New -- Boards WINTER forecast contest

Su Campu

I too forgot to update the Casement figures.

Wednesday 22nd December
0.2cm

Thursday 23rd December
10.8cm (27cms lying snow)

Seasonal Total as of 1st Jan 2011: 60.7cm
(November 6.7cm, December 54.0cm)

M.T. Cranium

Preliminary scoring for December temperatures (mean = -0.4 C)

The minimum scoring rule is needed to give one-third of the contestants points, from the rank order of forecasts (all of which were otherwise more than 2 degrees above the actual value. :eek:) ... This follows from an earlier post.

Rebelbrowser ... 9
MTC (fixed) ..... 8
Redsunset ....... 7
Trogdor .......... 6
thetonynator ... 5
DOCARCH ........ 4
maquiladora ..... 3
Winger PL ........ 3 (tie)
Mmcd ............. 1
nacho libre ...... 1
forkassed ........ 1
nilhg ............... 1

The December precip figures are not finalized yet, but in the monthly contest I estimated them at 55 to 60 per cent. Those values are near the bottom of the range of forecasts so Maquiladora and The Inquisitor are in line to pick up five points, Iancar29 four points if my estimate is right. I will report on this in a few days when met.ie update their ag-met files (my source for all the stations used). But the stations I already checked have averaged a little under 60%.

If you go back a few posts, you'll see my comments on the scoring for the seasonal minimum temperature. Most people are already out of the running for points here, you needed to predict lower than -12 to score, and it just remains to be seen whether the current minimum (-15.7) is broken later, to determine who gets how many points there.

Meanwhile, the highest temperature so far is 12.9 C but I suspect that will not be the final figure.

Snowfall is on pace to give the higher guesses the points (except maybe the highest guess) but if there's no more snow, you'll be happy if you predicted about 30 cms.

M.T. Cranium

SCORING UPDATE
_______________

December precipitation came in at 59% of normal for 11 stations (courtesy of Met Eireann). Five points are available for this segment -- with a half-point interval for errors of 3%. Although this amount was equal to the lowest of all forecasts, we won't need to invoke the mercy rule. If you predicted a dry December, you scored.

TheInquisitor ...... 5.0
Maquiladora ........ 5.0
Iancar 29 ........... 4.0
Deep Easterly...... 3.0
mmcd ................ 3.0
nacho libre ......... 3.0
rebelbrowser ....... 3.0
thetonynator ...... 3.0
Danno ............... 2.5
Fionagus ............ 2.0
Hellboy99 ........... 2.0
Forkassed ........... 1.5
Homolumo ........... 1.5
oterra ................ 1.5
SeaFields ............ 1.5
Gothwalk ............. 0.5
WolfeIRE ............. 0.5

---

The highest temperature so far, 12.9 C, may come under some strain around Tuesday 11th based on current model runs.

Su Campu

1cm of snow fell at Casement on the night of the 7th January, bringing the running total to 61.7cm

Danno

tr (23.5cm) January 7th 2010
0.1cm (23.6cm) January 8th 2010

M.T. Cranium

A wind gust of 55 kts from Belmullet late Friday is now the top value in that category (a reminder, only Dec, Jan and Feb observations count towards this value).

From the January contest, at mid-month, the IMT is about 4.0 today, the rainfall about 80% of normal, and Danno's ongoing snow search has turned up about 0.1 cms new snow during this month.

thetonynator

Exactly halfway through today!!! and what a first half it was . . :P

M.T. Cranium

Slight correction, highest wind gust now 56 knots some time Saturday at Belmullet.

John mac

the 00hrs report had the gust @54. http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=70081652&postcount=374

Su Campu

I have now stickied this thread.

M.T. Cranium

January scoring update
_____________________

With the IMT coming in at 3.3 C for January, we have lots of scores to add to our list:

nacho libre ..... 10
trogdor ........... 9
TheInquisitor ... 9
Danno ............ 7
DOCARCH ........ 7
Joe Public ....... 7
Gothwalk ........ 7
mmcd ............. 7
Winger_PL ....... 7
dasa .............. 6
fionagus ......... 6
hellboy99 ........ 6
Iancar29 ........ 6
maquiladora .... 6
Rebelbrowser ... 6
WolfeIRE ........ 6
homolumo ....... 5
M.T. Cranium ... 5
nilhg .............. 5
oterra ............ 5
pauldry .......... 5
SeaFields ....... 5
forkassed ....... 4
thetonynator .. 4
Su Campu ...... 4
kindredspirit ... 4
John mac ....... 3
redsunset ...... 2
200 motels ..... 2
waterways ..... 2
roryc1 ........... 1

Meanwhile for January precip (63% of normal) these are the scores (once again, minimum scoring averted by having one-third of contestants with a score):

Joe Public ....... 5.0
Thetonynator .. 5.0

mmcd ............ 3.5
SeaFields ....... 3.5

nilhg ............. 2.5

waterways .... 2.0

forkassed ...... 1.5
gothwalk ....... 1.5
rebelbrowser .. 1.5
su campu ...... 1.5

roryc1 .......... 1.0

DOCARCH ...... 0.5
dasa29 ......... 0.5

Hellboy99 is working on a provisional scoring table in his much nicer excel format, and we hope to have that up for viewing around the 3rd or so.

M.T. Cranium

Unless the minimum temperature for the winter (1 Dec to 28 Feb) falls below the current value of -15.7 C, the following scores would apply to that category:

waterways ......... 5.0
forkassed ........... 4.5
Joe Public .......... 4.0
MTCranium ......... 3.5
winger PL ........... 3.0
mmcd ................ 3.0
DOCARCH ........... 2.5
thetonynator ...... 2.0
Redsunset .......... 1.5
oterra ............... 1.0
Sea Fields .......... 0.5
dasa29 .............. 0.5

If the value drops from -15.7, these people will all maintain points but winger_PL and redsunset could gain at the expense of the others.

Joe Public

I see Belmullet had a 72Kt gust earlier. Is that the max so far in this contest?

M.T. Cranium

Before today, anything over 56 knots would be the new contest high. As a reminder, the period for the wind forecast is 1 Dec to 28 Feb only. Sorry, I can't confirm until around 0600h what the max so far has been, just getting into the day's weather and I see 62 knots the past hour.

Hellboy99 has prepared an Excel file with the known portion of the scoring to date, but I asked him to wait for the end of today to get a list of provisional scores on the wind forecasts. So once we integrate that into the scores, we'll be able to post a "second half" score -- and a rough guide of how to estimate the other scores.

M.T. Cranium

At 20z the report from Malin Head raises the standard to 74 kts.

M.T. Cranium

That report of 74 knots was not confirmed in the daily summaries, so for now I will assume 72 knots could be the extreme value for the contest (perhaps not), and if so, these would be the scores. If we get a higher wind gust, you might benefit if you guessed higher, but the scores would be as follows for 72 knots:

Almost everyone gets some points in this category:

fionagus 10
Joe Public 10

forkassed 9
oterra 9
thetonynator 9
talkabout 9
wingerPL 9

homolumo 7
iancar29 7
maquiladora 7
mmcd 7
pauldry 7

John mac 6
redsunset 6
The Inquisitor 6

danno 5
200motels 5

hellboy 99 4
rebelbrowser 4
roryc1 4

MTCranium 3
gothwalk 3
Su Campu 3

dasa29 2
kindred spirit 2
nacho libre 2

wolfe IRE 1
SeaFields 1
waterways 1

hellboy99

Result Table as it stands so far:




*Note: scores above are final for Dec and Jan IMT and precip. Scores are provisional for winter minimum temperature and maximum wind gust, and could change if more extreme values than -15.7 C and 72 knots occur later this month.*

Current top three:

1st - Joe Public
2nd - Mmcd
3rd - Rebelbrowser

M.T. Cranium

13.7 C reported at Oak Park on Friday sets a new high for the winter so far.

We may run a provisional scoring run on that figure if the charts suggest nothing milder by mid-week as FI will then be nearly the end of the month.

It's going to be a tight race for the contest, the people who stand to pick up the most on average winter temperature are in most cases the same ones who won't gain much for February the way things are looking now. Also, that group with the points coming from temperature are mostly looking at a poor harvest of snowfall points at this rate. So ... if you've predicted a fairly mild February, didn't go too high with the first two months, and don't have a lot of snow left to collect, you're more or less in first place now. No idea who that might be without studying the table for an hour.

In my case, I definitely need this month to turn reasonably cold, with more snow before end of March, in fact quite a lot of snow. Check your original forecast and the points total above, and see what you need -- probably at least half the field could still win this contest.

M.T. Cranium

That 13.7 C extreme is starting to look a little more "final" but could be nudged near the end of the month, so I won't bother to update that part of the scoring summary.

February so far has stayed above most of the predictions but looks set to fall back into more of a normal range this week. If you're wondering how your seasonal prediction is doing, here are the finishing seasonal averages for various plausible outcomes for February:

Feb 6.5 ... seasonal 3.1
Feb 6.0 ... seasonal 3.0
Feb 5.5 ... seasonal 2.8
Feb 5.0 ... seasonal 2.6
Feb 4.5 ... seasonal 2.5

meanwhile the rainfall is guaranteed to exceed 105% now and will probably be about 150% for February, give or take 20 per cent ... which would inflate the seasonal average to about 95% (the first two months were sub-65%).

We will probably wait until 2-3 March to give the next provisional scoring update, and then it's a case of waiting to see how the snowfall ends up, unless we get 30-40 cms between now and then, in which case most of the scores will be set. Seems unlikely somehow. :pac:

M.T. Cranium

We now have quite a few final figures for the contest and can update the scoring table.

The mean temperature in February was 6.8 C. This brings the seasonal value up to 3.2 C.

The precip (mostly rainfall) in February was 168% of normal. That acts with the Dec and Jan dry values to leave a seasonal value of 97% of normal.

For the highest temperature, I have a problem to resolve as explained in the Feb contest thread. Phoenix Park (Dublin), one of the new stations, is listed in the daily data section with 15.7 C on the 24th of February, but the monthly summary lists 15.0 at Shannon as the monthly (and therefore winter) extreme. But in January a reading from Phoenix Park was listed, so I am not sure whether the daily reading in February is unconfirmed, overlooked, or if the protocol has changed. Will wait a day or two to get some kind of clarification on this (if any of our crew can speed that up, it would be helpful).

From the data that are confirmed, these additional scores can be added to the scoring table, and I will contact hellboy99 to get that updated:

(hellboy, to make your life easier, I have just listed the contestants in order with four numbers for you to add to the table, in this order ... Feb temp, Feb precip, winter seasonal temp, winter seasonal precip.) ... note that precip scores in this contest are in half point increments, the ** separate the four scores.

200motels .. (0 ** 3.0 ** 8 ** 0.5)
Danno ...... (0 ** 0 ** 16 ** 5.0)
dasa29 ...... (0 ** 0 ** 14 ** 5.0)
DEasterly ... (3 ** 0 ** 6 ** 0)
DOCARCH ... (0 ** 0 ** 20 ** 4.0)
Fionagus ... (1 ** 0.5 ** 13 ** 5.0)
Forkassed .. (3 ** 0 ** 13 ** 3.5)
Gothwalk ... (0 ** 0 ** 14 ** 4.5)
H2Umrsr ... (7 ** 0 ** 6 ** 4.0)
hellboy99 .. (0 ** 0.5 ** 14 ** 5.0)
homolumo .. (0 ** 3.5 ** 13 ** 3.5)
iancar29 ... (0 ** 3.0 ** 15 ** 5.0)
Joe Public .. (0 ** 0 ** 17 ** 3.0)
John mac .. (0 ** 0 ** 13 ** 4.5)
Kinspirit ... (3 ** 2.0 ** 11 ** 3.5)
MTCranium . (0 ** 0 ** 17 ** 5.0)
Maquiladora . (3 ** 3.0 ** 15 ** 5.0)
mmcd ........ (1 ** 4.0 ** 16 ** 4.5)
nacho libre .. (0 ** 0 ** 16 ** 5.0)
nilhg ........ (3 ** 0 ** 13 ** 5.0)
oterra ...... (0 ** 0 ** 14 ** 5.0)
pauldry ..... (6 ** 0 ** 10 ** 4.0)
Rebelbro ... (0 ** 4.5 ** 20 ** 4.5)
Redsunset .. (0 ** 0 ** 14 ** 3.0)
roryc1 ...... (0 ** 2.0 ** 20 ** 4.5)
Sea Fields... (8 ** 3.0 ** 11 ** 4.5)
Strasser .... (9 ** 0 ** 7 ** 3.0)
Su Campu .. (0 ** 0 ** 12 **5.0)
talkabout .. (5 ** 0 ** 7 ** 4.0)
The Inquis .. (0 ** 0 ** 14 ** 5.0)
thetonynator . (0 ** 0 ** 18 ** 0.5)
trogdor ...... (0 ** 0 ** 20 ** 3.5)
waterways. (0 ** 5.0 ** 19 ** 3.0)
winger PL .. (0 ** 0 ** 19 ** 4.0)
wolfeIRE ... (4 ** 3.0 ** 11 ** 4.0)

Note that the Feb temp scores needed slight adjustment by the rules (to provide enough scores for one-third of the field and to preserve a minimum scoring progression -- most of the actual scores are close to what would have been awarded without these adjustments) and the Feb precip scores would have given only two actual scores, so these were adjusted by rank quite considerably. The seasonal values required no adjustments. I realized on doing the scoring that the 20 points for seasonal temperature should have been scored by 0.1 increments but this wasn't stated in the rules, so basically this has just given everyone 10 points and on top of that you score by actual value of your forecast as if it were a 10-point question like the monthly temperatures. So probably no harm done there.

Scores for the highest temperature of the winter will be determined once I get some clarification on the values. The snowfall values will be provisionally scored in a week or two and unless there is snowfall later in March the table will be completed with that.

hellboy99

Results as they stand so far:

1st: Rebelbrowser (57)
2nd: Mmcd (54)
3rd: maquiladora (51.5)

and here is the table (snowfall result will be added in later this month):

Su Campu

The seasonall snowfall total for Casement is currently at 61.7 cm (or over 2 ft - sounds more impressive that way!!)

waterways

John mac wrote: »

What about Con Sensus ??

did She forget to enter? :D

She got stuck in the December snow.

M.T. Cranium

We didn't enter Con Sensus in the table but I worked out these values, and score that would have resulted:

DEC ... 4.9 C ... 0
JAN ... 4.0 C ... 7
FEB ... 4.4 C ... 0
mean ... 4.4 ... 14

DEC ... 90% ... 1
JAN ... 100% ... 0
FEB ... 110% ... 0
mean ... 100 ... 4.5

max ... 14.6 C ... 4
min ... -11.0 C ... 0

wind max ... 75 kts ... 10

snowfall ... 25 cm ... 10 (so far)

Con Sensus did lousy on all the months basically but very well on the seasonal values except for the lowest ... and would finish with 50.5 points unless snowfall increases dramatically.

I haven't scored snowfall for the rest of the players yet, but please note, we did switch to Danno's location (Durrow in Laois) which has accumulated about 26 cms so far. Unless this increases, you can estimate your points from how close you came to this value (table on page 7 of the thread). We will award three closest finishers ten points, and on down the line. The Casement figures would have given a different result, but I'm out of luck there along with a few others. Most will score higher with Durrow, I believe.

Many thanks to Hellboy99 for his help with the scoring tables, they look a lot better than mine, I must study up on my excel for the regular scoring.

Snowfall could develop this weekend (looks like a rather slight chance for Laois though), and ya never know what lies ahead.

hellboy99

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Many thanks to Hellboy99 for his help with the scoring tables, they look a lot better than mine, I must study up on my excel for the regular scoring.

Thanks MTC, you done all the hard work

M.T. Cranium

The snowfall predictions cannot be scored until end of March, but looking at the current points, it would require 5-6 cms of snow to give Maquiladora a chance to overtake the two leaders. With ten points available for snowfall, and Joe Public already unable to get more than about four, Maq is the only player who could catch either of the leaders, who happen to have snowfall forecasts very close to the current total (23.6 cms) -- if this did not change, mmcd could move up one point relative to Rebelbrowser. In any case, I think almost all possible scoring results will have these two very close together but it could be a three-way photo finish if we happen to see that extra 5 cms of snow.

Had we been using the Casement data, all of these leaders would have scored lower but would still be in front.

M.T. Cranium

I can't foresee any further snowfall in March so I have scored that final part of the contest and sent the results off to Hellboy for the updated table.

Looks as though the order of finish will remain the same with minor variations down through the middle of the pack.

Will post some final thoughts when the final table is on the thread.

hellboy99

And here are the final results :



1st: Rebelbrowser (67)
2nd: Mmcd (64)
3rd: maquiladora (57.5)

Congrats guys

Thanks to all that entered, and a big thank you to MTC for all his hard work

M.T. Cranium

Hey, I thought it was just me that stayed up all night ... Hellboy has been far too modest, his contribution through the contest has been a great help to all of us and may have saved the eyesight of more than one weather fanatic.

Well done to Rebelbrowser, mmcd and Maq for leading the way on this very tough challenge (a challenge which frankly escaped all of us if we were to take the raw temperature scores).

We saw a very cold December, a January that came out closer to normal and a very mild February. This let a lot of people back into the contest, as the 20 points in the mean seasonal temperature category would have been much leaner pickings for most, had February come in much colder than it did.

The monthly precip figures were very low for the first two months and very high for the third month. This all averaged out and provided a bonus of extra points for most of the field despite little if any overall skill shown on the monthly totals (I'm talking about consensus here rather than individuals, but as with the temperature forecasts, actual close hits on the unusual trend were few and far between). Speaking of Con Sensus, the final score there by my calculation was 47.5.

The snowfall started out exceptionally heavy, especially at the station we abandoned for a more attractive one but this turned out much different in the end than it seemed it might (I am really trying to sex this up a bit). :cool:

I won't go into the slightly different scores that Casement would have provided for that category.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this seasonal contest. If I were to do it over again, I think I would change the scoring slightly to give the monthly predictions more weight relatively, and perhaps let sunshine back in too. The wind maximum period could be extended into March since we're waiting on snowfall then anyway.

hellboy99

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Hey, I thought it was just me that stayed up all night

The weather never sleeps