December 2010 forecast contest

M.T. Cranium

Although I'm a day late with the update, I am estimating that the precip now stands at 55% and the sunshine at 145%. We'll have the final figures around the 3rd to 5th because of the weekend and the holiday (I have to wait for various website entries to update to get the official figures, so hang on for those).

I think it's fair to say that despite this mild spell, December will be the coldest on record in parts of Ireland as well as the U.K., or second coldest if records go back as far as 1890 which is the current record holder in the U.K. "CET" series at -0.8 C.

Just reminding everyone that the Jan 2011 forecast contest thread is open. You have until end of Saturday to enter without penalty.

M.T. Cranium

Because of the mercy rule in place and some known values for the month, I am presenting this early "preliminary" scoring table for December ... but this won't be official until it appears in the annual scoring thread. I won't update that until I have the official values. Dublin temps for the 25th were lower than any predictions, I gave out scores rather generously for max and min, most people scored about the same on both.

FORECASTER ..... IMT ... MAX ... MIN .. PRC .. SUN ..25th .. SNOW
________________________________________________________________

Actual values .. -0.4 .. 12.9 ... -15.7 .. 055 .. 153 . -3.3/-12.2 .. N >> Totals

danno .............. 00 ..... 18 ..... 15 .... 12 .... 02 ..... 4/4 .... 0 .... 55
TheInquisitor .... 20 ...... 00 ..... 02 .... 13 .... 04 ..... 5/5 .... 0 .... 49
M.T. Cranium .... 10 ..... 01 ...... 08 .... 10 .... 10 ..... 5/4 .... 0 .... 48
Gothwalk ......... 12 ...... 00 ..... 14 .... 08 .... 02 ..... 5/4 .... 0 .... 45
waterways ....... 00 ..... 20 ..... 12 ..... 04 .... 02 ..... 2/0 .... 3 .... 43
Thetonynator ... 08 ...... 00 ..... 10 .... 10 .... 04 ..... 1/3 .... 3 .... 39
Rebelbrowser .... 09 ..... 18 ..... 00 ..... 04 .... 01 ..... 3/4 .... 0 .... 39
Jerry Seinfeld .... 01 ..... 19 ..... 00 .... 08 .... 04 ..... 1/3 .... 3 .... 39
Nilhg ............... 01 ..... 18 ..... 07 ..... 03 .... 00 ..... 1/1 .... 3 .... 34
Redsunset* ...... 15 ..... 00 ..... 04 ..... 00 .... 06 ..... 2/5 .... 0 .... 32
DOCARCH ......... 00 ..... 19 ..... 01 ..... 04 .... 00 ..... 1/3 .... 3 .... 31
DeepEasterly ..... 00 .... 06 ..... 00 ..... 13 .... 10 ..... 0/0 .... 0 .... 29
Joe Public ......... 00 .... 20 ..... 06 ..... 00 .... 00 ..... 0/0 .... 3 .... 29
Tae laidir .......... 00 .... 20 ..... 00 ..... 00 .... 00 ..... 0/5 .... 3 .... 28
Su Campu ......... 00 .... 20 ..... 00 ..... 02 .... 00 ..... 1/2 .... 3 .... 28
200motels ........ 00 ..... 17 ..... 00 ..... 00 .... 06 ..... 0/1 .... 3 .... 27
Sponge Bob ...... 06 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 08 .... 07 ..... 2/1 .... 3 .... 27
jd ................... 07 ..... 00 ..... 10 ..... 01 .... 02 ..... 4/3 .... 0 .... 27
harry21 ........... 00 ..... 14 ..... 00 ..... 00 .... 02 ..... 3/1 .....3 .... 23
nacho libre ....... 04 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 05 .... 07 ..... 1/1 .... 3 .... 21
SeaFields ......... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 13 .... 02 ..... 1/4 .... 0 .... 20
Cherryghost ..... 05 ..... 00 ..... 02 ..... 03 .... 02 ..... 3/4 .... 0 .... 19
Jambofc* ......... 00 ..... 03 ..... 00 ..... 00 .... 10 ..... 1/1 .... 3 .... 18
hellboy99 ......... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 08 .... 03 ..... 1/3 .... 3 .... 18
kindredspirit ...... 00 ..... 03 ..... 00 ..... 07 .... 04 ..... 0/0 .... 3 .... 17
baraca ............. 01 ..... 07 ..... 00 ..... 00 .... 05 ..... 1/3 .... 0 .... 17
Strasser ........... 04 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 07 .... 03 ..... 0/0 .... 3 .... 17
mickger844pst ... 02 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 08 .... 02 ..... 1/3 .... 0 .... 16
Fionagus .......... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 07 .... 00 ..... 1/3 .... 3 .... 14

Con Sensus ...... 00 ..... 01 ..... 00 ..... 03 .... 03 ..... 1/3 .... 3 .... 14

dasa29 ............ 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 .... 02 ..... 5/5 .... 0 .... 12
WolfeIRE .......... 00 ..... 00 ..... 06 ..... 00 .... 00 ..... 1/0 .... 3 .... 10
homolumo ........ 00 ...... 00 ..... 00 ..... 01 .... 04 ..... 1/3 .... 0 .... 09
John mac ......... 00 ..... 00 ..... 03 ..... 01 .... 04 ..... 0/0 .... 0 .... 08
talkabout ......... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 01 .... 02 ..... 1/3 .... 0 .... 07
Pauldry ............ 00 ..... 01 ..... 00 ..... 00 .... 03 ..... 0/0 .... 3 .... 07

Remember, these are provisional values, they may change by a few points as we get the final figures. This is by far the worst that Con Sensus has managed this year or last year.

M.T. Cranium

I posted the preliminary version of the annual scoring race too, during which I caught a few previous errors only one of which was significant enough to produce a change in ranks as stated in the 1 Dec table. Somehow I failed to update Jerry Seinfeld's total score from October which affected his rank in the percentage category (he should have been up to 4th there).

Jerry actually did so well during the year that he would have finished third in the list of those playing every month, with one month missing.

I think everyone has something good to look back upon, in some cases, a consistent performance all year, in some cases a marked improvement during the year.

With a larger turnout towards the end of the year (and probably for 2011) I think the minimum scoring rule needs to be updated slightly, it was designed for a field of 20-25, not 40-50 (although it has the effect of giving out a lot of zero scores where frankly zero seems about right).

However, the minimum scoring rule is also supposed to even out the months so that it doesn't matter as much which two you miss or score low. For that reason, I am going to add two scores to the progressions, so that they will go like this (as a minimum) ...

out of 25 .... 23, 20, 16, 14, 12, 10, 9, 8 etc
out of 20 .... 18, 15, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 etc
out of 15 .... 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, etc
out of 10 .... same as before but two scores each, starting with 9 etc.

I can't retroactively change the rules and apply these to December but if I could, no significant changes would occur in the rankings.

I will also post this in the Jan 2011 thread for future reference.

Deep Easterly

The finishing IMT value for December 2010 stands at -0.4c. Never got into positive territory at all at any stage of the month. Debatable whether this month has beaten the record January 1963 for being the coldest month to date but we will see later.


Some IMT stats for the yearly whole:

Mean Max: 12.6c (-0.4c)
Mean Min: 4.4c (-1.1c)
IMR: (rainfall) 95.8%

In summary, 2010 was a drier and cooler than average year overall over the IMT zone. Will post up more detailed charts later on.



All stats above c/o Met Eireann.

John mac

It was mentioned on the Weather report after the 21:00 news ,
'Coldest December on record' Evelyn said.

M.T. Cranium

The U.K. "Central England Temperature" series which goes back as far as 1659 was just updated for this past month and shows it narrowly missing the all-time record (which was -0.8 C in 1890), coming in at -0.7 C.

Not sure if there are any reliable temperatures from Ireland in Dec 1890 but it seems reasonable to say this is at least the coldest December since then, and possibly much longer. Also, weather watchers in the U.K. report that the period Nov 23-Dec 27 averaged about -1.5 C which was well below the previous record for any period of similar length ending before the end of December. So basically, it has been about as cold as it can get in this early stage of winter. A super-cold period in mid-winter would run closer to -4 C, and I can't see that happening in January but we can't be too sure what's over the event horizon for late January and February (the period that was so anomalously cold in 1947, for example).

It's a bit of an eye-opener to realize that 80% of all "ice days" have happened later than today's date in past winters, and probably about 70% of all recorded snowfall too. Not that I'm saying ... well you know. :cool:

Deep Easterly

Chart graphing daily IMT for the year 2010:




Some IMT stats for 2010:

Highest Daily Max: 24.9c (23rd May)
Highest Daily Min: 15.6c (26th July)

Lowest Daily Max: -4.6c (24th December)
Lowest Daily Min: -13.7c (25th December)




Video animation showing the KNMI/HIRLAM Frontal Analysis Charts for the year 2010:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebraIVzlyww

...round & round & down & down...





Data C/O Met Éireann
Synoptic charts C/O KONINKLIJK NEDERLANDS METEOROLOGISCH INSTITUUT

M.T. Cranium

I can now confirm the final monthly values for December. These were:

IMT -0.4 C

max 12.9 (Shannon, 28th)

min -15.7 C (Casement, 25th)

precip 59% of normal for the 11 stations in summary

sunshine 165.5% (166%) of normal for the 6 stations in summary

---

These will change my provisional scoring for precip and sunshine by very small amounts. I will copy the provisional scoring table, work out the differences, and post it over in the annual thread. It may make slight differences to your rank in the annual scoring table that was presented over there earlier.

However, the slight changes are in opposite directions as the precip will be a couple of points higher for most, and the sunshine 1 or 2 points lower. Don't think it's really going to make a big difference to the provisional scoring.

Have a look over there about 8 p.m. as I have some other things on the go.