January 2017 Boards forecast contest

No big changes in format for the 2017 Boards weather contest.

1. Predict the IMT (Irish Mean Temperature), the average for five locations, Claremorris, Mullingar, Casement, Oak Park and Shannon. The 1981-2010 normal value is 5.4 C. (max 25 points)

2. Predict the MAX (highest temperature at any regular reporting site as confirmed in the Monthly Summary of Met-Eireann) during January. (max 20 points)

3. Predict the MIN (lowest temperature etc, see above) (max 20 points)

4. Predict the PRC (rainfall and liquid equivalent of any frozen precip) as a percentage of normal values. The baseline for this is a grid of eleven stations, the five mentioned in part one above, and also Belmullet, Malin Head, Valentia, Ballyhaise, Johnstown Castle, and Cork. (max 15 points)

5. Predict the SUN (sunshine) as a percentage of normal values at six locations (Casement, Dublin, Belmullet, Cork, Shannon, Valentia). (max 10 points)

6. For a BONUS question, predict the maximum temperature at Mullingar on Sunday, 8th of January. (max 10 points).

Deadline will be as usual at 0300h on Sunday, 1st of January, but given the combined New Years and weekend factors in play, I will relax the late penalties as follows: you will lose one point if you post between 0305h and 0900h. You will lose two points for a post 0901-1500h. From there on, the late penalties will be one point every three hours to midnight (end of 1st) so at that point 5 points will be deducted; then it will be one more point for each two hours elapsed to end of second and one more point per hour after that.

That's a bit more lenient than usual.

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Hoping to get a few new forum members to join in the fun, if you know people who don't enter the contest but are weather forum regulars, pitch the contest to them in a private message.

Here's how the minimum progression rule will be slightly modified for use in the coming year. If no forecasts qualify for the existing minimum progression, then it will be applied as per rules already set out. If the high score does not need minimum progression to equal or exceed maximum minus 2, then whatever portion of the scores needing a boost can only get an increase of half the differential (raw score to min progression) -- that would reward the one person who foresaw an extreme situation while still keeping the scores tolerable. Here's an example, let's say the MIN in a cold month is -11.0 and there is one guess of -10.8, then -9.5, -8.0 and -7.0. The low guess would get 18 points. Minimum progression says we should then go 17, 16, 15, 14 etc (doubling up near the bottom as required by number of entries). In this case, second coldest has five points raw score. The boost to 17 would be 12 points but with the one "good" forecast this would be reduced to 6, for 11 points. Then for third and fourth, the raw scores are zero. The minimum progression scores would be 16 and 15, so these get 8 points each. Etc etc, the doubling up will begin a bit earlier as a result (everyone will still get some points in these situations).

If the best forecast had been -10.0, we would go 18, 17, 16 etc.

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GOOD LUCK and best wishes for a happy new year to all. -- MTC