August 2015 Boards forecast contest

Valentia only increased by 2.2 mm on the 4th, to a grand total of 37.8 mm, and no other station caught up to that total, so the closest in each category are:

Rainfall -- (1) Jpmarn, 38.0 ; ... (2) Mrskinner and Johnmac both at 39.0.

Max gust -- (1) Rameire 54 knots; ... (2) jd and waterways both at 55 knots.

I would say jd and then Johnmac had perhaps the closest combined forecasts. It is not taking long today to make up any deficits however.

IMT now 13.8

PRC now. 89%

Week only 28%

Sun now 104%

Max 23.0, min 3.5

Update for 8-15.

Updated values after 15-22 Aug.

IMT now 14.3 (week 15.4)

PRC now 84% (week 72%) -- this will surge higher by mid-week.

SUN at 97% after a week that averaged 84%.

MAX now 24.2, MIN still 3.5

No, until recently the Monthly Summary had a table of percentages for eleven stations, this was changed last month and I may take advantage of that starting with the 2016 contests to include more or even all stations, but for this year, the eleven stations that are used include:

Ballyhaise, Belmullet, Carlow (Oak Park), Casement, Claremorris, Cork, Johnstown Castle, Malin Head, Mullingar, Shannon, Valentia

Meanwhile, the Monthly Summary used to list six stations (Belmullet, Casement, Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Valentia) in a table of sunshine percentages but they changed that also in June to a table of all eight which includes Knock and Malin Head, but without percentages. I now have to rely on the weekly Agriculture Summary values to get a handle on percentages. The Monthly Summary gives me a bit of information by listing the high and low percentages in their discussion. I made a note at mid-month of the average normal daily values (they ranged from 4.5 hrs west to 5.0 hrs east) and so that's how I will calculate from the tables of total hours, unless I can get access to actual monthly normal values somewhere. I'm sure this will be within a couple of percentage points anyway, the drift from start to finish of the month would be rather small (in normal sunshine hours). And I will have the ongoing weekly values that are actual percentages and not estimates as a further guide.

So in other words, Knock does not influence the monthly percentage of rainfall at this point, or the sunshine, but it may next year.

If I were to use all of the stations as the MS now provides, it would probably skew the results towards the southwest where there seem to be more stations, so what I might do is continue on with the same eleven but add Finner and Athenry to fill in two large gaps in the data. But that won't start until 2016. We can have a group discussion about this in December along with all the other rules in play.

Confirmed scoring for August 2015


FORECASTER _____________ IMT_MAX_MIN_PRC_SUN__BONUS______ TOTAL

Rameire __________________ 16 _ 15 _ 19 _ 10 _ 10 __ 4 _ 5 _______ 79
Mrskinner _________________ 16 _ 17 _ 14 _ 12 _ 10 __ 5 _ 4 _______ 78
Lumi _____________________ 19 _ 17 _ 18 _ 09 _ 08 __ 3 _ 4 _______ 78
dasa29____________________22 _ 12 _ 15 _ 10 _ 10 __ 2 _ 5 _______ 76
Schadenfreudia _____________20 _ 16 _ 20 _ 04 _ 08 __ 4 _ 3 _______ 75
Sunflower3_________________14 _ 14 _ 17 _ 11 _ 09 __ 4 _ 3 _______ 72

Con Sensus _______________ 15 _ 13 _ 15 _ 10 _ 09 __ 3 _ 4 _______ 69

mickger844posts ___________ 24 _ 09 _ 15 _ 06 _ 07 __ 2 _ 4 _______ 67
waterways ________________ 14 _ 19 _ 12 _ 03 _ 09 __ 1 _ 5 _______ 63
M.T. Cranium ______________ 18 _ 13 _ 15 _ 04 _ 06 __ 1 _ 4 _______ 61
Harps ____________________ 16 _ 08 _ 14 _ 11 _ 06 __ 4 _ 2 _______ 61
pauldry ___________________ 22 _ 19 _ 05 _ 01 _ 08 __ 2 _ 3 _______ 60
Tae Laidir _________________ 10 _ 00 _ 19 _ 13 _ 10 __ 5 _ 3 _______ 60
jd _______________________ 10 _ 00 _ 18 _ 12 _ 09 __ 5 _ 5 _______ 59
Rikand ___________________ 15 _ 12 _ 05 _ 10 _ 08 __ 3 _ 4 _______ 57
Kindred Spirit ______________14 _ 02 _ 15 _ 10 _ 07 __ 3 _ 5 _______ 56
Bsal _____________________ 16 _ 00 _ 14 _ 09 _ 09 __ 3 _ 4 _______ 55
john mac _________________ 15 _ 00 _ 18 _ 04 _ 09 __ 5 _ 4 _______ 55
omicron _____ (-10) ________ 15 _ 12 _ 15 _ 10 _ 10 __ 5 _ 2 (-4) _ 69-14=55
DOCARCH _________________11 _ 06 _ 06 _ 14 _ 09 __ 3 _ 3 _______ 52
lostinashford _______________20 _ 01 _ 15 _ 07 _ 05 __ 1 _ 3 _______ 52
200motels ___(-10)_________ 11 _ 09 _ 16 _ 10 _ 10 __ 4 _ 3 (-4) _ 63-14=49
Jpmarn ___________________ 07 _ 00 _ 16 _ 07 _ 09 __ 5 _ 4 _______ 48
Joe Public _________________ 11 _ 03 _ 04 _ 14 _ 08 __ 2 _ 1 (4) ____ 44
Dacogawa ____(-5) _________ 14 _ 00 _ 13 _ 07 _ 08 __ 4 _ 4 (-2) _ 50-7 =43

________________________________________________

Note: early forecast score protection for bonus (4 min) was only needed for the one case shown, all the other (4) tags are removed now. The bonus score reduction factor for late entries remains and is applied to total score.

So, that's how things stand with the possibility of some very minor adjustments as I check the official stats later in the week. A fairly good month for scoring overall and perhaps a further tightening up of the annual race as some of our leaders were only middle of the pack this month.

After checking the Monthly Summary, the provisional scoring has been upgraded to confirmed with no changes required. I found some sunshine data to compare and in fact the average was bang on 100% for the six stations used. All other values were also confirmed as stated in the post preceding the table. Congrats to Rameire, Lumi and MrSkinner for leading the August scoring.

So now it's on to the annual update which you can see below:


Updated annual 2015 scoring January to August


FORECASTER _________ Jan _Feb_ Mar _Apr_ May _Jun _ Jul _ Aug __ 2015 Total (rank) __ best 7/8 (rank)

Jpmarn ________________64 _ 57 _ 71 _ 78 _ 82 _ 67 _ 44 _ 48 ____ 511 (2) ______ 467 (1)
M.T. Cranium ___________ 68 _ 17 _ 71 _ 86 _ 62 _ 70 _ 46 _ 61 ____ 481 (6t) _____ 464 (2)
Lumi __________________68 _ 72 _ 59 _ 66 _ 58 _ 61 _ 53 _ 78 ____ 515 (1) ______ 462 (3)

Con Sensus ____________ 70 _ 71 _ 63 _ 65 _ 58 _ 62 _ 55 _ 69 ____ 513 (2) ______ 458 (4)

MrSkinner ______________--- _ 71 _ 85 _ 54 _ 47 _ 59 _ 61 _ 78 ____ 455 (12t) ____ 455 (4)
Rikand ________________ 84 _ 59 _ 48 _ 73 _ 54 _ 66 _ 51 _ 57 ____ 492 (3) ______ 444 (5)
dasa29 ________________ 47 _ 69 _ 67 _ 45 _ 57 _ 57 _ 70 _ 76 ____ 488 (4) _____ 443 (6)
sunflower3 _____________ 69 _ 61 _ 59 _ 44 _ 66 _ 57 _ 54 _ 72 ____ 482 (5) _____ 438 (7)
Bsal __________________ 77 _ 55 _ 68 _ 50 _ 57 _ 71 _ 48 _ 55 ____ 481 (6t) _____ 433 (8)
Tae laidir ______________ 33 _ 60 _ 46 _ 68 _ 68 _ 56 _ 74 _ 60 ____ 465 (10) _____ 432 (9)
jd ____________________ 72 _ 61 _ 68 _ 62 _ 31 _ 50 _ 53 _ 59 ____ 456 (11) _____ 425 (10)
mickger844posts ________ 50 _ 90 _ 53 _ 61 _ 45 _ 57 _ 28 _ 67 ____ 451 (16t) ____ 423 (11)
John mac ______________ 73 _ 55 _ 58 _ 60 _ 50 _ 50 _ 69 _ 55 ____ 470 (8) ______ 420 (12)
Pauldry ________________51 _ 48 _ 70 _ 51 _ 67 _ 61 _ 58 _ 60 ____ 466 (9) ______ 418 (13)
DOCARCH ______________75 _ 79 _ 40 _ 64 _ 36 _ 65 _ 42 _ 52 ____ 453 (14t) ____ 417 (14t)
Harps _________________ 69 _ 57 _ 34 _ 70 _ 45 _ 70 _ 45 _ 61 ____ 451 (16t) ____ 417 (14t)
lostinashford ___________ 56 _ --- _ 53 _ 64 _ 74 _ 62 _ 55 _ 52 ____ 416 (20) _____ 416 (16)
Joe Public ______________ 69 _ 42 _ 64 _ 72 _ 39 _ 54 _ 69 _ 44 ____ 453 (14t) ____ 414 (17)
dacogawa ______________ 48 _ 62 _ 63 _ 77 _ 58 _ --- _ 62 _ 43 ____ 413 (21) ____ 413 (18)
Schadenfreudia __________61 _ 67 _ 53 _ 60 _ 58 _ 36 _ 38 _ 75 ____ 448 (18t) ____ 412 (19)
kindredspirit ____________ 63 _ 57 _ 52 _ 59 _ 47 _ 60 _ 61 _ 56 ____ 455 (12t) ____ 408 (20t)
rameire ________________ 55 _ 40 _ 46 _ 58 _ 61 _ 53 _ 56 _ 79____ 448 (18t) ____ 408 (20t)
waterways ______________--- _ 70 _ 58 _ 58 _ 40 _ 53 _ 32 _ 63 ____ 374 (23) ____ 374 (22)
omicron ________________41 _ 77 _ 40 _ 67 _ 49 _ 36 _ 42 _ 55 ____ 407 (22) ____ 371 (23)
200motels ______________30 _ --- _ 59 _ 65 _ 58 _ 40 _ 35 _ 49 ____ 336 (24) ____ 336 (24)
delw __________________ 48 _ --- _ 61 _ --- _ --- _ --- _ --- _ --- ____ 109 (25)
blue5000 _______________45 _ --- _ --- _ --- _ --- _ --- _ --- _ --- _____ 45
BLIZZARD7 _____________--- _ 31 _ --- _ --- _ --- _ --- _ --- _ --- _____ 31
__________________________________________________________

The table is ordered so that the best 6 out of 7 determine the order rather than total score. You can see your ranking in total score as well. A new feature this month is a colour code (red) marking monthly high scores.

The ranks of Con Sensus do not alter your rank which explains why there are ties with Con Sensus that are not actually ties. But there are some ties in ranking between contestants shown with the letter t after the number.

In general, the race has tightened up with one more entrant (Lumi) passing Con Sensus ... next month, I will start to drop two low scores instead of one as we close in on the final countdown to December.

Next order of business is to update the Four Seasons points which I will do in a separate post.