Boards forecasting contest -- October edition

M.T. Cranium

October 09 -- the questions
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(1) Mean monthly temp C (usual rules)

(2) Max temp for the month (usual rules)

(3) Min temp for the month (usual rules)

(4) First frost (if realized in September, first frost in October) -- give the date and for three bonus points, the location. No frost in October -- predict that and win all the available points. Frost defined as 0.0 C or lower min air temp at any met.ie reporting station as per met.ie website.

(5) Highest wave height (metres) at M4 buoy (this is from the met.ie contest questions too) ... if you need help with this, suggest you look at the buoys reports on the met.ie site, and consider that your answer should likely fall in the range of one to seven metres, realistically. Give your answer in tenths of a metre (e.g. 6.9). Three bonus points available here for three closest guesses as to the date as well.

A perfect forecast can score 106 this month ... and that's known as forecasting your age if you're MTC. :eek:

Joe Public

(1) 10.5C
(2) 18.2C
(3) -2.1C
(4) 25th Oct Birr
(5) 6.7m Nov 29th

(1) 11.2C
(2) 18.4C
(3) 2.2C
(4) 17th Oct @ Mullingar
(5) 6.4m Oct 21st

M.T. Cranium

Here's a couple of points for this forecast ... the deadline will (for no penalty points) will be end of the day on Thursday 1st of October. You can still enter on Friday but subject to penalty if you break 60 points.

For the wave height, please note, the time frame is limited to October for our contest. Pick a date in October for that guess.

Here's my entries for this month.

(1) 11.0 C

(2) 22.1 C

(3) -2.0 C

(4) first frost on the morning of the 17th at Birr

(5) wave height max 5.5 m on the 30th

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good luck to all

---

nacho libre

(1) 10.6C
(2) 17.2C
(3) -1.2
(4) 18 Oct Birr
(5) 7.1m October 22

Danno

(1) Mean monthly temp C (usual rules) 10.4c

(2) Max temp for the month (usual rules) 19.7c

(3) Min temp for the month (usual rules) -1.4c

(4) First frost (if realized in September, first frost in October) -- give the date and for three bonus points, the location. No frost in October -- predict that and win all the available points. Frost defined as 0.0 C or lower min air temp at any met.ie reporting station as per met.ie website. -0.2c recorded at Mullingar on 16th

(5) Highest wave height (metres) at M4 buoy (this is from the met.ie contest questions too) ... if you need help with this, suggest you look at the buoys reports on the met.ie site, and consider that your answer should likely fall in the range of one to seven metres, realistically. Give your answer in tenths of a metre (e.g. 6.9). Three bonus points available here for three closest guesses as to the date as well. 7.7m - I am expecting a storm around 23rd October!!!

Strasser

(1) 10.5

(2) 18.3

(3) -1.1

(4) Oct 15th Kilkenny

(5) 4.9m October 28th

dasa29

(1) 10.0C

(2) 17.0C

(3) -1.8C

(4) 10 Oct Mullingar

(5) 5.0m October 20th

Danno

Strasser - Kilkenny was replaced by Oak Park Carlow recently... I presume you are choosing that station???

kindredspirit

(1) 11.1°C

(2) 17.4°C

(3) -1.0°C

(4) 23/10/2009 in Claremorris.

(5) 4.2 metres on the 30th of October.

nilhg

(1) Mean monthly temp C (usual rules) 10.9C

(2) Max temp for the month (usual rules) 17.4C

(3) Min temp for the month (usual rules) 2.2C

(4) First frost (if realized in September, first frost in October) None

(5) Highest wave height (metres) at M4 buoy 5.6M Oct 25th

Joe Public

For some reason I'm not seeing an option to edit or delete my post so here it again with a new guess for Q5.

(1) 10.5C
(2) 18.2C
(3) -2.1C
(4) 25th Oct Birr
(5) 6.7m Oct 29th

jd

oops


(1) Mean monthly temp C (usual rules) 11.0 C

(2) Max temp for the month (usual rules) 17.8C

(3) Min temp for the month (usual rules) -1.2

(4) First frost (if realized in September, first frost in October) Oakpark 19th

(5) Highest wave height (metres) at M4 buoy 6.9 26th

M.T. Cranium

Thanks for those, and just a reminder to anyone not entered yet, deadline will be let's say 0200 just to give anyone the same break I gave one or two others earlier, and then if you enter during the day Friday, you're looking at a potential penalty of 10% of points above 60. My rules are strange, but then so am I, oh yeah, about the max wave height, I was probably a bit conservative on the range of 1-7 metres perhaps, Danno's guess of 7.7 m is quite possible at this time of year. If anyone wants to change theirs based on my suggestion, go ahead. We'll get some sense of how high the waves can get there on Saturday perhaps, I doubt that will be the max for the month but I'll report back on what happens in this moderate wind event.

Let's hope the M4 buoy survives the month, it has been a rather tough period for ocean buoys west of Ireland in general, M6 is hurting and K3 is gone. :eek:

DOCARCH

(1) Mean monthly temp C. 11.2c

(2) Max temp for the month. 19.7c

(3) Min temp for the month. -2.3c

(4) First frost. 11th October - Mullingar

(5) Highest wave height (metres) at M4 buoy. 6.8m

Only just realised it was October! I'll take whatever punishment you wish to dole out MT.

M.T. Cranium

No worries, I think you had a get out of jail free card.

M.T. Cranium

Just following up on that wave height comment earlier, so far today (Sat 3rd) a max wave height at the M4 buoy is 6.5 m (08z).

Could get a bit higher, the UK buoy a little further out is showing 7 metres.

Winds associated are gusting to about 45 knots in the area.

M.T. Cranium

Max wave height for the day was 7.2 m at 11z (1200h). Wonder if this will hold up for the rest of October?

Danno

Oooh, only 20 odd days and 0.5m to go!!!

Strasser

Danno wrote: »

Strasser - Kilkenny was replaced by Oak Park Carlow recently... I presume you are choosing that station???

Hi, didn't see this until now, yes Oak Park will do for me. Got the wave height really wrong, not a stat I've ever paid much heed to before so I'm learning, which is good.

Danno

Danno wrote: »

(1) Mean monthly temp C (usual rules) 10.4c

(2) Max temp for the month (usual rules) 19.7c

(3) Min temp for the month (usual rules) -1.4c

(4) First frost (if realized in September, first frost in October) -- give the date and for three bonus points, the location. No frost in October -- predict that and win all the available points. Frost defined as 0.0 C or lower min air temp at any met.ie reporting station as per met.ie website. -0.2c recorded at Mullingar on 16th

(5) Highest wave height (metres) at M4 buoy (this is from the met.ie contest questions too) ... if you need help with this, suggest you look at the buoys reports on the met.ie site, and consider that your answer should likely fall in the range of one to seven metres, realistically. Give your answer in tenths of a metre (e.g. 6.9). Three bonus points available here for three closest guesses as to the date as well. 7.7m - I am expecting a storm around 23rd October!!!

MTC - for some reason it looks like +0.2c at Mullingar is my answer for Q4 on My Laptop Screen, however it should be -0.2c

Cheers.
Danno.

nacho libre

Danno wrote: »

Oooh, only 20 odd days and 0.5m to go!!!

no i hope it stays at 7.2:P

why are you so confident of a storm arund the 23rd?! by any chance are you in contact with Ken Ring?:pac:

M.T. Cranium

Danno, your call for -0.2 C shows up that way here, must be a problem with your lap-top. I have some developmental ideas about storm dates too, can see the 23rd in a list of possibles, others are 18th, 21st, 30th-31st. Nothing carved in stone from my point of view, more of a higher index value sort of approach.

200motels

I completly forgot about this month, I'll probably be disqualified for this month.

(1) Mean monthly temp C (usual rules) 12.5C

(2) Max temp for the month (usual rules)
17.7C
(3) Min temp for the month (usual rules) -2.2C

(4) First frost (if realized in September, first frost in October) -- give the date and for three bonus points, the location. No frost in October -- predict that and win all the available points. Frost defined as 0.0 C or lower min air temp at any met.ie reporting station as per met.ie website.

(5) Highest wave height (metres) at M4 buoy (this is from the met.ie contest questions too) ... if you need help with this, suggest you look at the buoys reports on the met.ie site, and consider that your answer should likely fall in the range of one to seven metres, realistically. Give your answer in tenths of a metre (e.g. 6.9). Three bonus points available here for three closest guesses as to the date as well. 7.8M

M.T. Cranium

200motels, sorry that was a bit late so we'll just hold you at the average score you had coming into October ... now we have had the first official air frost and it was -0.7 C at Mullingar on the 7th. It looks as though Dasa29 and then Docarch did best with the date and several got Mullingar right for the bonus including these two.

M.T. Cranium

For anyone wondering, the strong winds on Tuesday 20th created the second highest waves of the month so far at the M4 buoy, namely 5.7 metres.

M.T. Cranium

Danno was not far off on his timing, was he? The storm that developed overnight 23-24 has brought some of the strongest gusts so far this autumn to the west, but so far M4 waves have stayed a little under 5 metres. I think they may get higher eventually, so will keep an eye on the reports. The one thing that holds this storm back from higher waves is probably "fetch" which is the variable that involves how far the wave train has travelled to reach the recording site. As this storm only came into full powered existence near the M4 buoy, it is not drawing in really high waves from further out in the ocean, but still, the wind speeds are high enough to generate perhaps 6m waves before it's done by Sunday. We shall see. I am thinking of a more complex scoring system to reward anyone who comes close in this rather tricky contest, full marks for the highest waves date, then partial scores spreading out from 2nd and 3rd place events. Personally, still hoping for a big storm on the 30th. Looks like fetch won't be the problem there, but you need the right direction and wind speed too.

Anyway, congrats to Danno for his reasonably accurate call on an event that conventional meteorology could not possibly predict.

M.T. Cranium

Highest waves on 24th (21z) were 5.7 metres ... on to the next event, then.

M.T. Cranium

Despite the stormy weather on the 30th-31st, waves remained generally under 4 metres at M4. We now have the final figures for October:

(1) mean temp was 11.8 C (average of 13.1 at Valentia and 10.5 at Knock)

(2) highest for the month was 18.2 C at Claremorris on the 14th

(3) lowest for the month was -0.7 C at Mullingar on the 7th

(4) the above also answers first frost, Birr was closed so not available

(5) the highest waves at M4 were 7.2 m on the 3rd.

I will do some scoring and announce the scores later in the "annual scoring" thread.

Danno

Pity Birr closed... it was a usual first frost venue.