Saturday, April 21, 2012

Winter '11 / '12 - FINAL Standings

After a measley two contest-worthy snow storms...the 13th annual NEWxSFC season for the Winter of '11 / '12 comes to a close.

Congratulations to donsutherland1 for successfully defending his title as Chief forecaster!


Under the 'two-thirds' rule...the best 'two out of three' Z-scores are used to compute the final standings. There were only two events this winter...so only forecasters who entered forecasts for both storms qualified for ranking in the FINAL standings.  Data used to compute the standings are posted at the Contest web site here.

Z-scores are used to standardize / normalize forecast errors for each snow storm so at the end of the season...the 'equalized' scores can be averaged.


An expanded data table with higher resolution graphics and additional measures of forecaster skill available at the Contest's home page.

Looking forward to seeing y'all again next winter!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Winter '11 / '12 - Season-total Forecast Contest - FINAL Results

Roger Smith FTW!
Roger won last year...as well.
Congratulations!


donsutherland1 placed a close 2nd.
Herb @ MAWS takes 3rd.
Honorable Mention goes to Donald Rosenfeld.

PORN is the 'period of record normal' or climatology.
Skillful forecasts are those that beat PORN climatology.


A forecaster's batting average represents how many of their stations had the lowest absolute forecast error.

Everyone's forecast has been verified and posted to the Contest/s web site here.
Hope to see y'all back again next winter.

Winter '11 / '12 - Season-total Snowfall Forecast Contest - Station Summary

Forecast station summary ...



Green shading ==> best 1/3 in category.
Red shading ==> worst 1/3 in category.

SBY carries 2". (UPDATED 04-SEP-12:  VantagePoint reports season-total of 4.2".  No change in standings.)  Maybe there was more.  Hard to know since AKQ no longer reports snowfall data for this station.


Pitiful excuse for a winter this season.
Snowfall totals barely got off the mat at most locations.

Anomalously strong polar vortex persisted well into meteorological winter's second month despite -QBO...further evidenced by the +AO.  NAO remained positive D-J-F save for a few brief excursions below zero.

Up next...forecaster summary and FINAL standings.