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January 2012 Boards forecast contest

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    #62
    H2UMrsRobinson
    Registered Users Posts: 763 ✭✭✭H2UMrsRobinson


    pauldry wrote: »
    Actually MT I dont think it will get as low as -18c at all.

    Probably -17.9c on 30th instead.:D

    Which by the way would coincide beautifully with 'Robbo's Revenge' on the same day !


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    #63
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users Posts: 14,351 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    What is Robbo's Revenge?


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    #64
    H2UMrsRobinson
    Registered Users Posts: 763 ✭✭✭H2UMrsRobinson


    The blizzard to end all blizzards !!!!
    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    I bags naming rights for the 22nd for MT.

    Quick Recap on the situation as it has developed rapidly.

    19th Wolfies Blizzard
    20th Wild Bill Blizzard
    21st The Great Wolfie Blizzard
    22nd The MT Blizzard or the Canadian Blizzard (MTs choice)
    23rd EnderBlizzard
    24th The Great White Out of Jan 24th (Redsunset may wish to reconsider that one in time :) )
    25th Baracablizzard
    26th The Su Su Super Snowstorm AND if the event is co-incident with a record low temperature for THAT date at ANY IMT station used in Board competition the naming rights go to Calibos as a happy birthday treat
    27th The BEASTERLY'S Easterly Blizzard
    28th The great blizzard of Ireland except the south east Onlyone
    29th Del's winter-wonder land Delw
    30th Robbos Revenge Blizzard ( Heres 2 u Mrs R)
    31st The Docharch wouldn't name it Blizzard

    Rules

    One Name per day. Line up for the rest of January the rest of ye and
    No naming of any Feb events allowed.
    Sponge Bob not allowed to have any snow event named after himself in January 2012.
    If you don't like your day name PM me your choice of name for it.
    Final entries by posting into this thread by saturday 14th at midday Z :D


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    #65
    Wild Bill
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,129 ✭✭✭Wild Bill


    Frankly, I'm tending to back off my blizzard prediction for the 20th :o

    Damn models :mad:


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    #66
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users Posts: 14,351 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    Here's your latest edition of Ouch Magazine or as it used to be known, weekly updates ...

    Updates for third week (15th to 21st) ...

    IMT 7.1 C (week was 7.0)

    prc 70% of normal (week was 48%)

    sun 70% of normal (est) (week was about 74%)

    A couple of very cold days near the end of the month would not change the IMT very much but could rescue some of our monthly minimum predictions.


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    #67
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users Posts: 14,351 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    Nearing the end of Marchuary, we find a bit of a cooling trend in week 4 ...

    IMT drifted down to 6.7 C due to a more seasonable 5.5 in week 4.

    Rainfall is boosted to 83% as the week ran close to 120% (only the west was actually above normal though).

    Sunshine remains stuck in the dullness rut at about 70% (as they never update Dublin in the ag report, I have to estimate these until end of month).

    I noted a low of -3.1 at Mullingar, can't remember if that ties or edges out an earlier reading? Slight chance of improving on that on Tuesday at 2359h perhaps? I think my -19 idea is going to verify around the U.K. cold spots on Friday 3rd of February, so close but no ceegar.


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    #68
    pauldry
    Registered Users Posts: 6,892 ✭✭✭pauldry


    January will prob end up with something like this provisionally

    IMT 6.5c

    Max 13.1c

    Min -3.1c

    Rain 80? (dont have a clue on this)

    Sun 70 (dull month so maybe less)

    Max Claremorris 6.8c


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    #69
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users Posts: 14,351 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    I hope to score this contest "this afternoon" if I am up late here waiting for updated model runs, otherwise "this evening" if I don't get to it before hitting the sack. That is assuming the monthly summary is out at its usual reliable time during the first day of the month (quite impressive how they keep up that schedule especially compared to most gov't agencies).

    Don't forget to enter February. :cool:


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    #70
    Deep Easterly
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,150 ✭✭✭Deep Easterly


    IMT for January finished at 6.6c. IMR (non comp) finished up on 101%. and IMP (Irish Mean Pressure from the same five stations) came in at 1018.9hPa, which is just 0.8hPa higher than that of January 2011.


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    #71
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users Posts: 14,351 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    From the Monthly Summary and cross-reference to monthly data, I have these final figures for January:

    IMT 6.5 C

    max 13.1 (Shannon, 3rd)

    min -3.1 (Mullingar, 28th)

    prc 96% of normal

    sun 75% of normal

    bonus ... Claremorris 15th ... 6.8 C

    My slight difference in IMT is no doubt a rounding issue.

    Will be heading into the January and winter forecast threads to do some scoring, look for updates.


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    #72
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users Posts: 14,351 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    Scores for January 2012
    _____________________________

    Forecaster .............. IMT .... MAX .... MIN .... PRC .... SUN ... Cla-15 ... TOTALS
    _______________________________________________________________

    To Alchohol ............ 22 ..... 18 ..... 18* .... 13 ..... 06 ..... 05 ..... 82
    H2UMrsRobinson ...... 24 ..... 15 ..... 00 ..... 15 ..... 10 ..... 06 ..... 70
    nilhg ...................... 21 ..... 12 ..... 14* .... 10 ..... 08 .... 02 ..... 67
    rameire .................. 14 ..... 17 ..... 10* .... 14 ..... 06 ..... 04 ..... 65
    Lumi ...................... 13 ..... 13 ..... 07* .... 13 ..... 07 ..... 09 ..... 62
    John mac ............... 21 ..... 17 ..... 00 ..... 15 ..... 06 ..... 03 ..... 62
    mickger844posts ..... 16 ..... 17 ..... 11* .... 09 ..... 07 ..... 02 ..... 62
    pauldry .................. 14 ..... 20 ..... 05* .... 14 ..... 07 .... 01 ..... 61
    kindredspirit ........... 15 ..... 18 ..... 09* .... 12 ..... 04 .... 02 ..... 60
    waterways ............. 25 ..... 16 ..... 00 ..... 12 ..... 03 .... 02 ..... 58

    Con Sensus ............ 12 ..... 19 ..... 00 ..... 14 ..... 05 ..... 08 ..... 58

    okla ...................... 14 ..... 17 ..... 02* .... 14 ..... 05 ..... 05 ..... 57
    Enderman** ........... 17 ..... 10 ..... 03* .... 13 ..... 09 ..... 10 ..... 62 = 56
    Jerry Seinfeld .......... 20 ..... 17 ..... 04* .... 10 ..... 03 .... 02 ..... 56
    200motels .............. 16 ..... 13 ..... 16* .... 01 ..... 10 .... 00 ..... 56
    hellboy99 ............... 14 ..... 17 ..... 00 ..... 13 ..... 06 ..... 06 ..... 56
    Steopo* ................ 09 ..... 17 ..... 00 ..... 14 ..... 04 ..... 09 ..... 53
    Sponge Bob ............ 12 ..... 18 ..... 00 ..... 14 ..... 05 ..... 03 ..... 52
    Hammer Archer ....... 07 ..... 16 ..... 00 ..... 12 ..... 07 ..... 10 ..... 52
    Harps .................... 05 ..... 20 ..... 00 ..... 10 ..... 07 ..... 09 ..... 51
    dacogawa .............. 09 ..... 14 ..... 01* .... 10 ..... 07 ..... 09 ..... 50
    jd ......................... 01 ..... 20 ..... 00 ..... 15 ..... 05 ..... 09 ..... 50
    eyesquirm .............. 08 ..... 12 ..... 00 ..... 14 ..... 06 ..... 09 ..... 49
    homolumo .............. 12 ..... 10 ..... 08* .... 10 ..... 05 ..... 03 ..... 48
    Danno* ................. 17 ..... 13 ..... 06* .... 02 ..... 06 ..... 04 ..... 48
    Wild Bill ................. 12 ..... 14 ..... 02* .... 10 ..... 05 ..... 05 ..... 48
    fizzycyst ............... 11 ..... 02 ..... 14* .... 07 ..... 05 ..... 08 ..... 47
    traecy1 ................. 11 ..... 15 ..... 01* .... 11 ..... 02 ..... 07 ..... 47
    dasa29 .................. 13 ..... 16 ..... 00 ..... 05 ..... 05 ..... 05 ..... 44
    talkabout ............... 12 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 15 ..... 05 ..... 10 ..... 42
    Joe Public .............. 00 ..... 18 ..... 00 ..... 14 ..... 03 ..... 07 ..... 42
    Rickylovesuall ......... 00 ..... 18 ..... 01* .... 14 ..... 03 ..... 06 ..... 42
    Tae laidir ............... 10 ..... 06 ..... 00 ..... 08 ..... 07 ..... 10 ..... 41
    K_1 ...................... 02 ..... 17 ..... 00 ..... 11 ..... 03 ..... 07 ..... 40
    WolfeIRE ................ 08 ..... 09 ..... 00 ..... 15 ..... 04 ..... 04 ..... 40
    snowstreams** ...... 00 ..... 15 ..... 00 ..... 14 ..... 03 ..... 05***. 37
    M.T. Cranium .......... 00 ..... 18 ..... 00 ..... 13 ..... 02 ..... 01 ..... 34
    redsunset .............. 00 ..... 19 ..... 00 ..... 13 ..... 01 ..... 01 ..... 34
    Iancar29** ............ 00 ..... 19 ..... 00 ..... 11 ..... 02 ..... 01 ..... 33
    SeaFields ............... 00 ..... 16 ..... 00 ..... 07 ..... 07 ..... 03 ..... 33
    MiNdGaM3 .............. 00 ..... 10 ..... 00 ..... 14 ..... 01 ..... 08 ..... 33
    NIALL D ................. 06 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 15 ..... 04 ..... 04 ..... 29
    jambofc ................. 08 ..... 06 ..... 00 ..... 08 ..... 00 ..... 04 ..... 26
    DOCARCH ............... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 14 ..... 03 ..... 03 ..... 20
    darkman2 ............... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 00 ..... 02 ..... 00 ..... 02
    ____________________________________________________

    * late penalty (10% off scores over 60, min 60) not required
    * for monthly minimum temp scores indicates "minimum progression rule" applied.
    ** late-late penalty (10% off scores over 50, min 50) applied to Enderman, 62 - 6.2 = 55.8
    *** bonus max score available due later-later entry (Snowstreams) 5/10 (was 9/10)

    I suppose it's only appropriate that the winning score for these New Years Eve forecasts came from " To Alcohol " and congrats also to H2UMrsRobinson and nilhg (where have we heard this name before?) ... well done to all who went mild, I noticed that the final scores didn't require much moving around in the table. An annual thread will be started after March. Did you enter February? Still open.


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    #73
    H2UMrsRobinson
    Registered Users Posts: 763 ✭✭✭H2UMrsRobinson


    I'm chuffed with that. Considering its pure guesswork on my part!


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    #74
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    H2UMrsRobinson wrote: »
    I'm chuffed with that. Considering its pure guesswork on my part!

    Getting on top ahead of Nilhg in an annual scoring chart of any sort. Brilliant. :) I am only worried about getting some daylight between me and Wild Bill. :D


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    #75
    pauldry
    Registered Users Posts: 6,892 ✭✭✭pauldry


    nilhg ahead of me already.

    ah well mite as well give up for another year.

    beat consensus though nah hah


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    #76
    Deep Easterly
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,150 ✭✭✭Deep Easterly


    M.T. Cranium wrote: »

    IMT 6.5 C

    My slight difference in IMT is no doubt a rounding issue.

    Not a rounding issue M.T. Tripled checked daily values from all of the 5 stations used.

    191022.jpg

    and all entries as inputted are correct (as per daily values on met.ie)

    Monthly means as taken from daily values for January:
    Casement: 6.0c
    Claremorris: 6.6c
    Mullingar: 5.8c
    Oak Park: 6.5c
    Shannon Apt: 8.0c

    = to 6.59c, or rounded down to 1 decimal place: 6.6c

    Spreadsheet with the daily values for Jan from the 5 stations used attached at the bottom of this sheet. Despite much checking, I may have missed a wrong input somewhere if anyone would do the honour of giving a quick skim over. My mind is not the best when tired. :o


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    #77
    Harps
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,548 ✭✭✭Harps


    Still think we should have a more northerly station such Armagh Observatory to give a more accurate representation of the whole county, I seem to remember November being only slightly above normal for the month for IMT rainfall despite the fact it rained for days on end several times in Donegal and was certainly well above average. The weather in the north west can be vastly different to the Midlands etc. at this time of year yet isn't really taken into account

    Not a complaint as such, just an observation that I'd like to see taken into account!


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    #78
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users Posts: 14,351 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    Okay, I looked into that and found that my eyes had seen 5.3 for Mullingar, not 5.8 ... should have put the screen on 2x :o

    I figured perhaps we were 0.1 different due to some rounding issue since I had to work out Claremorris from the anomaly in the MS (and I did get 6.6 so good for me) and got the other four from the monthly data.

    Well, looking at the scores, it just gives every contestant who scored on that category (most of you) one extra point, so thank me very much. :D

    On the winter forecast contest, it makes no difference since those are scored by rank and nobody went over 6.5.

    So in other words no harm done. Hope it hasn't upset DE, certainly wasn't thinking of it as his rounding error, just whatever. (0.1 differences are not uncommon in data sets)

    Meanwhile, the Armagh question -- don't forget that the precip question is scored by an average of 11 stations not just the five in the IMT. These include Ballyhaise, Belmullet and Malin Head. Last year I had a chat with DE about the IMT, and we concluded that one more northern station would unbalance the IMT unless we also included one more southern station, and we looked at some test cases and found the IMT stayed almost the same anyway, so we concluded that it wasn't worth the bother. I've noticed that the IMT is almost always very close to Claremorris which seems the most likely to finish middle of any group of five. DE can you check that out for any length of time?


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    #79
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Harps wrote: »
    Still think we should have a more northerly station such as Armagh Observatory to give a more accurate representation of the whole county

    If we had an IMT 6 station rather than an IMT 5 station mean I would agree. This is the oldest weather station in Ireland with partial records from 1794 and complete records from 1832. But is it fair on Deep Easterly who would have to collate and check 20% more data when the existing 5 stations are already representative.


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    #80
    Deep Easterly
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,150 ✭✭✭Deep Easterly


    Harps wrote: »
    Still think we should have a more northerly station such Armagh Observatory to give a more accurate representation of the whole county, I seem to remember November being only slightly above normal for the month for IMT rainfall despite the fact it rained for days on end several times in Donegal and was certainly well above average. The weather in the north west can be vastly different to the Midlands etc. at this time of year yet isn't really taken into account

    Not a complaint as such, just an observation that I'd like to see taken into account!

    I can see your point, but not sure how Armagh would better represent the NW?
    Location of the Observatory:
    191055.png

    If we were to use Armagh, then we'd have to balance that out by using a station in the NW such as Finner Camp, as well as more southern based stations such as Moorepark, none of which have any long-term records, to get a more countrywide scope, I know this would not matter for the competition itself but my personal interest in collecting data from the current 5 station used is to compare and contrast daily, monthly and yearly readings with past averages for that is where my interest lies.

    One thing about the location of the 5 IMT stations, they are central, neither too far north or south, and not all in the midlands either as suggested. I think the 'centrality' of these stations helps to balance out what would be usually a cooler north and warmer south in any season so in that respect, I think the IMT is a fairly, though not perfect, representation of the temperature of the island of Ireland. If anyone has any better ideas, I suggest you contact M.T. I put forward the idea of the 'IMT' (which was actually named by Hellboy), to him a couple of years back for use in the competition, but that does not mean to say that other indexes cannot be used or considered by M.T for the comp. :)


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    #81
    Hammer Archer
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 11,390 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hammer Archer


    Woo nailed the Claremorris temperature :D
    Can't believe there were only 5 days in January where the temperature at any of the 5 stations went below freezing.


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    #82
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users Posts: 14,351 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    I'm happy with the IMT, it really would not change very much to add any number of stations to it, perhaps it would go down a couple of tenths or up, depending on the type of pattern, but if we changed the format and set out different "normals" then people would still have the same challenge, how far up or down from normal to go. So what's the real point of changing it? To make it more "representative" but as DE points out you would need several more stations and they would maintain about the present sort of balance.

    So as long as DE maintains the index and I maintain the contest, we will probably go with these five stations. Like he says, nothing to stop anyone else from having a different index and one day using it for contests.

    Anyone snow-bound? ;)


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    #83
    Harps
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,548 ✭✭✭Harps


    Hmm drunk post last night :rolleyes:


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    #84
    cherryghost
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 17,133 Mod ✭✭✭✭cherryghost


    Damn 10% deduction! At least I would've been the con census also. Lesson learned. Done my Feb predictions early and quite confident of success. Muahahaha!


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    #85
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users Posts: 14,351 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    It's worth noting that our penalties are relatively lenient when compared to practices elsewhere. I inherited a contest here that had always closed off at the end of the first, that's the first degree of leniency because other contests start to penalize at the start of the first day. Then on occasion I push that back a day as with January due to weekends or holidays.

    Other examples of leniency, our first late day penalty only nicks those above 60, others take off 10-25 per cent regardless. By the second late day, you're looking at almost total leniency against the standard which might be 25-50 per cent.

    Scores are also floated upwards here by our minimum progression rule, but on all counts I would defend our system because a 30-day month remains largely a mystery to entrants regardless of which of five days they choose (from -2 to +3) except that some specific guesses may be made easier by known data, and where that is an issue I look for a specific remedy as I mentioned in the February contest regarding minimum temperatures.

    The worst case scenario of late penalties happened to me in 1980 when I went in against the large pool of entrants from Penn State meteorology dept and Accu-weather (as part of a month-long contest) to predict rainfall at Dayton, Ohio one day -- a massive thunderstorm arrived at something like 0001z (a minute late in other words) and dumped two inches of rain in an hour, my prediction was one of a handful with much rain in it and I'd said two inches, lost hundreds of points on some square the square of the square scoring system -- and then a tornado took out the weather station. :cool:

    But statistics sometimes drive you around the bend, how about this one, January 1843 at Toronto, 2.50 inches of rain on the 31st, boosted precip from normal to twice normal for that month. :pac:


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