Greater Manchester is set for another bitterly cold winter according to a local forecaster who believes Europe could be in the midst of a ‘mini ice-age’.
Amateur weatherman Harry Kershaw, 85, from Sale, correctly predicted that January 2010 would be as bad as the 1979 ‘winter of discontent’, when the country was hit by strikes and freezing weather.
Now he fears this winter could be as cold as that of 1812-13 – when freezing temperatures forced Napoleon to retreat from Moscow during his attempt to seize the Russian capital when day-time temperatures reached no more than -9C.
Only 20,000 of the 400,000 soldiers in Napoleon’s Grand Army who had marched into Russia survived the disastrous campaign and the freezing retreat.
Harry said: “It looks like we could be on the same weather cycle that occurred before Napoleon’s retreat.”
Harry, who began forecasting as a merchant seaman, uses a system developed by the German army during the Second World War known as ‘similarity forecasting’.
He matches conditions with those of previous years and then predicts the future weather will follow a similar pattern – often with uncanny accuracy.
In early 2007, his predictions of a miserable summer were at odds with official forecasts, but he was right.
He also warned of wet weather in 2009 when the Met Office told the nation to prepare for a ‘barbecue summer’.
Harry has been monitoring data from sun spots and barometer readings from the North Pole in readiness for drawing together his winter forecast.
He says the data suggests Europe could be in the middle of a ‘mini ice-age’ similar to the one that happened in the four years from 1812 to 1815.
The number of spots on the sun, thought to affect the weather, are the same this year and last year as 1812 and 1813.
Harry says North Pole barometer readings in August suggest Europe will experience a repeat of last winter.
He said: “If it follows the pattern of 1812-13, it will be mild up to as late as December 21. This is what happened in 1962. It was mild until Christmas Eve then we had an appalling winter.”
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Must the MEN wheel out this charlatan every year?
Right, I'll break out the sun-block.
Love,
Diane (BBC)
Oh here he goes again.
The silly old man knows absolutely nothing about the weather.
Anybody can guess what the weather is.
Tomorrow I think it will be raining.
Sunny Spells on Sunday.
Blah blah blah!
Strange we have spent all these years, with modern technological advances and wasting countless money on dolly birds presenting the weather. Yet with accuracy and simple methods a gentlemen could have predicted our next mini ice age.
Can he predict the lottery numbers?
I've heard the Same thing.....Just been out and bought 10 Bags of High Quality Rocksalt very Reasonably Priced from Crumpsall Plumbers and Builders Merchants.....
Now we know what Junior Soprano has been doing for the last few years!
Its always a nice story, but this chap just constantly gets it wrong.
Well, thanks very much Harry.
German army , second world war , russian front , if similarity forcasting was any good woud,nt the germans have won at the russian front
Odd how so many run Harry down but can never prove him wrong.
My weather knee is not giving me that much jip at the moment so I will guess it will be an average winter.
Er.... uses a system developed by the Germans in the second world war?
That worked a treat, as I recall, and their crushing victory at Stalingrad....eh? oh - hang on!
Actually I hope it is really bad - I love it, nothing nicer, and going sitting in the pub when it's all cold outside.
And I've got about six tons of firewood and coal ready. And the cars have got winter tyres.
You can take his predictions with a pinch of salt, but science is actually pointing towards a new 'little ice age'. Even NASA is taking it seriously and its all down to the Sun and its lack of sun spot activity. The last time Earth experienced low sun spots is well documented throughout the world. The dates of this last occurrence are between 1550 and 1850. Google 'little ice age' and 'maunder minimum' for more info.
I'm afraid he is wrong - wrong about the sunspot cycle - and also wrong about that cold winter (that so many others seem to want to forecast too, for PR reasons). Yesterday this European winter forecast appeared:
http://www.bitsofscience.org/solar-no-cold-winter-europe-sunspot-4122/
It shows there is no scientific basis to suggest the UK will have another cold winter - in fact there could be as many as 5-6 'milder & wetter' winters ahead...
These weather types rarely predict with any great degree of accuracy what it'll be doing tomorrow afternoon, let alone in two months time. Still, at least this guy's doing it as a hobby and not as part of the ridiculously over-funded laughing-stock that is the Met Office.
They do say that older people feel the cold a lot more.
Praps he is only telling it as he sees it - but that maybe twenty degrees lower
than the rest of us!
I have been around for 77 years and I don't remember much similarity,each year was unique. I have noticed that winters have been a lot milder and we get much more sun,and less rain in Manchester since we became smokeless.
The weather is like a big pot constantly boiling. Whilst you know the pot is boiling you have no idea whether it all boils the same thanks to convection currents.
The sun shines on the Equator that is the hottest place on earth. The air rises spreads out roughly to the tropics,sinks and returns to the Equater as the trade windswhich blow from the NOrth East in the North and South East in the South because of the Earths rotation. Unfortunately the sun appears to travel North to Cancer and down to Capricorn bringing this weather system with it.
Outside that we have the Westerlies and complete chaos and the Jet stream between the two which wobbles North and south alarmingly
Then we have El Nino when the Western Pacific cools,and the East warms, and La Nina when the opposite occurs.
Trained meteorologists are the first to admit it will be a very long time if ever before we can predict that lot with accuracy which is why they restrict their forecasts.
Plus Sun spot activity, and global warming I think I would keep quiet,and just plan for all eventuallities. instead of paying vast sums for dodgy forecasts like supermarkets and others. Time will tell,but will we remember. OR CARE.
This guy is always, I say always predicting bad things regarding the weather.
To be fair, he did predict a heatwave in 2010 and, I bet somewhere on the planet had a heatwave in 2010.
predicted 2010 would be as cold as 1979 - im sure that was not a noticeable year for cold weather - was it not 1982 and 1963? Also I dont recall any strikes in 2010 that were as severe as 1979 !!
I predict it will either rain or go dark before morning.
Does anybody remember his prediction from last winter?:
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1387888_amateur_weatherman_predicts_january_could_be_the_coldest_since_1740
Well he got that wrong - maybe he makes such predictions to get the media attention? !!
and I predict FEAR from those who had an isolated, lonely time in the cold last year.
Not everyone has relatives or helpful neighbours and as someone who struggles to walk I have become scared of freezing cold weather and heavy snowfalls. Gritters only ever visit the bus routes, which I'm not on, and I certainly don't have money for stockpiling.
I'm not Playing A Violin for sympathy, I just hope to remind those with transport, families, good health, shovels and a little bit of time to look out for people who are Home Alone. This isn't a political Big Society plea - it's about being decent, about showing our youth how to behave and about helping other people without expecting financial rewards. .
It'll rain in manchester tonight