood plain development is likely to make any future flooding even worse.

The article on the Durham University website can be found by clicking here.

UK weather outlook:

The heavy snow that brought disruption to parts of the UK on Friday has melted rapidly as a result of milder air and rainfall.

The next 48 hours will be dominated by a very common January weather pattern, with a powerful jet stream bringing rain or showers to all areas, accompanied by strong to gale force winds.

There's uncertainty about Friday's weather though, with an Atlantic depression expected to bring rain to parts of the UK.

Just how far north the rain will come is open to question, but with colder air pushing southwards as it clears away, some of it could turn to snow.

2012 Global temperatures:

Provisional Met Office figures show that 2012 was the 9th warmest on record, 0.45C above the 1961-1990 average. This is very close to their prediction for 2012 which was for a global temperature 0.48C above the 1961-1990 average.

According to the UAH satellite temperature measure, 2012 was also the 9th warmest on record.

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Waddington in Lincolnshire is reporting 14 cms of snow.

There are some big contrasts though, with only 2cms reported at Church Fenton in the Vale of York.

The snow, on Friday and last night, was forecast well in advance and first signalled at the beginning of last week.

Further snowfall is likely on the North York moors tonight, but for many it should become dry, with the main hazard being that of widespread ice.

Patchy rain, sleet and snow in coastal areas tomorrow will push inland to affect some areas, but further snowfall amounts will be small.

A change to milder weather will come at the weekend, with rain, preceded by some snow; the last week of January looks much milder with rain at times.

The thaw, when it comes could be rapid and with the ground already saturated from last year's excessive rainfall, flooding is likely to be a concern.

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Temperatures could easily reach -10C (14F) in rural locations where there's snow cover during the next couple of nights.

But by the end of the week and into the weekend, things will become much more interesting, as weather fronts make the first of what could be two attempts to bring less cold air in from the Atlantic, with a risk of snow and disruption to travel.

As is always the case in these situations there's a lot of uncertainty about how fast the less cold air moves north-eastwards.

Experience suggests that computer models are often too quick to replace cold continental air.

Current indications are that the first Atlantic weather front will push across our area through Friday night and into Saturday as a weakening feature, bringing some increasingly light snow.

The next more active weather front will bring heavier snow on Sunday, which will eventually turn to rain as less cold air spreads eastwards.

But to highlight the uncertainty, some solutions are quicker with the snow and bring it across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Friday, with others slower.

There's bound to be changes to the timing of these systems as we get nearer the event, but there's clearly a risk of disruptive snow as we head into the weekend.

Next week looks very unsettled, and although the air will be somewhat less cold, temperatures are still likely to below average, with rain at times which could easily turn to snow in places, especially over the hills.

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The new projection can be seen below with more details on the Met Office website.

In the 12 years to 2011, 11 out of 12 forecasts were too high - and although all projections were within the stated margin of error, none were colder than expected.

One of their most high profile forecasts came in late 2009, coinciding with the Copenhagen climate conference.

It stated that half the years between 2010 and 2015 would be hotter than the hottest year on record, which I wrote about on my blog.

This already appears wide of the mark.

The latest projection seems to address this error with a prediction to 2017 in which temperatures rise 20% less than previously estimated.

In November 2009 I wrote about this levelling off in global temperatures, using research available at the time on the Met Office website.

In it, the Met Office explained that the levelling off of global temperatures that we were experiencing can be expected at time periods of a decade or less, because of the computer models internal climate variability.

But intriguingly, the research ruled out zero trends for time periods of 15 years or more.

The new projection, if correct, would mean there will have been little additional warming for two decades despite rising greenhouse gases.

It's bound to raise questions about the robustness and reliability of computer simulations that governments around the world are using in order to determine policies aimed at combating global warming.

The Met Office says natural cycles have caused the recent slowdown in warming, including perhaps changes in the suns activity, and ocean currents.

And mainstream climate scientists, who are in a majority, say that when the natural cooling factors change again, temperatures will be driven up further by greenhouse gases.

But climate sceptics, who have long argued that natural processes are either underestimated, or not properly understood, will not be surprised at this scaling back of expected warming.

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2012 was provisionally 3rd wettest on record according to the England & Wales rainfall series which started in 1766, behind 1872 and 1786. December was also the wettest since 1978 in the same dataset.

ENDS

2012 averaged across the UK was the second wettest on record in data which stretches back to 1910, falling short of a new record by only 6.6mm.

In total 1330.7mm fell last year, compared with the average of 1154mm.

A new record has been set across England and Wales with 1205mm of rain.

And locally new records have been set for Yorkshire, with 1230.8mm (136% of average) and Lincolnshire with 841.3mm (135% of average).

It's been a remarkable run of wet years in the UK since 1998; 6 years are now in the top 10 wettest - 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2008 & 2012.

Even more striking are figures based on the much longer England and Wales rainfall data series, first started in 1766.

2012 is provisionally in the top 4 wettest in 246 years (the other years being 2000, 1872 & 1786).

Also of significance is that 2012 is the only year in this 246 year data set in which 2 calendar months set new records for rainfall: April and June.

2012 has certainly been a remarkable year which has seen the jet stream too far south for long periods of time.

But weather patterns are very different as we head into early 2013. The jet stream has re-positioned itself further north, with high pressure building across the country.

This means an emphasis on much drier weather across the UK as whole in the next few days, which will come as a huge relief to many, although rain is expected early next week.

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According to Dr Hanna and an international team of scientists, melting summer Arctic ice may be weakening the jet stream, leading it to meander and become slow moving.

This effectively means that weather patterns become locked in for long periods of time.

The jet stream is a ribbon of strong winds high up in the atmosphere, a result of the temperature contrast between northern latitudes towards the Arctic, and latitudes further south.

Because the Arctic is warming faster than any other region on earth, this temperature contrast is getting weaker, leading to a less powerful jet stream in summer.

Crucial to the UK and Northwest Europe is Greenland, a huge mountanous land-mass which can act as a barrier to the jet stream.

If the jet stream is weaker than normal, two things can happen.

It can either split, with one arm going northeastwards, with the other travelling southeastwards towards the UK.

Or the whole jet stream can be deflected southeastwards towards the UK.

The result in both cases would be wet, cool, unsettled conditions as we have seen since 2007.

Not every summer is likely to be poor.

The slow-moving jet stream may become positioned to the north of us, leading to warm settled conditions.

But because of our position relative to Greenland, these summers are likely to be the exception to the rule.

Dr Hanna says if this theory is correct and summer Arctic ice melt continues, there is also likely to be a higher risk of extreme rainfall events such as we have experienced in 2007 and again this year.

The research, which was carried out jointly by experts from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), Rutgers University, University of Washington, and the University of Sheffield, was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

You can see more on this on BBC Look North from Leeds, on BBC1 at 6.30pm, (Sky channel 956, Freesat 966) or on BBC1's Inside Out at 7.30pm (Sky 956 & 957, Freesat 966 & 967).

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Last week, 80% of the ECMWF model solutions wanted an easterly 'blocking' weather pattern, with the average of those solutions shown below.

This positional error means that Atlantic weather systems will now be able to make further progress eastwards across the UK.

It illustrates very well just how difficult it is sometimes to forecast general weather conditions a week ahead, even when there's high model confidence.

So after a temporary cold and dry spell, it now seems likely that the rest of December will be very unsettled, with showers or longer spells of rain, some of which will be heavy, with only very brief incursions of colder air.

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If so, it will be the first time since March that high pressure has properly dominated our weather, and will end a long sequence of at times record breaking wet weather.

And it looks to be a classic winter-time set up, with a powerful anticyclone developing across Scandinavia and into western Russia, pulling in cold easterly winds across a large part of the country, hence the old saying 'the beast from the east'.

The diagram below is what's known as an 'ensemble mean' from the ECMWF model for the middle of next week.

The solutions are then compared, and give forecasters an indication as to how likely a particular outcome is.

From the midnight run of the computer, 41 out of 51 of the solutions suggest an easterly weather pattern developing next week, with varying degrees of cold.

10 solutions do not agree with this cold easterly outcome, hence there is still some uncertainty. But, there's clearly a large majority in favour of this scenario at the moment.

What is much less certain is how much snow is likely to be associated with this change in the weather.

Quite often in these situations, there's a distinct lack of precipitation apart from wintry flurries which can develop as the air picks up moisture as it heads westwards across the North Sea.

But some solutions are suggesting 'disturbances' in the easterly flow, which would bring the risk of more general snowfall.

And of course there's always the risk of milder air trying to re-assert itself from from the west, which would also bring the risk of snow.

At the moment though, the cold but relatively dry scenario is the most likely outcome.

One way or the other, our weather is likely to become more seasonal in the lead up to Christmas.

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Should this be the case, it would also mean that nearly half of the years since 1998 would be in the UK's top ten wettest years on record.

2000 (wettest), 2008, 2002, 1999, 1998, and if rainfall is sufficient, 2012, would all make it into the top 10.

1923, 1927 and 1928 are also in the top 10, illustrating that wet years do come in clusters, but the 1920's sequence is nothing like what we have experienced in recent years.

Such a rainfall sequence suggests that over and above any cyclical change to weather patterns that are naturally occurring, other factors are likely to be at work, fuelling suspicions that climate change is playing its part.

November was another wet month.

Across England and Wales, rainfall was 128 per cent of the 1981-2010 average, making it the 8th successive month with above average rainfall.

And in the last 100 years only 20 Novembers had more rainfall, despite the fact it was only the wettest since 2009.

The continued positioning of the jet stream further south than normal is responsible for the very wet weather.

Current computer projections suggest that December is unlikely to be another washout month dominated by the Atlantic.

Although more rain (or snow) is expected at times, high pressure is likely to exert much more of an influence than in recent months, leading overall to colder but somewhat drier conditions to develop.

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November is continuing a remarkable run of wet weather, becoming the 8th successive month where rainfall has been above average, a sequence which began in April.

Rainfall has not yet been of the same magnitude as that which caused the River Ouse to rise just short of record levels in September, when 100mm fell in 50 hours at Leeming, 76mm of that in just 24 hours.

So far at the same station 52mm had been recorded in the 40 hours to 1200 today - still a lot of rain though - equating to a month's worth in less than 2 days.

Normally, this wouldn't cause problems with river flooding, but because the land is so saturated in what is already one of the wettest years on record, rivers have risen faster and higher than would normally have been the case.

Another 10-20 mm of rain is expected generally in the next 18 hours across Yorkshire, with additional totals as high as 50mm across some higher Pennine and North York moor river catchments.

Through this week somewhat colder air is expected to spread southwards as pressure starts to rise.

This will result in weather systems being 'blocked' from moving eastwards across the country, at least in the short term.

The good news is that this means weather conditions will become much drier generally, although showers are still expected more especially in eastern areas exposed to the northerly breeze.

Frosts will develop inland from mid-week and some of the showers will become wintry, more especially over the hills, although they are not expected to cause a problem.

Looking further ahead into early December, there is a split between computer models.

Some want to see a return of the less cold and wetter westerlies (like for example arguably the most reliable ECMWF model), with others keeping colder, drier conditions especially across the North and East of the UK.

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Wherever I went this weekend, I've been stopped in the street by people asking me when the awful weather is likely to hit, whether they should buy winter tyres for the car, or go ahead with a planned visit to relatives at Christmas.

The headline in the Express came courtesy of little known 'Exacta Weather', a tiny private weather company, which bases its forecasts on, amongst other things, variations in solar output.

But the headline this weekend is almost identical to the one from this time last year, in which the same 'Exacta Weather' forecasted severe wintry conditions throughout last winter, leading to yet another front page headline in the Express.

Exacta Weather is by no means the only company to issue such forecasts.

The headline in the Express is one of over twenty in the newspaper in recent times, all claiming severe or extreme conditions were about to befall us, each one of them the result of press releases from small, private weather companies, and most of which turned out to be wrong or exaggerated.

So what's going on?

When I worked at the Met Office some years ago, I remember the press office contacted a tabloid newspaper to ask why they continued to print such weather stories which invariably turned out to be wrong.

Their answer was very honest, straightforward and unapologetic.

Weather sells newspapers they said; admitting that each and every time they had a front page story on extreme weather, their circulation went up by around 10%.

Whether the forecast was right or wrong didn't seem a concern, after all, the newspaper was only reporting on what was being forecast by the weather company in question. How did they know whether it would turn out to be right or wrong?

And one would assume that any small private weather company, in a difficult completely un-regulated sector which is dominated by the state-funded Met Office, is happy to get some free, valuable publicity.

So it's a mutually beneficial process.

The losers, of course, are the readers, and more importantly the whole weather industry itself, which gets tarred with the same brush as those who issue extreme, sensationalist forecasts, which rarely bare any resemblance to reality.

So will it be the coldest winter in 100 Years?

It's extremely unlikely and if it were to happen it would be a huge turn up for the books.

Of course, if it were to happen, the many, many misleading headlines based on questionable forecasts that have appeared in recent years would quickly be forgotten.

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The record breaking Arctic sea ice minimum recorded this summer (based on satellite data) was well documented in the media and on this blog.

Conversely, at the other end of the world, little mention was made of the Antarctica ice extent which approached a record high in September, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC).

According to new research conducted by the British Antarctic Survey, published in Nature Geoscience, changing wind patterns around Antarctica are thought to have caused the increase in ice, with wind flows pushing sea ice outwards helping to increase its extent.

Climate models have failed to reproduce this overall increase in sea ice.

The new research says that sea ice is not able to expand by the same mechanism in the Arctic because if winds push the ice away from the pole it quickly hits land, as the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by a continent - whereas because Antarctica is a continent surrounded by water, ice can expand.

But according to the British Antarctic survey, the Arctic is losing sea ice five times faster than the Antarctic is gaining it.

Latest Global temperatures

Global temperatures in October remained at elevated levels.

According to the UAH satellite measure the global temperature was 0.331C above the 30 year running average in October.

Adjusted to the standard 1961-1990 measure, global temperatures were 0.584C above average, making it the 2nd warmest October globally since the start of satellite data in 1979.

These warm global conditions are despite temperatures in equatorial Pacific areas remaining neutral.

In fact, a continuation of neutral temperature conditions (neither colder La Nina nor warmer El Nino) are now favoured during the Northern Hemisphere winter, and the El Nino watch has been cancelled.

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Although autumn is traditionally the wettest season of the year, the land is more saturated than normal because of excessive rainfall since the end of March, leading to an increased risk of further river flooding throughout the remainder of the year.

In fact with little if any evaporation during the winter months, rivers are likely to remain susceptible to further flooding until spring next year, when evaporation rates increase once more and the land is given a chance to dry out.

October continued the wet theme, turning out to be another disappointing month.

Rainfall averaged across England and Wales was 120 per cent of the 1981-2010 average. This means that only 22 Octobers were wetter in the last 100 years.

It was colder than average too, with a Central England Temperature of 9.7C, making it the coldest October since 2003. This is 1C below the 1981-2010 average, and in the last 100 years only 27 were colder.

The first half of November is likely to remain unsettled, with further rain expected at times.

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Some of us, mainly in eastern parts of the region will see showers, and the air will be cold enough for some of these to have a wintry flavour - with hail, sleet and some snow.

By Friday night, the North York moors and Wolds could have a slight covering of snow, as you can see on the figure below, although this will melt very quickly on Saturday.

It's perfectly normal to get a cold snap at this time of the year, and it will prove to be temporary, as less cold Atlantic air moves back in on Sunday, bringing cloud and some rain.

But it comes after what has been quite an exceptional few weeks of below average temperatures.

According to climatologist Philip Eden, the period from mid-September to mid-October was the coldest such period since 1974, and in the last century only 1952 and 1905 was colder.

As for next week, it's a familiar story, with low pressure set to dominate, leading to changeable and unsettled weather across many parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, with temperatures at best close to average.

But with winds from the west, there will be some dry, bright weather at times, with eastern areas most favoured.

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Friday and Saturday look generally dry, although there will be some fog to contend with in the mornings.

The change will come courtesy of a warm front which will bring some rain and drizzle from the southeast later on Sunday.

Thereafter, the good news is that a ridge of high pressure will dominate our weather, meaning much drier weather on the whole next week.

And at first glance, it is easy to get carried away with the fact that the air which is on its way from the continent is warm.

But, unfortunately for us, it has to travel across the North Sea.

And as it does so, the warmer air coming into contact with the colder North Sea is likely to generate extensive low cloud at times.

In these situations it is possible to get quite high temperatures - for example where there is shelter from the prevailing south-easterly wind, like west of the Pennines, or areas where the warm air only has to travel across a short sea track, like southern parts of the UK.

But for our part of the world, skies are likely to be predominantly cloudy - although with light winds and generally dry conditions (apart from drizzle which can form in extensive low cloud), it should be an improvement compared with what we've been used to.

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