On Thursday, December 1, 2016 at 10:23:09 AM UTC, John Hall wrote:

An interesting read. Are the temperatures quoted CETs or for your local
area?

My local area, back to 1797. CET is often very similar or slightly colder though there is the odd occasion when my figures are notably lower. I think discrepancies arise when the south is under the influence of a strong anticyclonic flow off a cold continent, the Midlands northwards, closer to the centre of a high pressure, relatively benign. The weather this week has been 'topsy turvy'.

"The overall mean temperature for December, January and February came
out at as 4.2C – 1.2C colder than the 1981-2010 average, with average
precipitation."

I think that shows how mild recent decades have been on the whole, in
spite of some notably cold winters in the 1980s and in 2009-10 and a
very cold December in 2010. Fifty years or so ago, rather than 4.2C
being rather cold it would merely have been average.

Indeed. An average winter, this area experiences 6 snow lying days in such a year, would 'feel' very cold this year when compared with the previous 3 winters.

"As well as my method of using rainfall and temperature I also
considered other methods. One was Russian research that states that the
weather pattern in the winter will be the opposite to the weather on
September 17th and November 7th. This autumn September 17th was N’ly
and November 7th was NNW’ly. So, this would suggest a continental flow
from S and SSE."

Even if that's true for European Russia (which I find rather hard to
believe), the UK is far enough away to make it very doubtful that it
would apply here too. Apart from anything else, I suspect that the wind
direction here tends to fluctuate much more from day to day, with the
frequent passage of depressions fairly nearby, than it does further
east.
--
I've not been able to source the original paper for this study but you're probably right. As Richard said in another spread the pattern screams battleground.