Frustrated by the vagueness of the Met Office's long-range forecast for Europe? Then feast your eyes on this. It's part of a month-by-month prediction from French forecaster, Frédéric Decker, and shows the conditions he anticipates in December this year.

Of course, all long-range forecasts must be taken with a pinch of salt, but it's refreshing to see a prediction so clearly presented. It's also been interesting to talk to Decker about his forecast (which you can see in its full glory at www.lameteo.org).

Decker, who worked for La Chaine Météo in France for 10 years before joining MétéoNews in 2006, reckons that the settled weather across Europe will continue into December. He sees it as a kind of rebalancing of conditions after the storminess of the summer - and expects temperatures to be significantly lower than last year as a result. "They could even be below average," he told welove2ski.com this morning, "especially in December and February."

In January, by contrast, he expects milder conditions, with a greater chance of heavy snow in the second half of the winter.

In one respect at least he's in agreement with the Met Office - he forsees a colder season than 2006-7, although in his view tempertures will be lower than the Met Office predicted. And it's clear from this map that he doesn't see the same east/west divide between milder/colder conditions (check out our story for more on the Met Office forecast).

Needless to say, we'll be watching month by month to see how Decker's forecast shapes up - though he has pointed out it's been more or less correct for September and the first half of October. We just hope there's a little more snow than he's predicted!

Report posted October 12, 2007 - with many thanks to our forum-poster Mackley, who put us on to Decker!