Winter '22 / '23 - 24th Annual 'Regular Season' Snowfall Forecast Contest: FINAL Results
Full table with all other error statistics at the Contest/s web site here (direct link).
Individual forecaster's storm statistics here (direct link).

Snowfall forecasting contests for 27 stations across New England and the Mid-Atlantic regions ... since 1999
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NYC ... 5th Ave. Alfred Stieglitz.(1892) |
BLUE ==> 1st Quartile
WHITE ==> Interquartile range
RED ==> 4th Quartile
ORANGE: Winter '22 / '23 Chief 'Season-total' Forecaster (winner of '21 / '22 contest)
The '%MPRV over PORN' metric indicates how much the forecast was an improvement over Period-Of-Record-Normal (PORN). Skillful forecasts beat PORN.
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Woodstock ... VT (c.1890) |
Green ==> 4th quartile
White ==> less than 4th and greater than 1st quartile (inter-quartile range)
Red ==> 1st quartile
'Obs' reporting '0.05' denote 'Trace' amounts (observed but unmeasurable).
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MAR Forecast Station Highlights
8 northern tier stations exceeded their monthly snowfall climatology.
Biggest Losers
9 stations observed trace amounts.
2 stations not a single flake ... ice pellet ... or hailstone observed.
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Season-Total-to-Date
MAR P-O-R-N contributes 184" (20%) toward the season-total (D-J-F-M) snowfall of 934".
MAR-23 observed snowfall: 176" (96% of monthly P-O-R-N; 19% of normal season-total snowfall).
Image courtesy NOHRSC http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/
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Teleconnections
AO / NAO / PNA data
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/ norm.daily.ao.nao.pna.aao.gdas.120days.csv
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DEC snowfall totals here
JAN snowfall totals here
FEB snowfall totals here
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Brattleboro ... VT (c.1890) |
SUMSQ: sum of square error (")
SUMSQ Z: Z-score
STP: storm total precipitation error (")
TAE: total absolute error (")
AAE: average absolute error (")
(#): category rank
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Forecast by Observed Snowfall Scatterplots for Top 4 Forecasts
Forecast/s dotted blue line below (above) the Observed snowfall/s solid red line ==> under (over) forecast bias.
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Comparison of Top 4 Forecasts and Observed Snowfall by Station
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NYC - Inwood 204th and Sherman Ave (MAR-1917) |
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Preliminary verification of storm-total snowfalls for MON through WED based on reporting from CDUS41 (CLI) ... CXUS51 (CF6) ... METARs ... and PNS bulletins issued by NWS.
Generally excellent coverage and reporting with CON and BDR as the exceptions.
HYA
'Trace' STP retrieved from METAR and vicinity reports carried by BOSPNS.
Snow-to-liquid ratio (SLR) not reported for some stations with measurable snowfall b/c significant liquid and / or freezing precipitation also occurred during the verification period.
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Passiac Falls NJ |
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Everyone/s station-by-station forecast posted to the Contest/s web site.
Direct link to the forecast table.
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St Johns Church Bridgeport ... CT |
Complete interim statistics table and chart at the Contest/s web site (direct link)
Forecaster statistics for Winter '22 / '23 contest snow storms (direct link)
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SUMSQ errors for each Contest snow storm are normalized (i.e., standardized) with a 'Z-score'
... averaged then ranked to compute the standings. If a forecaster has issued
forecasts for more than two-thirds of all snow storm contests ... then
Z-scores from their 'best two-thirds' forecasts are used to calculate
the Interim and Final standings.
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VT Dock by Minor Martin White (1971) |
- Enter your forecast at the NEWxSFC/s home page at http://www.newx-forecasts.com/
- Follow the top-of-page link from 'Enter Snow Storm Forecast'
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Forecast element: each station/s storm-total snowfall
Deadline for entries: 10:00 PM EST ... SUN ... 12-MAR-23
Verification begins: 12:01 AM EST ... MON ... 13-MAR-23
Verification ends: 11:59 PM EST on the day when flakes stop accumulating.
By entering ... you also get the chance to see how well your forecast stacks up against NWS Eastern Region's Weather Forecast Offices. Turns out they/ve been easy to beat!
Who Can Enter
Amateur and professional forecasters; broadcasters with or without trained Seals; any and all other weather-biz types and / or wanna-bees; wish-casters ... astrologers ... along with any other universally recognized class of dreamers; Pollyannas or Cassandras ... registered Nostradamuses ... non-violent megalomaniacs ... woolly-bear caterpillars or their Agents ... pest detectives ... ne.wx news group survivors; riders on the StormVista ... refugees from AmericanWx and/or USWeather free agents ... including self-imposed exiles from Eastern Wx ... and of course ... meteorologists.