“If November ice will bear a duck, There’ll be nothing after but sludge and muck.” So the old weather saying goes, which means if November produces at least one extended spell of severe weather, the likelihood is that the winter proper will be mild and rainy.
We shall have to wait and see.
Such sayings should come with a health warning, and the statistics should be examined. Stats would indicate that a cold November has no predictive power at all.
As the severe cold spell extends well into December, causing havoc on roads, even threatening to short the supply of toys in shops for Christmas, we can be sure that winter proper is well and truly arrived.
