General Remarks:

__Atlantic Hurricane Seasons: 2010 is Third Most Active on Record, while 2005 Tops the List.

__ January-November 2010 surface temperature anomalies ….is the warmest January-November in the GISS analysis, which covers 131 years. See graphic

June/ July /August 2010:
___A heat wave hit Eastern Europe as exceptionally strong jet stream winds blew in from the Sahara across the Balkan and into both Poland and Ukraine on June 10. ___ In mid-June, a strong blocking pattern settled over western Russia, bringing an unprecedented two-month long heat wave to the area. (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2010/13 )
___The Russian heat wave contributed to several hundred wildfires that broke out across Russia, primarily in the west in summer 2010. They started burning in late July and lasted until early September 2010.

October 2010:
___30 October 2010, D’Aleo at Icecap: The degree and location of blocking high pressure in the Atlantic will determine how much cold and snow in Europe and Asia.

November 2010:
__11/13. December; James Hansen et al., “2010 — Global Temperature and Europe's Frigid Air”:  The cold anomaly in Northern Europe in November has continued and strengthened in the first half of December. Northern Europe had negative anomalies of more than 4°C.  
__www.islandnet.com (11.Jan.2011):  “On the eastern side of the Greenland High block, extreme cold had begun in November across much of Northern Europe. The first week of December was abnormally cold for much of Europe and parts of the United States.” 

 A blocking high is defined as an anticyclone (a cell of high surface pressure) that remains stationary or nearly so and blocks the normal movement of migratory cyclones across the latitudes.

___15. November 2010 at NoTricksZone: Joe Bastardi predicts a cold snap   coming soon: “…blocking is developing and a major early season outbreak of cold looks to be shaping up as we wind the clock toward December”.

December 2010:

___05 January, Met Office, www.metoffice.gov.uk – “December 2010 has become the coldest December across the UK since the national series began in 1910. ….”.    
         --The mean temperature for the UK has been -1.0 °C, well below the long term average
           of 4.2 °C. The previous coldest December in the series was 0.1 °C, in 1981.
          --In the last 100 years, the UK has experienced five colder months - January 1940,
           February 1947, January 1963, February 1963 and February 1986.

__ In Ireland December has been the coldest month ever since records began 130 years ago; at Ireland’s Armagh Observatory the second coldest since 1795.

__Central England Temperature record is one of the longest (since 1659).  December 2010 was the coldest December in 120 years with an average of -0.7C just short of the record of -0.8C recorded in December 1890 and the Second Coldest December Temperature in the entire record (352 years).
__ According to the Swedish meteorological agency SMHI, several parts of Sweden,

including the southern region Gotaland and eastern Svealand, experienced the coldest December in at least 110 years.”

__ In several parts of Sweden, including the Gotaland and eastern Svealand, experienced the coldest December in at least 110 years.
___ Germany has experienced the coldest December in more than 40 years.

January 2011:
__“After a sudden stratospheric warming, among other things the differences in pressure between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High are reduced. This pressure difference determines the prevailing wind direction for Central Europe and thus determines whether the European winter turns cold or warm. Thus, for example, the 2009/2010 winter was characterized by a highly disturbed polar vortex, and in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere there was a severe and snowy winter.” Last paragraph from text at: “Meteorologists at Freie Universität Identify Cause of Cold and Warm Periods during Winter” ; http://www.fu-berlin.de/en/presse/informationen/fup/2011/fup_11_013/index.html

February 2011:
___15. February; Ryan Maue at WUWT:  Russian Winter: severe cold to invade Moscow and Eastern Europe.
___22. February, at: www.krone.at: Moscow Shivering In “Coldest Winter In 100 Years”

Further Reading:

(1)  http://coastalcare.org/2010/06/oil-spill-puts-florida-straits-cold-water-reefs-in-peril/ Published about June 2010

(2)  http://www.wwfblogs.org/climate/content/sea-surface-temperatures-tropical-north-atlantic-and-impacts-2010 , about November 2010

(3)  http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/161185/ Deepwater Horizon oil spill / about December 2010

(4)  http://www.2007seatraining.de/Archiv/dec2_10.html; Record Sea Ice conditions for the Baltic Sea region ahead?žabout 31. December 2010