Winter '15 / '16 Regular Season Snowfall Contest Note

Great Blizzard of 1888 - Wilmington ... DE
Market St looking N from 10th St

17th Annual 'Regular Season'
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No FINAL standings
Two contest-worthy storms were too few for a valid contest.

Under the 'two-thirds' rule;
Forecasters are included in end-of-season rankings
if they entered at least two-thirds of all storm contests.

Given only two contest-worthy storms during the season ... forecasters with one entry only would not have been eligible.

In the interest of fairness; forecasters should have at least three opportunities to enter ... so three storms seems like the bare minimum to make certain a valid contest.

Winter '16 / '17 - Outlooks

Thread updated periodically as new outlooks and forecasts are issued from a variety of credible sources.

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AER ...

IRI ...

CPC ...

 

Read more »

Winter '16 / '17 - Arctic Oscillation (AO)

Winter '16 / '17 - Eurasia Snow Cover

Winter '16 / '17 - North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)

Winter '16 / '17 - Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI)

Winter '16 / '17 - Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

Winter '16 / '17 - First Contact

 

 

Winter '15 / '16 - 15th Annual Season-total Snowfall Forecast Contest: FINAL Results

Snowman FTW!

The 'season-total' snowfall forecast contest/s error statistic is total absolute error.
For each forecast station ... the absolute value of (Forecast - Observed) is calculated ... then summed.

Forecasts with lower 'total absolute forecast' errors have more skill than those with higher 'total absolute forecast' errors.

CONSENSUS is the mean forecast of all forecasts computed for each station.
P-O-R-N is the 'Period Of Record Normal' or climatology.
Skillful season-total forecasts beat climatology.

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Table of lowest station errors.

  

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Table of the total absolute value of (total snowfall forecast - total snowfall observed).

 

If you finished higher in this table than the 'Total Absolute' table ... you did a better job of forecasting the sum total snowfall amount over the entire forecast area than the distribution of station-total snowfall amounts.

 

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Verified forecasts at NEWxSFC/s web site here.

Winter '15 / '16 - 15th Annual Season-total Snowfall Forecast Contest: Snowfall Totals (DJFM)

 

 

Green ==> 75th percentile

White ==> Less than 75th and greater than 25th percentile

Red ==> 25th percentile

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Extremely slow start to the season.
Only CAR measured above normal snowfall in DEC.
Second highest monthly snowfall:  BGR at 67% normal.

Twelve stations above normal for JAN thanks to major event along the M-A at month's end.

BWI measured 526% normal.

 

Seven stations above normal in FEB.

SBY and BDR measured170% normal.

 

Thee stations above normal in MAR.

SBY measured 322%.

 

Season-total biggest losers: BTV (35%) ... BGM (30%) ... RDU (22%) ... and ALB (19%)

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Good year for the M-A.

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Season-total snowfall from all stations (720") came in 23% below the period-of-record normal (932").  Winter '15 / '16 ranks 3rd lowest among other Contest years since winter '04 / '05 ... the season when BGR and BGM were added to the station list.