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It has been the most remarkable twelve months since I began forecasting twenty years ago.

The brutal weather of last December, which was the coldest since 1890, continued into the New Year, with more widespread disruption due to ice and snow for commuters as people ventured back to work.

The big thaw set in during February. It was one of the mildest on record. Some rivers burst their banks, with severe gales causing some structural damage.

April, based on the Central England Temperature (CET) series, was the warmest on record. A barbeque Easter caused some localised flooding in Sheffield as the heat led to a severe thunderstorm in the area - but for most Easter saw a rare spell of hot and sunny weather.

In fact the torrential rain in Sheffield was very much the exception to the rule in a spring that turned out to be the driest on record across much of the county.

The lack of rainfall led to concerns about water supplies, but Yorkshire Water remained confident that they would be able to continue to supply the region with water, whatever the weather.

Not for the first time in recent years, a warm, sunny spring led to hopes of a fine summer. However, hopes were dashed, with summer the coolest for nearly 20 years.

Autumn continued the remarkable run of extremes, turning out to be the second warmest on record. Locally and nationally the hottest October day was recorded.

Gravesend in Kent now holds the UK record, with Bramham in West Yorkshire holding the local record, with 29C (84F), beating the previous long standing record from 1908 set in Whitby.

But despite predictions from some private weather companies of a return of the big freeze in December, temperatures across the UK have turned out to be slightly above average.

To cap a year of remarkable contrasts, provisional figures dating back to 1910 and released by the Met Office suggest 2011 as a whole has been the second warmest on record.

You can see my weather review of the year on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Look North (Yorkshire) at 6.15pm this evening.

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Cloud enthusiasts have been in their element this afternoon by a wonderful display of stationary lens-shaped clouds, called Altocumulus Lenticularis, visible across many parts of Yorkshire.

The clouds have formed as stable but moist air has travelled across the Pennines, causing a standing wave to become established; this leads to the developed cloud sitting stationary for some time, where-as under normal circumstances, the cloud would move with the prevailing wind direction.

Lenticular clouds are the single biggest explanation for U.F.O sightings across the world, and the bigger the hill or mountain range the air travels across, the more spectacular the lenticular cloud.

Below is just one example or the view this afternoon, this one taken in Keighley in West Yorkshire.

The latest global temperature for November has finally been released and according to the UAH measure it showed little change from the previous month with an anomaly of +0.123C above the running 30 year mean, shown on the graph below.

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UPDATE at 6pm Thu 15th DEC

Latest models broadly in agreement that gales confined to English Channel and Northern France, with rain and snow from the system roughly Midlands southwards.

ENDS

UPDATE at 4pm

Latest UK model just to hand pushes the rain a little further north on thursday night and into Friday morning, introducing a risk of snow away from coastal areas across much of Yorkshire & Lincolnshire, highlighting the ongoing uncertainty with thursday night's forecast.

ENDS

More than seven days ago computer weather models from around the world signalled that the UK could be in line for another battering from an Atlantic depression on Thursday night & into Friday, hot off the heels of last week's 'winter storm' which brought gusts in excess of 70mph to Northern Britain.

The fact that these computer models could pick up on such a system, before it had even started to develop, shows just how good they can be.

But whereas the most likely track of the storm at the start of this week was across Northern parts of the UK, it now looks increasingly likely that the centre will be across Southern England, with disruptive winds largely confined to the English channel and Northern France.

This is because of subtle changes in the atmospheric conditions in the Atlantic.

The chart below is from the American model, which has been the most consistent in forecasting that the track would be across the south.

But small changes in the Atlantic area could still alter the track of this feature, and if it is a little further north, severe gales could affect parts of Southern Britain, with the snow risk pushed further north into parts of Northern England - although at the moment this is considered a low risk.

In all scenarios, a cold snap will follow over the weekend, with frost at night and wintry showers.

Next week, milder conditions look set to return from the west.

Much of the UK looks set to be battered by severe gales through tomorrow, as an area of low pressure in the Atlantic undergoes explosive development in the next 24 hours.

At 6am this morning, the central pressure of the area of low pressure heading our way was 1006mb; by tomorrow afternoon it's expected to have deepened to 955mb - a huge drop in central pressure of around 50mb.

The weather chart for tomorrow can be seen below, with the area of low pressure just off the west coast of Scotland.

In terms of wind speeds over land, here in Yorkshire, gusts around 70mph are likely in a number of more exposed locations tomorrow afternoon & evening, with a broad area roughly from the Midlands northwards into Lincolnshire experiencing potential gusts around 60mph.

Conditions will be even worse further north; into Northeast England, parts of Cumbria together with central and Southern Scotland, gusts could increase to around 80mph.

Once wind speeds reach around 70mph or more, structural damage is possible, along with travel disruption and the commute later tomorrow could be problematical.

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Autumn has turned out to be the second warmest on record, beaten only by autumn 2006 on a Met Office dataset that dates back to 1910. November itself was also narrowly pushed into second place, only beaten by November 1994.

More impressively, based on the much longer CET dataset, which has run since 1659, provisional figures also show that autumn and November were the second warmest on record.

Locally, Linton on Ouse had their warmest November on record.

It was also very dry in eastern areas, with Coningsby in Lincolnshire and Leconfield in East Yorkshire both experiencing their driest November since records began.

The exceptional November ends a very interesting 12 months across the UK, which has seen extremely polarised weather condtions at times.

December 2010 was the coldest since 1890, and the second coldest on record (CET dataset which began in 1659). April 2011 was the warmest on record; with the UK breaking its October record for the highest temperature recorded both locally and nationally.

As we begin December, the jet stream is exactly where it should be at this time of the year, with westerly winds set to continue.

This means any cold snaps are likely to be short lived.

More importantly the much hyped extreme cold and snowy weather, forecast by several private weather companies for December, seems as far away as ever.