Third Annual Winter Forecast Contest -- enter by 1st December

WELCOME to the Third Annual Winter Forecast Contest. The rules will be similar to last year, and the prize also the same (20 euros to the winner).

The deadline is a bit later, and will give you a chance to peer into the first week of December with some idea what's going on as the season starts. In weather circles, winter is December, January and February, and that will be the basis of our contest. Read the rules carefully and feel free to enter any time before the deadline ...

Entries accepted until 0300h Sunday 2 December as "on time" and from that point on, will be penalized 10 points per day which means that entries after 11 December will not be scored and in practical terms, entries after 4 Dec will likely not score.

The top scores last year were close to 75/100 to give you some idea of what the standard is. Here are the rules, look at the end of this post for a template that you can use to enter. I will make an effort to review all entries and contact anyone who has an incomplete entry. It's up to you to be familiar with the rules in each question.

(1) For each month Dec Jan Feb, predict the "IMT" which is the Irish Mean Temperature, a statistic developed on this forum by Deep Easterly, and the average of five stations in central inland locations (Shannon, Oak Park, Mullingar, Casement, Claremorris). For newbies, this is the average of highs and lows. Over recent 30-year periods, the means have been around 5.6 in Dec, 5.3 in Jan and 5.2 in Feb. Very mild months would run around 8-9 C and very cold ones a little below freezing (Dec 2010 was -0.4). These forecasts generate 5 points each, and the seasonal average, which you don't need to calculate (I do that from your entries) counts for 15 points.

(2) For each month Dec Jan Feb, predict the monthly precipitation as a percentage of normal values. This is calculated as in our monthly forecast contest, from records taken at eleven stations that report in the Met Eireann Monthly Summary. Those are the five mentioned above plus Valentia, Cork, Johnstown Castle, Belmullet, Ballyhaise and Belmullet. Note that Dublin is not included. Values under 50% are considered exceptionally dry and above 200% exceptionally wet (for your guidance). The scoring for these three forecasts and the seasonal average which again you don't need to enter, will also be 5,5,5 and 15 points.

(3) For all the reporting stations of Met Eireann, as reported in their Monthly Summary, predict the seasonal highest and lowest temperatures. This will apply only to dates from 1 Dec to 28 Feb for the max, but can apply to dates both before and after the winter for the min (up to 15 April when the contest results are declared). The max in the past two winters has been close to 15 and the min two winters back was about -16 but more like -6 last winter. I would guess the long-term average for this winter minimum is around -8 to perhaps -10. These two predictions are worth ten points each.

(4) Predict the seasonal snowfall (in cms) at Casement. This will run from the first measurable snowfall (which has not happened yet) to 15 April (anything after that won't count). These daily snowfall values (if they occur) are measured at hourly intervals and summed, which means the snow depth at any point might not be quite as much as the snowfall amount. However, amounts vary a lot from season to season. In the first contest winter, there was about 50 or 60 cms but we used a stat from Boards member "Danno" in Laois who had about 30 cms. Last winter, I believe there was almost zero accumulation and our lowest contest guess had the highest score. This part is worth ten points.

(5) Finally, predict the highest wind gust in knots at any reporting station in Ireland as per the Met Eireann Monthly Summary, but note that in this case, the period is only the three winter months -- strong winds in November or March or early April won't count, the gust has to be between 1 Dec and 28 Feb. Knots are almost double km/hr and about 1.15 times mph. Values between 70 and 100 knots are most likely to verify from climatology, the extreme range would be about 50 to 120 for this statistic. This part is also worth ten points.

Note: All scores are based on rank order, not absolute differences from prediction to actual values. This equalizes the various sections of the contest and distributes the scores evenly. Once we establish the number of entries, I will update this scoring system, but basically, 10% of the entries get top scores in each category and then on down, with any odd numbers left over getting the zero scores. Where it's 10 points, the gradations are 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0 and where 5 points, half of those values, where 15 we will give equal numbers of scores, and let you know later how many will share each score (based on number of entries).

Okay then, here's the template, once you understand what to predict, just change all the letters here to number values and block copy, submit along with your comments etc. We're open for entries although you'd be smart to wait until near the end of November (but don't forget, those penalties are going to bite).

TEMPLATE FOR ENTRIES

DEC-IMT
JAN-IMT
FEB-IMT

DEC-PRC
JAN-PRC
FEB-PRC

MAX

MIN

SNOW

GUST

(all temps can have one decimal place, prc % to nearest whole number, snow can also have one decimal place, gust to nearest whole number)

Just for the fun of it, I will go first because that will show you what to avoid and also give you a better template than the above, use this if you want and change the numbers to suit your version of reality.


5.5
5.3
2.8

90
110
70

15.4
-12.0

28.5 cms

84 knots

Good luck and check back, also, if you are new to our contests, check out the December monthly contest when it's announced in the last few days of this month. We do those every month.