October 2010 Boards forecast contest

M.T. Cranium

Entries received so far for the October contest. Further entries can be submitted until midnight Saturday under the penalty rules.

Forecaster ......... IMT ..... max ..... min ..... rain ..... sun ..... Val 9th
_________________________________________________________

WolfeIRE ............ 13.5 ..... 18.5 ..... -3.0 ..... 127 ..... 090 ..... 14.0
200motels .......... 12.5 ..... 17.8 ..... -2.6 ..... 151 ..... 080 ..... 13.9
jambofc* ............ 12.5 ..... 18.7 ..... -1.8 ..... 140 ..... 110 ..... 15.8
Joe Public ........... 11.3 ..... 17.9 ..... -2.9 ..... 120 ..... 099 ..... 15.3
pauldry .............. 11.3 ..... 18.1 ..... -2.2 ..... 167 ..... 097 ..... 13.8
redsunset ........... 11.2 ..... 17.0 ..... -2.0 ..... 130 ..... 100 ..... 16.5
kindredspirit ........ 11.2 ..... 18.9 ..... -3.0 ..... 125 ..... 105 ..... 15.0
M.T. Cranium ....... 11.1 ..... 19.7 ..... -3.3 ..... 120 ..... 102 ..... 14.5
nilhg .................. 11.1 ..... 17.9 ..... -2.5 ..... 090 ..... 110 ..... 15.3
Strasser ............. 11.1 ..... 17.5 ..... -2.4 ..... 115 ..... 095 ..... 15.5
dasa29 ............... 11.0 ..... 17.0 ..... -2.0 ..... 130 ..... 085 ..... 12.5
The Inquisitor ...... 11.0 ..... 18.0 ..... -5.0 ..... 125 ..... 095 ..... 10.0
Fionagus ............. 10.9 ..... 17.6 ..... -3.8 ..... 133 ..... 090 ..... 13.1
hellboy99 ............ 10.9 ..... 19.5 ..... -3.5 ..... 116 ..... 104 ..... 15.0
jd ...................... 10.9 ..... 18.1 ..... -3.7 ..... 117 ..... 103 ..... 14.1

Con Sensus ......... 10.9 ..... 18.0 ..... -2.8 ..... 116 ..... 101 ..... 14.5

Rebelbrowser ....... 10.9 ..... 17.9 ..... -3.4 ..... 113 ..... 111 ..... 13.6
Sponge Bob ......... 10.8 ..... 18.2 ..... -2.2 ..... 177 ..... 111 ..... 14.4
Jerry Seinfeld ....... 10.8 ..... 18.0 ..... -1.8 ..... 140 ..... 075 ..... 14.3
DOCARCH ............ 10.8 ..... 19.1 ..... -2.2 ..... 095 ..... 103 ..... 15.3
waterways .......... 10.7 ..... 19.9 ..... -2.7 ..... 105 ..... 105 ..... 13.9
SeaFields ............ 10.7 ..... 20.3 ..... -4.2 ..... 110 ..... 125 ..... 14.6
mickger844posts .. 10.6 ..... 18.2 ..... -2.2 ..... 083 ..... 111 ..... 15.1
Su Campu ........... 10.6 ..... 18.5 ..... -4.5 ..... 140 ..... 110 ..... 15.0
talkabout ............ 10.5 ..... 16.9 ..... -3.6 ..... 110 ..... 092 ..... 11.2
homolumo ........... 10.5 ..... 16.8 ..... -2.9 ..... 109 ..... 090 ..... 11.1
Thetonynator ...... 10.5 ..... 18.8 ..... -2.2 ..... 090 ..... 110 ..... 14.8
nacho libre .......... 10.4 ..... 16.9 ..... -2.4 ..... 115 ..... 090 ..... 13.3
gothwalk ............ 10.2 ..... 17.1 ..... -3.0 ..... 110 ..... 075 ..... 14.7
Danno* .............. 10.1 ..... 18.7 ..... -1.9 ..... 090 ..... 135 ..... 15.6
John mac ............ 09.9 ..... 17.0 ..... -4.3 ..... 105 ..... 109 ..... 14.7

* late penalty applies if score >60

I think all the regular entrants have posted now, so any latecomers would be newbies and it makes no difference to the contest ... so consider this month closed for further entries, if we get any we can score them just for informational purposes.

The consensus looks like a somewhat milder and wetter than average month, those who tend to a more average temperature are generally calling for less rain and more sunshine so the group as a whole seems a little split between the current pattern persisting much of the time, or possibly some anticyclonic blocking taking over for longer periods (with a few warm, dry opinions thrown in for a southerly sort of blocking). The bonus question turns out to be a rather lame one, I suppose, with not much of a range of forecasts there ... but we'll see what actually transpires.

jambofc

12.5 ..... 18.7 ..... -1.8 ..... 140% ..... 110% ..... 15.8

Danno

(1) IMT value -- mean monthly temp -- deg C. (1961-90 avg was 10.2) 10.1c

(2) highest temp anywhere in Ireland as per met.ie 18.7c

(3) lowest temp anywhere in Ireland as per met.ie -1.9c

(4) rainfall percentage of normal (all stations monthly summary) 90%

(5) sunshine percentage of normal (all stations monthly summary) 135%

(6) Bonus question -- daily max temp for Valentia, Saturday 9th October 15.6c

Deep Easterly

Chart showing daily mean max of met eireann station Birr for the month of October, based on the 61-90 average:



Autumn cometh.


IMR percentage of normal rainfall for the year 2010 up to 30th September:



After a dry to very dry year, the rainfall totals in September were enough to bring the IMR close to normal. Nowhere near as wet as last year though when the IMR % of normal stood at 120% for the same period.


Totally pointless information at this early stage but for anyone who might be interested the IMT for the first 2 days of October on 11.9c which is close to normal!!!





All stats c/o met eireann

M.T. Cranium

Thanks DE, great info as always.

Just to spread the word further, as a note to all regular entrants, there are new and expanded scoring tables posted over in the annual thread -- if you saw them 3-4 days ago, check again because I found a few minor errors in my late-night arithmetic and have juggled some of the rankings in the 8th to 12th range. I'm sure that this will be of nearly stupefying interest to many.

Let's just say that the Ryder Cup being on in the middle of the night has totally disrupted my sleep cycle and I have been doing some of these tables by candle-light. I think all the bugs have been found, but check my math for your own scores.

Thanks to everyone (mostly) for using the templates, it really saves time and prevents any errors in recording your forecasts.

Deep Easterly

Thanks M.T.

Although I have to say I am becoming increasingly conscious that I may be cluttering up your competition threads with a whole lot of unrelated stats.

I wonder would it be better if I posted these stats in a seperate thread just to keep these one's less clogged up? and just post stats that are relevant to the actual competition? If you would prefer this then no problem, but if you have no problem with me posting up statistics that are not relelated at all then that's cool too.

Either way it is just great for me to have an outlet to indulge in my interest in the climate of Ireland, whether it be the climate of the past or that of the present.

M.T. Cranium

I think this is a good place for your info, DE, as it tends to stimulate more interest in the changing weather patterns. So I would be happy to have these posts in the monthly comp threads, however, they might be seen by more readers in a dedicated thread so either way it's good.

Before I got into doing much forecasting or research, I used to compile stats too, and could recall various past weather events to the point where some people thought I was an idiot savant, but I had to explain that I was both but not at the same time.

Stuff like the great heat wave of July, 1911 etc etc. (this neatly applies to both sides of the great pond).

Oddly enough at my advanced age, I tend to remember all that older stuff and would have to look up the stats for 2004 (anything past 2005 I am more likely to recall from forecasting projects). In fact, while I could give you a very detailed idea of the weather in Toronto in 1944, I can't think of one single fact related to 2004. Strange how that goes (of course, I don't live around there now, but come to think of it, 2004 in Vancouver, umm, I draw a blank there too. Was there even a 2004?)

Deep Easterly

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

I think this is a good place for your info, DE, as it tends to stimulate more interest in the changing weather patterns. So I would be happy to have these posts in the monthly comp threads, however, they might be seen by more readers in a dedicated thread so either way it's good.

Nope, if you are happy with the current way of things then that's good enough for me!

I agree with you about the perception of time regarding the weather. I seem to recall the weather of the 80's and 90's better than I do at any stage in the 'naughties', but the weather in the last 10 years was really quite boring overall anyway, so maybe that's why!!!!!

pauldry

Deep Easterly wrote: »

Nope, if you are happy with the current way of things then that's good enough for me!

I agree with you about the perception of time regarding the weather. I seem to recall the weather of the 80's and 90's better than I do at any stage in the 'naughties', but the weather in the last 10 years was really quite boring overall anyway, so maybe that's why!!!!!

Hi Guys,

80s and 90s had a lot of memorable things like the good Summers of 83 and 84 and wet ones of 85 and 86 and of course that hurricane in Britain in 87 and snow in 81 and 82.. 88 and 89 were bland enough years. the 90s got all windy and mild winters with little or no snow much. 95 Summer roasted and Xmas snowed. 99 Summer poured with rain. 97 98 and 99 brought storms around Christmas, 94 was a bad Summer 91 not quite as bad and 92 and 93 were mild. 98 mild and wet but the worlds warmest yr. 2000 more coolness and snow round Xmas but drier Summer 02 was an average one 03 got to 30degrees on August 8th 04 was not too bad 05 Thunderstorms aplenty in Summer and lots of lightning 06 an average enough year 07 08 09 lots of wet Summers and 09 floods november and 09 snow december and 10 a dry year till end of June but increasingly wet then.

Thats all I remember.:)

Deep Easterly

pauldry wrote: »

Hi Guys,

80s and 90s had a lot of memorable things like the good Summers of 83 and 84 and wet ones of 85 and 86 and of course that hurricane in Britain in 87 and snow in 81 and 82.. 88 and 89 were bland enough years. the 90s got all windy and mild winters with little or no snow much. 95 Summer roasted and Xmas snowed. 99 Summer poured with rain. 97 98 and 99 brought storms around Christmas, 94 was a bad Summer 91 not quite as bad and 92 and 93 were mild. 98 mild and wet but the worlds warmest yr. 2000 more coolness and snow round Xmas but drier Summer 02 was an average one 03 got to 30degrees on August 8th 04 was not too bad 05 Thunderstorms aplenty in Summer and lots of lightning 06 an average enough year 07 08 09 lots of wet Summers and 09 floods november and 09 snow december and 10 a dry year till end of June but increasingly wet then.

Thats all I remember.:)

Great post Paul!

Most thing I remember about the 80's is that thunderstorms just seemed to happen more naturally and with less effort. I do appreciate though that memory can condense events like this to make them somehow more significant than maybe they actually were.

The windstorms of the early 90's I know are not distorted by memory. They really were fierce and did happen with greater frequency and intensity than at anytime since, except maybe for the late 90's, but even those were only relatively short lived events. The snows of December 2000 were fantastic. I have seen nothing like them since. The lightning flashing and thunder booming one evening as everyone was out, young and old alike, playing and watching the snow fall is one magical moment in time I will never ever forget.

M.T. Cranium

Speaking of the 1987 storm, I was just looking back at the maps in the wetterzentrale.de archives. That storm certainly came out of a very similar pattern to the current one, and while models were not quite as good then as now, it seems to me that there was little warning of any intense storm from 48-72h then there was the slight track error that caught out the venerable Michael Fish to some extent (the storm moved a bit further north than the short-range models had shown).

So you never know for sure, just because there's nothing too exciting on the map, Ireland is near the base of a long-wave trough so we should be vigilant.

Yep, I can recall a lot of weather details from my first year of observing at my home weather station. I got the instruments for that as Christmas presents (in 1963) and started a weather station on 1/1/64. It was a rather mild winter by the local standards but I do recall most of the events, and especially the next winter (64-65) which had a lot more active weather including a snowfall of 17" on 25 February. What I remember most clearly was a couple of days later, my mother's friend (who was nine months' pregnant) got stuck in a snowdrift trying to get to our door and we had to pull her out.

This was the eighth winter I had lived in Canada and the biggest snowfall I had ever seen, but when I moved further north into the lake effect snow belt I had drifts as high as the garage roof after one storm, so that 17" seemed pretty tame then. I continued to maintain a daily weather station until about 1977 wherever I was living, then I got into the research and occasional contracts in weather-related things that led to me being blacklisted for daring to think about non-sanctioned theories and, well, the rest is history (and a lot of non-weather-related work since). I've even met Joe Bastardi on this long marathon journey through the back corridors of meteorology, sat next to him for three months (not continuously) in 1980 while seeing if I might become a weatherman in the states. That's when and where I developed the long-range interests that I went off to pursue.

Anyway, the story would only be really interesting if the research becomes accepted and further developed, otherwise, it's just another random life near the end of the world so to speak. :cool:

Deep Easterly

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Anyway, the story would only be really interesting if the research becomes accepted and further developed, otherwise, it's just another random life near the end of the world so to speak. :cool:

I am sure it will M.T.

Thanks for that very interesting post. I can see why 17" of snow would seem tame to yourself. We in Ireland would probably die with shock if we ever seen anything remotely close to that fall within our shores!! :eek:

How did you find Joe Bastardi as a person when you worked with him? He seems to come across as being a sound guy, and a very passionate one too.

M.T. Cranium

Joe in person was pretty much like his public reputation since he became well known, very forthright about his opinions of weather events about to unfold and once committed to an outcome he would defend it maybe even beyond reason the odd time (this is not uncommon among mets, by the way, what the public gets as a blended opinion from a forecast office is not always a unanimous opinion). On U.S. forums nowadays he has the reputation of "swinging for the fences" (a baseball term) and either nailing storms or missing, but his anti-conservative style was certainly there from the start although his role was a lot more minor in 1980 than it is today at Accu-weather. My role may have gone in the opposite direction. :cool:

Joe does have two known biases that readers in Europe and over here need to factor into his long-range forecasts -- every winter in Europe could potentially be the next 1963 or 1947, and every winter on the east coast of the U.S. will set some kind of a record, but there it might be in any direction. If you go "half-Bastardi" you get a pretty reasonable forecast. Half-Bastardi is about the same in U.S. measure as quarter-Corbyn in U.K. terms.

Anyway, he is now best known for long-range or medium-range calls but when I knew him we were mainly dealing with 24-48 hour forecasts and he had plenty of skill at that, but he was in a room of about thirty qualified forecasters who all had that going, in an age when people relied a little less on computer models too, there was more sketching and etching going on. Yours truly at one point used to plot and then draw up maps every day (if working) and the weather data came in on a teletype circuit. It was just around 1980 when you could first access weather information on a computer but it wasn't connected to an internet so it was probably more like 1990 when the first weather data became available to people in their homes. Before that you would need to go to a weather office to get weather data. And all the map guidance came in on a large fax machine that had some pretty rank chemicals in some cases. Just like today, there would be set times for the map products to appear, and people would gather round the old Alden-fax to wait for the maps to grind their way out (each one took about half a minute). I suppose you could say that FI began in 72 hours back in those days, but people relied more on their forecasting instincts than they do now, you would learn pretty quickly not to rely all that much on the guidance beyond day two. The average model error on day three positions of highs and lows would be something like 2-3 times what it is today. Day five maps would be about as far as they used to go and regarded as mere hints of things to come.

thetonynator

met eireann saying 20-21 in places at the weekend, so some of our maxes could be way out . . .

skipz

I missed the contest this month, enjoyed it last month:). Ah well, roll on November.

pauldry

Yup our maxes for Val on Saturday are bull ox :pac:

pauldry

Seems like rainfalls really low so far this month sun is high and temps above average.

No Figures Im sure DE and MT have the data on that

I only got Sligo rain of 17mm so far (a lot of that in a shower of intensity at the weekend) and temperature at 12.0c avg. Sligo daily average is 15c so far and the night average is 8.9c(to be precise)

Deep Easterly

IMT for October so far on 11.8c, a bit above normal
IMR for October so far on 12.0mm, which is around 65% of normal for the first 6 days of the month.

Annual IMT for temp for 2010 so far (up to the 6th October) on 9.83c, which is 0.14c below normal to date.

Su Campu

Thanks for that post MT, an amazing account of what it used to be like back then, something that's not well appreciated nowadays I'd say.

Did you ever meet Tom Vasquez? I have all of his books and he calls computer models the "cancer" of forecasting, as too many modern forecasters are too reliant on them and not the knowledge and experience base of your day.

M.T. Cranium

I haven't met Tom Vasquez. He's generally right about an over-reliance on computer models but maybe not in the way most might think on hearing that. Where there's an over-reliance is actually in the first 24 hours, and it's not to knock the computer models, just to say that if we only look at the output and don't think in terms of evolution of current data to known outcomes within 12-24 hours, we lose some of the precision that is possible in weather forecasting. I don't know if that's what he meant, but that's how I tend to look at the situation. On the other hand, there are some computer-generated tools available now even for short-term forecasting that have improved things from "back in the day" -- the Hirlam system for example.

That pseudo-tropical storm that developed in the Irish Sea back in the summer is a good example of something that requires more than just computer models to track and forecast on a short-term time scale. And the best examples tend to be the most interesting weather events, let's face it, the average partly cloudy with showers day can be predicted about the same by someone just glancing at the current map and someone spending an hour looking at guidance.

M.T. Cranium

Here's a report on the first seven days of October:

IMT 12.1 C (+0.8 to date)

Rainfall 58% of normal so far

Sunshine 179% of normal so far

a warm, dry and relatively sunny week then.

Danno

I thought the question for Valentia was the minimum!!! :P

Looks like my 15.6c will be a minumum... who would have thought it?

pauldry

Yup its currently 18c in Valentia on Saturday 9th October.

Zeros for everyone

M.T. Cranium

Apparently nobody here would have, as it sits at 18 C at midnight, can safely assume that points for the bonus will be determined by rank order (as usual anyway) and will start with 9 for the highest, 8 for the two next highest (can't see giving any more than that) and work down to zero. I think Redsunset came the closest and can therefore expect nine points. (Pauldry, you posted while I was typing this, we always have pretty much full points available on the bonus, and a minimum scoring rule in effect on other variables, just to even out the monthly scores).

On the monthly scale, SeaFields at 20.3 and Waterways at 19.9 can be pretty sure of leading the pack for the month's highest reading (it may have hit that somewhere on Friday, but seems sure to surpass 20 before the warm spell ends). There again, rank order may determine the scoring as per the minimum scoring rule so if you're fairly high compared to consensus you may do okay.

I think the models for Saturday were showing less of a southeast flow and more of a light southwest to west, if I remember right, back in late September and that probably caused most of us to speculate near average. I almost went with sunshine hours and that would have been a real trainwreck from the models back then.

M.T. Cranium

20.6 on Friday at Oak Park, I see ... and I'm predicting 22 somewhere in western Ireland by Sunday or possibly Monday.

Sponge Bob

Seafield has already won the monthly max competition and Valentia is now 18 with a belt of rain about meaning redsunset has already won it with 16.5

http://www.met.ie/latest/yesterday.asp

SeaFields

Ye may think I'm just talking sh!te but something in me bones told me there would be an Indian summer spell of some kind this October.

And going by my record to date in the competition, in reality that should have meant we would get a load of snow!

Deep Easterly

IMT for October so far (up to midnight the 9th) now up to 12.9c. This is around 1.5c above average for the first 3rd of October.

Chart showing IMT trend up to the 9th:



almost 3.0c warmer than this time last year, and over 3.0c warmer than the IMT for the same period in 2008.



A short but magnificent piece of music to while away a couple of minutes this sunday morn.




All stats used above c/o Met Eireann

nacho libre

this is going to be a disastrous month for me- well not that i had any chance of winning( my best efforts through private messages to M.T. Cranium were in vain:( ) the competition. I'm going to be in the relegation zone come the end of the month

Deep Easterly

nacho libre wrote: »

this is going to be a disastrous month for me- well not that i had any chance of winning( my best efforts through private messages to M.T. Cranium were in vain:( ) the competition. I'm going to be in the relegation zone come the end of the month

Put yourself in my shoes, I am at the bottom of the table!!!!!