January to be a contrast as jet stream moves northwards and high pressure builds. The next couple of weeks should see little rain with the BBC forecasting a drier January especially in the south and east with wetter windier conditions confined to the northwest. January could end with a much colder spell.

The Met Office three month predictions for January - March 2012.  

In recent weeks sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific have remained near average and predictions now favour the neutral phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over the next three months. Its influence is weak and not expected to have predictive value for conditions over Europe over the forecast period. Sea surface temperature off the coast of Newfoundland has been well-above average for some months and the anomaly now extends to deeper parts of the ocean. Snow cover over Eurasia is increasing faster than normal, and existing snow cover is a little above average. These two factors favour the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation, increasing the probability of colder conditions over northern Europe.

Indications from forecasting models favour slightly higher-than-average pressure over northwestern Europe and slightly lower pressure over eastern Europe. This would suggest a weakened westerly tendency which could allow a greater-than-average incidence of cold, blocking patterns.

There is likely to be a shift towards colder-than-average values increasing the probability of well-below-average temperatures from the climatological level. There is an increase in probability for
cold or very cold conditions. However, the probability of a repeat of the prolonged cold conditions observed in December 2010 remains very low.

However, the Met Office predictions for rainfall during the three month period January - March 2103 are very uncertain, although for the January-February-March period as a whole above-average values are a little more likely than below-average.

The saturated state of the ground means that there will be a high sensitivity to heavy rainfall events early in 2013, and should a wetter-than-average outcome be realised impacts in terms of flooding could be very significant.

The probability that UK precipitation for January-February-March will fall into the driest of our five categories is around 15% and the probability that it will fall into the wettest category is around 20% (the 1981-2010 probability for each of these categories is 20%).