Flash contest -- predict summer's highest temperature

M.T. Cranium

UPDATE ...

... The July Monthly Summary confirmed Phoenix Park at 24.3 C on 23 July. Some observers seemed to think it reached 26-27 locally around Wicklow but nothing official recorded there.

That leaves Darwin and Strasser tied for the lead in the main contest element of temperature with 0.1 C errors. Strasser would win in the event of no warmer readings to come, with a smaller date error (location errors about equal for the two).

For the time being, I hold the lead on date with a +1 day error. That looks likely to change as also with the temperature leaders around Thursday or Friday, we shall see. I expect from the maps all weekend that we will see something in the 26-29 range.

Nobody predicted Phoenix Park as such, but if you said Dublin and not Dublin airport, then I suppose that's about the same thing. The coming warm spell looks likely to max out in the west.

I like Dasa29's chances of scoring a possible triple on Friday 10th.

Anyway, will stick to my announced rule of temperature being the main contest, but for fun, will run a second "composite champion" based on this formula:

Temp 30 points, Date 20 points, Location 10 points

Temperature errors will be one point per 0.1 C error ... Date errors will be two points per day (early or first week of Sept will be arbitarily set at Wed 5 Sep, one forecast of "August" will go half points from 15 Aug), and location will require the exact location for 10 points while anything reasonably close will get 5 points. Carlow will be taken as meaning Oak Park. I will discuss what qualifies as "reasonably close" when we have the actual winning data, but for example, Casement is reasonably close to Dublin, Birr (which is defunct) is reasonably close to Oak Park and I have no idea what is reasonably close to "Greater Ballyfarnon" without doing some extensive map study. Probably Lesser Ballyfarnon.

M.T. Cranium

On Friday (10 Aug) the highest temperature so far in the contest period was reported as 26.5 C at Shannon. Belmullet is missing from the data but shows up on Ogimet at 26.0, also a few other stations that are not on the main list such as Markree hit 26.0 (source, daily data, met.ie).

Provisionally then, the leader is now traecy1, who predicted 26.5 at Shannon on the 11th. :eek: That would score 58/60 on my second contest format.

K_1 and cherryghost also predicted 26.5 but were further off on dates and places. K_1 would score 40/60 and cherryghost 30/60 when date and place were considered.

Dasa29 has the only claim on 10 August (he went for 28 at Mullingar, not far off the truth). His score would be 35/60.

At a quick look through the tables, the complete list including other people who scored over 20 for the combined forecasts so far would be:

traecy1 .. 58
K_1 ... 40
rameire .. 40

Con Sensus .. 38

Stinicker .. 37
robk24 .. 37
Steopo .. 36
vicwatson 35
dasa29 .. 35
TURRICAN .. 33
eskimocat .. 32
Supercell .. 32
Danno .. 31
Jpmarn .. 31
cherryghost 30
force eleven .. 30
Blackbird99 ..29
shootie .. 28
golf nut .. 27
Redsunset 26
Harps .. 25
RealityCheck 25
okla .. 24
greendiesel 23
torrential1 .. 23
Strasser .. 23
greendiesel 23
up for anything 23
esposito .. 22
mike65 .. 20
dexter647 .. 20

This will of course all change if we see a reading higher than 26.5.