February 2011 Boards forecast contest

M.T. Cranium

True on both counts -- we are currently around 350% of normal rainfall for first 12 days (precip, although very little has been snow). The sunshine estimate looks about right, could be closer to 90%. I will update more precisely after 14 days.

These extra stations don't appear on the daily summary ("yesterday's weather") so we might miss the odd temperature extreme until they are reported in the monthly summary, but they can be found in "daily data."

pauldry

Was today the bonus question in the fantasy weather?

Cork was only 5c or 6 at best.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

M.T. Cranium

Yes, the official numbers are in, 5.4 C was all they could manage despite the sun and Valentines' day.

Only one person out of 43 guessed lower than that (Rebelbrowser) at 3.8, but that was sixth closest to the pin, the five closest were:

Tae laidir 5.8
TheInquisitor 6.0
Sponge Bob 6.1
talkabout 6.8
Joe Public 6.9

Thinking I will give points in groups of three, so these six contestants can look forward to 10 or 9 points. If you're wondering what you'll receive, and have time to waste, just count how many people guessed lower than you, divide that by three, take the ... zzz .... zzz ...

M.T. Cranium

The best thing about February is that it's shorter than every other month.

Also the seven-day periods are (usually) one quarter of the month.

So this gets us to the update ...

IMT (7.7 C after 7d) now 6.6 C.

rainfall (390% of normal after 7 days), went 144% past seven, sits at 267% which guarantees 150% if we count today and the obvious bare minimum for next five days. Probably looking at a 200% finish or thereabouts.

sunshine (was 87% of normal after 7d) has logged a further 104% putting the monthly mean at 96% of normal so far. This past week was generally a bit sunnier but Valentia continued rather cloudy.

Deep Easterly

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

IMT (7.7 C after 7d) now 6.6 C.

Yep. and of note is an almost 2.0c difference between the highest mean of the 5 stations used and the lowest mean. 7.3c at Oak Park so far this February yet only 5.5c at Claremorris.

IMT mean max so far on 9.9c; mean min on 3.2c. Combined, they equate to being 1.8c above normal for the first half of the month.

And what a boring month it is weatherwise..

thetonynator

After all of us being so expectant! :mad:

TheInquisitor

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

The best thing about February is that it's shorter than every other month.

Also the seven-day periods are (usually) one quarter of the month.

So this gets us to the update ...

IMT (7.7 C after 7d) now 6.6 C.

rainfall (390% of normal after 7 days), went 144% past seven, sits at 267% which guarantees 150% if we count today and the obvious bare minimum for next five days. Probably looking at a 200% finish or thereabouts.

sunshine (was 87% of normal after 7d) has logged a further 104% putting the monthly mean at 96% of normal so far. This past week was generally a bit sunnier but Valentia continued rather cloudy.

Its funny that i have the highest level of rain for february at 160mm and im not even going to get any points!!!

M.T. Cranium

Au contraire, mon ami, you will get the max points, thanks to the wonderful mercy rules. To the horror of academic purists everywhere, we reward all forms of mediocrity here, not because we want to, but because we need to keep the months roughly equal in scoring to avoid the random chance of missing a bad month.

Mind you, 160% (not mms) seems pretty sage to me and I think it may not super-exceed that looking at the latest charts.

pauldry

Quite a mild month of February. Was -0.7c in Sligo last night but it hasnt really dipped below minus 2c anywhere this month has it and it wont now. I thought this week would see a lot frostier nights to be honest but now wer in for a long mild spell according to MT (forecast thread)

Harps

Down to -2.4C here last night, lowest of the month so far. If we get a strong high pressure with some cleat calm weather then there should be more frosty nights but nothing extreme on the way by the looks of it

pauldry

Think February has surprised us all temperature wise and the lowest it will finish now is around 6c and the highest could be 7 or more. One person said above 7 but the rest of us were thinking more snow maybe and got caught out.

Rainfall figure as I said in a previous post will be mental. Probably near 200 percent in some parts and about 180 percent overall

Sunshine, we there was a couple of sunny days up here in the Northwest this week though I know other parts of the country didnt fare too well so Id say its at about 90 percent so far. I couldnt say what it will finish at as the battle between Atlantic and Scandi continues in stalemate. Probably it will finish near normal.

Low Temperature I still think is at -2.0c which is way milder than everyone said so I dont know what MT does there.

High temeprature is 13.7c which means points for quite a few and this could yet go above 14c depending on where air is circulating from and how strong the airflow is.

Cork was freezing on Valentines as we know so wer all begging for mercy :pac:

M.T. Cranium

After three weeks and therefore three quarters of February ...

IMT 6.5 C

rainfall (precip) was 104% during the week which leaves the monthly value at 213% and guarantees 160% or more.

sunshine fell back slightly to 84% and this leaves the monthly average at 90%.

Joe Public

And the pre election temperature is rising with a 14.6 in Oak Park.

M.T. Cranium

15.0 deg at Shannon on Thursday, the warmest I've seen past two days but perhaps some of the new ME stations surpassed even this.

M.T. Cranium

As I suspected, Phoenix Park reported 15.7 C on Thursday.

Deep Easterly

finished at 6.8c, which is around 2.0c above the 61-90 norm.

Dominant air mass this month: Returning Polar Maritime (rPm)*



IMT trend for the period 1st Jan - 28th Feb:



2011 IMT value up to the 28th Feb on 4.99c which is 0.3c above average (61-90) for the period.



2011 IMT (IRISH MEAN RAINFALL) daily average rainfall total chart:



2011 1st Jan - 28th Feb IMR mean daily value running higher than that for the same period in both 2009 & 2010 which is mostly due to the wetter than average February this year.



Animated HIRLAM Synoptic Analysis Charts for winter 2010/2011. C/O KNMI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckHNE9RvZJs

*based on synoptic reports at 0000hrs & 1200hrs



Data & images C/O:
Met Eireann
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)

M.T. Cranium

Looking at the rest of the data for February:

IMT 6.8 C

rainfall 168% of normal

sunshine 112% of normal

with the highest temperature, I have encountered a problem ... in January, Phoenix Park, one of the new stations, was listed in the monthly summary for its reading, but in February, a reported daily max of 15.7 C on the 24th is ignored in favour of 15.0 at Shannon.

Before I can score the month and the winter forecast contest, I need some clarification here, is this reading not accepted for some known reason or was it overlooked? Or have they changed their mind about using the new stations as official reporting sites?

As to the lowest reading, that was -3.4 C (Gurteen, 28th) which may have happened at the midnight hour (28th - 1st March).

The bonus question was already discussed, with the colder predictions scooping the points.

Anyway, in scoring the month, perhaps somebody could look into this reading of 15.7 and see if it's official or not.

Deep Easterly

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Before I can score the month and the winter forecast contest, I need some clarification here, is this reading not accepted for some known reason or was it overlooked? Or have they changed their mind about using the new stations as official reporting sites?

As to the lowest reading, that was -3.4 C (Gurteen, 28th) which may have happened at the midnight hour (28th - 1st March).

The bonus question was already discussed, with the colder predictions scooping the points.

Anyway, in scoring the month, perhaps somebody could look into this reading of 15.7 and see if it's official or not.

I am pretty sure it is official M.T, but perhaps not reliable? My guess is that the data from the actual synoptic stations are seen as being less subject to outside influences such as the urban heat effect etc. It is totally up to yourself but I'd stick with whatever the monthly summary gives regarding highest temperature.

Danno

http://www.met.ie/about/weatherobservingstations/synopmap.asp

http://www.met.ie/climate/daily-data.asp

The data is in the public domain going by those pages, so I'd suggest using the Phoenix Park as the official figure.

M.T. Cranium

I'll let met.ie make the decision for me, by waiting until the end of the week (Friday 4th), checking the monthly summary to see if it is amended, and going with whatever value is there on the 4th (end of day). They used Phoenix Park in January (for the highest value) but not February, so frankly I am confused. They may do things the same way that I do, looking at the daily summaries for extremes and then checking the new stations to see if any of those are higher or lower. Maybe they just missed the higher reading when they did the summary. But on the other hand maybe they consider the reading faulty and don't want to include it for that reason.

This also affects the winter forecast contest scoring, which I have otherwise updated in that thread.

Sorry this will result in a delay in the scoring but you'll know roughly how you did anyway, I'm sure. If the value is confirmed before Friday of course I can go ahead with the scoring sooner.

M.T. Cranium

Delayed scoring for February. Have decided to go with the official source, the climate summary, and assume that the higher reading of 15.7 is being rejected for quality control reasons. What makes my decision somewhat easier is that no scores were actually lower because of this decision, with one exception. The IMT forecasts fell very slightly below the minimum scoring progression and scores above 10 were adjusted up to that standard, below that they were held in place. The scores for monthly minimum and for precip (rainfall) are strictly based on rank order as per the minimum progression rule, as almost all the guesses would have received zero points otherwise. So anyway, here are the scores ...

FORECASTER ...... IMT .. MAX .. MIN .. PRC .. SUN .. Cork14...totals
________________________________________________________________

nilhg ................. 18 ..... 09 ..... 18 ..... 01 ..... 05 .... 04 .... 55
DeepEasterly ...... 08 ..... 00 ..... 15 ..... 13 ..... 08 .... 08 .... 52
Strasser ............ 15 ..... 15 ..... 15 ..... 00 ..... 06 .... 00 .... 51
pauldry ............. 15 ..... 16 ..... 05 ..... 00 ..... 10 .... 01 .... 47
jambofc ............. 09 ..... 08 ..... 13 ..... 11 ..... 06 .... 00 .... 47
BEASTERLY ........ 12 ..... 03 ..... 12 ..... 10 ..... 05 .... 04 .... 46
Mickger844posts . 15 ..... 09 ..... 09 ..... 00 ..... 07 .... 01 .... 41
H2UMrsRobinson .. 22 ..... 01 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 07 .... 10 .... 40
John mac ........... 03 ..... 10 ..... 16 ..... 04 ..... 07 .... 00 .... 40
waterways ......... 08 ..... 08 ..... 07 ..... 12 ..... 04 .... 00 .... 39
WolfeIRE* .......... 10 ..... 10 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 07 .... 09 .... 36
Sponge Bob ....... 08 ..... 08 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 10 ..... 10 .... 36
talkabout .......... 00 ..... 17 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 09 .... 35
Rebelbrowser* ... 00 ..... 18 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 07 ..... 09 .... 34
gothwalk .......... 00 ..... 18 ..... 06 ..... 00 ..... 10 ..... 00 .... 34
200motels ......... 09 ..... 19 ..... 03 ..... 00 ..... 02 ..... 00 .... 33
Danno .............. 03 ..... 09 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 07 ..... 03 .... 31
Jerry Seinfeld ..... 08 ..... 10 ..... 01 ..... 05 ..... 06 .... 00 .... 30
Su Campu ......... 02 ..... 08 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 10 ..... 09 .... 29
steveLFC24 ....... 08 ..... 09 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 03 .... 29
Joe Public ......... 00 ..... 12 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 07 ..... 09 .... 28
rameire ............. 07 ..... 00 ..... 11 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 00 .... 27
harps ............... 00 ..... 13 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 06 ..... 08 .... 27
TheInquisitor .... .00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 14 ..... 03 ..... 10 .... 27
SeaFields ........... 09 ..... 03 ..... 04 ..... 00 ..... 10 .... 00 .... 26
fionagus ........... 00 ..... 09 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 08 .... 26
dasa29 ............ 00 ..... 16 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 10 ..... 00 .... 26
DOCARCH .......... 03 ..... 16 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 06 ..... 00 .... 25
NIALL D ............. 10 ..... 00 ..... 04 ..... 00 ..... 10 .... 00 .... 24
dacogawa ......... 00 ..... 06 ..... 00 ..... 04 ..... 09 ..... 05 .... 24
Aquals .............. 02 ..... 00 ..... 11 ..... 04 ..... 06 ..... 00 .... 23
snowstreams....... 09 ..... 02 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 05 .... 05 .... 21
kindredspirit ...... 02 ..... 09 ..... 01 ..... 00 ..... 08 ..... 01 .... 21
hellboy99 .......... 00 ..... 10 ..... 00 ..... 01 ..... 09 ..... 01 .... 21

Con Sensus ....... 03 ..... 08 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 01 .... 21

Tae laidir .......... 00 ..... 10 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 05 ..... 10 .... 20
fizzycyst .......... 00 ..... 02 ..... 08 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 01 .... 20
homolumo ......... 00 ..... 00 ..... 01 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 08 .... 18
darkman2 .......... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 08 .... 17
M.T. Cranium ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 08 ..... 08 .... 16
jd .................... 00 ..... 03 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 09 ..... 01 .... 13
thetonynator ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 08 ..... 04 .... 12
nacho libre ........ 03 ..... 00 ..... 02 ..... 00 ..... 06 ..... 00 .... 11
redsunset ......... 00 ..... 00 ..... 04 ..... 00 ..... 05 ..... 01 .... 10

Congrats then to Nilhg and DeepEasterly for leading the way in February.

I will post an abbreviated "leaderboard" for the first two months next, but won't start a new thread for the annual scoring until we have March done as well.

M.T. Cranium

2011 Annual scoring ... by total score for those who entered Jan and/or Feb
(if you missed one month so far, this table will be updated later in the year to show the "best ten out of twelve" stats as they evolve.)

Rank ... Forecaster ........... J .... F .... Tot ... Avg

1 ..... Beasterly ............. 56 .. 46 .. 102 ... 51
2 ..... Strasser .............. 47 .. 51 ... 98 ... 49
3 ..... nilhg ....................41 .. 55 ... 96 ... 48
4 ..... DeepEasterly ........ 42 .. 52 ... 94 ... 47
5 ..... mickger844posts ... 51 .. 41 ... 92 ... 46
6 ..... 200motels ............ 58 .. 33 ... 91 ... 45.5
7 ..... Jerry Seinfeld ....... 59 .. 30 .... 89 ... 44.5
7 ..... jambofc ............... 42 .. 47 ... 89 ... 44.5
9 ..... kindredspirit ......... 65 .. 21 .... 86 ... 43
9 ..... H2UMrsRobinson .... 46 .. 40 ... 86 ... 43
11 ....John mac ............. 44 .. 40 ... 84 ... 42
11 ....Pauldry ............... 37 .. 47 ... 84 ... 42
13 ....SeaFields............. 51 .. 26 ... 77 ... 38.5
14 ....waterways .......... 37 .. 39 ... 76 ... 38
15 ....talkabout ............. 40 .. 35 ... 75 ... 37.5
16 ....Harps .................. 46 .. 27 ... 73 ... 36.5
17 ....Tae laidir ............. 52 .. 20 ... 72 ... 36
18 ....steveLFC24 .......... 40 .. 29 ... 69 ... 34.5
19 ....Su Campu ............ 39 .. 29 ... 68 ... 34
20 ....fionagus .............. 40 .. 26 ... 66 ... 33
21 ....Aquals ................. 41 .. 23 ... 64 ... 32
22 ....Caesar Augustus ... 64 .. -- .... 64 ... 64
23 ....Danno ................ 32 .. 31 ... 63 ... 31.5

(23) ..Con Sensus .......... 42 .. 21 ... 63 ... 31.5

24 ....dacogawa ........... 38 .. 24 ... 62 ... 31
25 ....Joe Public ........... 33 .. 28 ... 61 ... 30.5
25 ....WolfeIRE ............ 25 .. 36 ... 61 ... 30.5
27 ....TheInquisitor ....... 33 .. 27 ... 60 ... 30
28 ....Sponge Bob ........ 23 .. 36 ... 59 ... 29.5
29 ....rameire .............. 30 .. 27 ... 57 ... 28.5
30 ....DOCARCH ........... 31 .. 25 ... 56 ... 28
31 ....Rebelbrowser ..... 21 .. 34 ... 55 ... 27.5
32 ....nacho libre .......... 43 .. 11 ... 54 ... 27
33 ....thetonynator ....... 41 .. 12 ... 53 ... 26.5
33 ....M.T. Cranium ....... 37 .. 16 ... 53 ... 26.5
35 ....hellboy99 ........... 29 .. 21 ... 50 ... 25
36 ....kuro_man ............ 49 .. -- ... 49 ... 49
36 ....homolumo ........... 31 .. 18 ... 49 ... 24.5
38 ....Brenireland .......... 48 .. -- ... 48 ... 48
39 ....fizzycyst ............ 27 .. 20 ... 47 ... 23.5
40 ....dasa29 ............. 20 .. 26 ... 46 ... 23
41 ....Ahorseofaman ..... 42 .. -- ... 42 ... 42
42 ....Wild Bill .............. 39 .. -- ... 39 ... 39
43 ....roryc1 ............... 38 .. -- ... 38 ... 38
44 ....jd ..................... 23 .. 13 ... 36 ... 18
45 ....cherryghost ........ 35 .. -- ... 35 ... 35
46 ....Gothwalk ........... -- .. 34 ... 34 ... 34
47 ....redsunset ......... 24 .. 10 ... 34 ... 17
48 ....4sheets ............. 24 .. -- ... 24 ... 24
48 ....NIALL D.............. -- .. 24 ... 24 ... 24
50 ....Snowstreams ..... -- .. 21 ... 21 ... 21
51 ....baraca .............. 19 .. -- ... 19 ... 19
52 ....Darkman2 .......... -- .. 17 ... 17 ... 17
_________________________________________________

Seems to be a good year if your name ends in easterly.

BEASTERLY

Pity febuary didnt end in easterly:(

Forgot to enter march:mad:, do you need the 12 months to be in the annual comp?

M.T. Cranium

No, we go with your best ten forecasts so you still have one to "burn" if you stay with us ... we do have a second award for highest average for all twelve months, and a third award for highest average, any reasonable number of months. Bottom line is, you're still in the main contest until you've missed three.

Tae laidir

Can I ask for a re-count.
I think I should be 25!

M.T. Cranium

Good spot there, I got all the others right (on third check, missed yours twice evidently).

Watch for that score in the March and annual scoring update, I can't edit the post at this point.

I am going to go back and check January now, the problem is that I tend to do these late at night and sometimes I am getting very sleepy while finishing the sums in my head. Perhaps the name M.T. Cranium would suggest the use of a calculator but before that happens we will probably be going to Excel that removes all doubt (as long as the data input are right). :cool:

If no further posts from me next half hour, means January was okay and all other scores posted in the annual table are accurate. Tae Laidir now has 77 points and is joint 13th. Anyone now 14th-16th drops one rank, then the table is correct from 18th on.