Winter weather forecast 'finely balanced'

Met Office officials said the weather forecast for the UK was now "finely balanced" partly due to El Nino conditions in the Pacific, altering the early signal made by the Met Office in July.

The long range forecast for winter 2006-7 across the UK now points to near average temperatures and an approximately even chance of wetter or drier-than-average conditions for the season as a whole.

El Nino conditions are becoming established in the Pacific Ocean and this is helping to produce a winter forecast that is in the balance. These developing influences could shift probabilities to favour a colder outlook, particularly for the late winter months.

Dr Matt Huddleston told a news conference at the Science Media Centre in London: "It's somewhat of a bland forecast, but it's finely balanced. You could say winter is on a knife-edge in terms of what's going to happen. There are all sorts of forces at play in the global climate at the moment and we are closely monitoring what those are."