April 2011 Boards forecast contest

Sponge Bob

Deep Easterly wrote: »

Regarding 1949, data from all of the IMT stations does not extend that far back (at least in the public domain),

It goes back to 1958 HERE except that Valentia is called Caherciveen ....which is correct since 1892 A few more values here

M.T. Cranium

Update after the second "week" of April (8-14) ...

IMT now stands at 10.8 C

rainfall ... was 185% of normal after 7 days, is now 135% after a week that registered 85% of average.

sunshine ... was 88% of normal after 7 days, is now 96% after a week that registered 103% of average.

forecast ... IMT will hold steady or drift down slightly next seven days

rainfall will be slight and fall to near 100%

sunshine will be above normal and will rise to 120%

Joe Public

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Update after the second "week" of April (8-14) ...

forecast ... IMT will hold steady or drift down slightly next seven days

or drift slightly up;)

M.T. Cranium

New minimum temperature for April 2011 is -0.1 C at Dublin yesterday morning.

M.T. Cranium

IMT currently 10.6 C and looking likely to rise somewhat between tomorrow and Monday 25th. After that, could stay steady or fall back slightly but now seems unlikely to finish lower than 10.0.

Post 33 in the January thread mentions the revised 2011 "mercy rule" scoring and for the monthly temperature (worth 25 points) the rule reads as follows:

Scores must not fall below this progression at any point:

out of 25 .... 23, 20, 16, 14, 12, 10, 9, 8 etc

With Joe Public at 11.9 and myself at 10.7, these values of IMT will produce the following scoring results:

11.4 or higher Joe scores 23+, MTC 20, rest of forecasts as per the progression (although Joe could score 24-25).

10.9 to 11.3 MTC scores 23, Joe 20, if 10.9 ties with two others, otherwise, progression applies

10.4 to 10.8 MTC scores 23-25, two at 9.9 score 20, then progression with Joe tying with somebody in the high 9's.

9.9 to 10.3 ... mercy rule not required.

The basic idea is, you may get more points than you expected, if the IMT comes in above 10.5 C ... and nobody will get less than their raw score, the rule only works to increase scores to this average sort of progression to make all months roughly equal. If you want to see what progressions apply to other scores they are all listed in post 33 of the January scoring thread (posted 2 Feb 2011).

Sponge Bob

How d'ya score 10 x zero rainfalls in Mullingar on Sunday ...or 10 x 0 Snow as you yourself said

M.T. Cranium

The scoring on the bonus question is always based on rank order and attempts to give most contestants some points. In the past, when we've had a precip question, there has often been some precip so we haven't had one verify at zero in a while. I was thinking about that one too, and if the actual amount is zero, the zero guesses will all get ten points and I would say the rest would get somewhere between five and zero depending on how far above zero the guesses ran.

If we get a small amount verifying then the zero guesses will all get a fairly high score, depending on how small "small amount" turns out to be. How does this sound for fairness, if the actual amount is 0.1 to 0.5 mm, then we will give zero guesses 7. If it's 0.6 to 1.0 we will give zero guesses 5. If it's any amount above 1.0, we will give zero whatever the rank order for some higher amount with equal error produces. That's likely to be 2-3 or so, down to zero if the amount is actually high near the top of the guess range.

Su Campu

Max temperature today 22.7°C at Shannon Airport. Only 12.4°C at Malin Head

Sponge Bob

Only Joe Public to beat

M.T. Cranium

Update ... after the third "week" (through 21 days) the stats are now ...

IMT 10.9 C

rainfall 93% of normal

sunshine 110% of normal

(the week was almost dry and had 140% sunshine approx -- one of the six stations was not in the report).

Deep Easterly

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

IMT 10.9 C

IMT in April 2007 was 10.3c for the period 1st - 21st so we are still running a little warmer this month. Still hard to say whether April this year will finish warmer or not though. (Final April 2007 IMT = 11c)

Sponge Bob

Mullingar Sunday April 24th 0.2mm

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

M.T. Cranium

The Easter rainfall presents an interesting scoring challenge, as only two contestants (Fionagus and Tae Laidir) managed to improve on the (roughly) half the field going for zero rainfall. So, what I will do is to preserve the concept of rank order with ties, which is going to mean two contestants with ten points, about twenty more with nine points, then I will start from eight with the next closest small-rainfall guess and work down from there until I get to my own guess of 2.2 mms which (edit) will was to be the arbitrary zero point, except I counted guesses and found only six more below 2.2, so I have revised this slightly to say that if you out-guessed 3.0 mms you'll have at least some points. The way things are going this month, I can afford to be generous. :cool:

Looked up the current IMT, Shannon is missing in action so had to estimate it around 11.0 C. Slight falls appear likely this week.

This cloudy spell will dig into the sunshine surplus which must be at about 25% after the weekend. And some prospect of rain near the end of the month may stabilize that value just around 90% otherwise it could drop to closer to 75% (recent slight rainfalls are not even up to daily average amounts really).

M.T. Cranium

After 25 days, the IMT sits at 11.0 (10.96 to be more precise).

Just wondering about the weekend of 7-8 May for something more skill than luck this coming month for the bonus question. Any events of note that we can use for this question? Thanks in advance, hope to post this tomorrow or even late this evening if I get a good suggestion.

rameire

Queen Elizabeth of GB is coming to Ireland from 17th to the 20th
Barack Obama is coming to Ireland on the 23rd of May

for a non weather related, could ask, how many times will a bomb be called in over the week the above two are here.

Sponge Bob

Queen is in Dublin and Cork so predict the rainfall for the 4 days in BOTH Dublin and Cork Airports (agg total) highest aggregate total ( D or C) hardest ( highest single daily total in either) and for every day or fraction thereof while she is here. Tuesday 17 to Friday 20 May 2011

EG 7.0C1.2

It wouldn't be natural if it didn't rain for her

M.T. Cranium

I'm under the impression that Obama makes his own weather.

Still looking for a reason to go with this earlier weekend, it's time we tested the medium range instead of another MTC guessing game.

Joe Public

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

After 25 days, the IMT sits at 11.0 (10.96 to be more precise).

Just wondering about the weekend of 7-8 May for something more skill than luck this coming month for the bonus question. Any events of note that we can use for this question? Thanks in advance, hope to post this tomorrow or even late this evening if I get a good suggestion.

No need to start introducing skill, aren't we doing fine on a wing and a prayer:)

kindredspirit

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

I'm under the impression that Obama makes his own weather.

Still looking for a reason to go with this earlier weekend, it's time we tested the medium range instead of another MTC guessing game.

Name the three ME weather stations with the highest temperatures for Sunday, the 8th of May.

15 points for all three, 10 points for 2, 5 points for one and Zilch points for not getting one.

Qualify in advance which stations can be included.

M.T. Cranium

Thanks for that idea, I had posted the new thread before I saw your post KS.

Maybe we'll have a question like that in June. I went with the somewhat less exciting question of the max temp at Ballyhaise on Sunday the 8th.

M.T. Cranium

Update through 28 days now ...

IMT at 11.0 C (likely to finish there or 10.9, 11.1)

Rainfall at 73% after a week at 15% brought it down further. This won't change much if a few places pick up 5-10 mms tomorrow.

Sunshine at 112% after a week at 115% This could drift up slightly after today's strong additions.

Dublin almost gave us a new minimum for the month at 0.2 C but that still sits at -0.1 C as far as I know.

Just a reminder, the May thread is open, will be "stickied" this weekend (thanks mods).

pauldry

The past month has been the warmest April in central England since records began more than 350 years ago, weather experts have revealed.

Provisional data issued by MeteoGroup UK, the weather division of the Press Association, showed it is the fourth sunniest April recorded in the UK over the last 100 years.

A spokesman for MeteoGroup said the month was also the sixth driest April during the past century.

Although the first week of April was dominated by a strong south-westerly airflow, bringing heavy and prolonged rain to the Western Highlands, the Lake District and Snowdonia, all parts of the UK were unusually dry thereafter.

The MeteoGroup spokesman said: "There were some cooler and cloudier days during the second week, but it was exceptionally warm and sunny between the 16th and 25th."

Mean maximum temperatures for April ranged from 19.8C (68F) at St James's Park in London to 9.8C (50F) at Fair Isle in Scotland, and the mean minimum temperature was at least 3.5c above the long-term average in all regions.

The average temperature recorded in central England - 11.9C (53F) - was 3.9C above the long-term mean and was the highest for April since records began 353 years ago.

Meanwhile, the highest temperature recorded at a standard site was 27.8C (82F) at Wisley in Surrey on St George's Day - the highest April temperature anywhere in the UK since 1949.

The lowest temperature was minus 5.4C (22F) at Lochaber in Scotland on April 26, while the lowest daytime maximum was 6.5C (44F) at Warcop in Cumbria on April 13.

Deep Easterly

IMT for April finished at 11.0c. the same finishing value as that of April 2007; although broken down to two decimals, it finished at 11.04c, which is 0.09c warmer than in 04/07, so it will be most likely be put down as the warmest record on record in some areas at least

Percentage of normal rainfall over the IMT zone finished at 78.6%, (this in not used in competition) so drier than normal as well. Broken down: very dry in the east, near normal amounts in west.

M.T. Cranium

With that result (11.0) we have an odd situation with the monthly temperature scores. The raw scores would fall just below the guideline scores (see my earlier post for the details) except for second place, so Joe Public will benefit more than the rest of the group as his raw score of 16 will go to 20 by the rules. Just about every other score goes up by one point (down to 8.5, after that, they stay at zero). My guess of 10.7 gets a vast inflation of one point also. Yippee.

Anyway, I can't score the whole contest yet but think that the final numbers will be close to these:

11.0 ..... 22.7 ..... -0.2 ..... 080 ..... 112 ..... 0.2

With the bank holiday Monday, I expect it will be Tuesday before I see the official numbers required for scoring, so check the annual scoring thread later Tuesday and you should find the results then.

M.T. Cranium

Good evening I mean morning, here are the final numbers for April.

IMT ... 11.0 C
MAX ... 22.7 C (21st, Shannon)
MIN ... -0.1 C (17th, Dublin)
PRC ... 80%
SUN ... 121%
bonus ... 0.2 mm 24th Mullingar

I think that the sunshine came in a bit higher than I had estimated because one of my weekly tallies was missing one station at the time. But the 29th had unbroken sunshine too, that may have been a factor given the estimate I had on the 28th. Anyway, this gives me all the evidence I need to convict the lot of us and I will do just that in the annual scoring thread.

Look for the results in about an hour (if the coffee sets in). :eek:

John mac

http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly_summarys/apr11sum.pdf

sunshine: 14.1 hours at Belmullet on 29th

200motels

Where are the updated scores?

M.T. Cranium

Updated scores in the annual scoring thread (sticky).

200motels

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Updated scores in the annual scoring thread (sticky).

Thanks MT I should have known where they were