February 2018 C.E.T. forecasts (and optional EWP precip contest)

[Roger J Smith]

(moderator please delete previous post, cannot edit)

Sorry that I can't report the EWP value yet, it has not been posted to the linked page (see stargazer's post near end of January thread). Would have to imagine that it's not overly high. 

Speaking of which, here is a report on how our three robotic contestants did in February. 

(errors that are negative are lower than actual CET, errors that are positive are higher than actual CET).

(ranks are shown in the range that was equalled by forecasters in the contest with the same absolute errors (could be different sign).

 

___ Past months ____

"Forecaster" __ Dec Error _ Dec Points (range) _ rank (range) ____ Jan Error _ Jan Points (range) _ rank (range)

1987-2016 ____ +0.2 ______ 89.4 - 93.4 ______ 6 to 9 _________ --0.6 _______ 66.7 - 74.1 _____ 15 to 19

1981-2010 ____ --0.2 ______ 89.4 - 93.4 ______ 6 to 9 _________ --0.9 _______ 50.0 - 55.6 _____ 25 to 28

Consensus ____--0.6 ______ 71.0 - 74.9 ______20 to 23 ________ --0.9 _______ 50.0 -55.6 _____ 25 to 28

 

________ Current Month __________________________ Contest year averages to date (3 mo)___

"Forecaster" _Feb Error_Feb Points (range)_rank (range) // mean abs error_mean points_mean rank

1988-2017 ___ +1.9 _____ 31.2 - 35.1 ____51 to 54 _________0.90 ______62.4 - 67.5 __ 24 to 27

1981-2010 ___ +1.5 _____ 48.1 - 49.4 ____ 40 to 41 ________ 0.87 ______62.5 - 66.1 __ 24 to 26

Consensus ___+1.1 _____ 57.1 - 58.4 ____ 33 to 34 ________ 0.87 ______59.4 - 63.0 __ 26 to 28

____________________________________________________________________________________________

So February is the first month that our consensus has shown skill beating out the two recent normals, and overall 

the three robotic forecasters are fairly closely bunched with 1981-2010 doing better than the most recent 30 years.

 

 

Edited March 5, 2018 by Polar Maritime
All done Roger.

[snowray]

Its got to be a minor miracle that I'm in second place with the CET, very happy with that result.

[Roger J Smith]

February EWP was confirmed as 49.6 mm. 

Top score (10.0) goes to RAIN RAIN RAIN who predicted 50 mm.

Second place (9.8 each) shared by Midlands Ice Age and Singularity with 49 mm. 

Working on the scoring table and annual contest update, will link to that when finished and report on top three in the annual portion. This of course will also be the top three for the winter seasonal portion of the contest. 

 

 

[Roger J Smith]

The EWP scoring is finished now, and the top three were mentioned in the previous post ... 

in the annual contest, the top ten now are

VIZZY2004 ____________ 26.9 

JONBOY ______________ 23.4

POLAR GAEL __________ 22.6

MULZY _______________ 22.3

SINGULARITY _________ 22.2

STEWFOX ____________ 20.4

DKEANE3 _____________20.0

BORN FROM THE VOID__19.7 

CHRIS BELL not etc _____ 19.4

STEVE B ______________ 19.1

The two recent averages are ranked 7th (most recent 30 years) and 8th (1981-2010). Consensus is ranked 19th

If you would like to check your scores, the tables are in this post:

https://www.netweather.tv/forum/topic/75427-cet-competition-the-scores-ongoing/?page=8

 

Edited March 5, 2018 by Roger J Smith

[Timmytour]

Five winters have passed now since a month recorded a lower CET than March 2013, which was the coldest monthly CET of that year.

This is new territory.  Of the previous 9 times March was the coldest month of the year, on six occasions the following winter gave us a colder month, and on two occasions we had to wait until the second winter for a colder month.

The longest run before our current one of 5 years "not out"  was following the March of 1883 when it was not until  3 years later in February 1886 that a month recorded a lower CET.

 

 

[Timmytour]

February brought an end to a run of 58 successive months with a CET greater than or equal to 4C.

This equalled the previous record for such a run which the December of 1977 bought to an end

[Roger J Smith]

The cold February dropped the winter of 2017-18 to a ranking of tied 129th warmest of 359 (1659 Jan-Feb is not counted in the rankings) with five other winters, at 4.33 C.

The other five similar winters overall were 1667-1668, 1689-1690, 1714-1715, 1900-1901 and 1914-1915. So these shared ranks 129 to 134.

Of those, the winter with the most similar trend was 1900-1901 which went 7.2, 3.5 and 2.3 to get to the same average. (all CET winter averages are simply the means of the three months which does not quite match the daily averages since February is always 2 or usually 3 days shorter than the other two months). None of the other four winters with which 2017-18 tied had a particularly cold month otherwise, they all had rather average temperatures throughout. 

The ten winters that came closest to this past winter in total departure of the month by month values are listed below:

WINTER ______ DEC _ JAN _ FEB ____ total dep

2017-18 _______ 4.8 __ 5.3 __ 2.9 _____ ---

1905-06 _______ 4.9 __ 5.3 __ 3.1 _____ 0.3

1803-04 _______ 4.4 __ 5.8 __ 2.9 _____ 0.9

1993-94 _______ 5.5 __ 5.3 __ 3.2 _____ 1.0

1980-81 _______ 5.6 __ 4.9 __ 3.0 _____ 1.3

1931-32 _______ 5.3 __ 6.3 __ 2.9 _____ 1.5

1772-73 _______ 4.8 __ 4.0 __ 2.6 _____ 1.6

1781-82 _______ 5.4 __ 5.2 __ 1.9 _____ 1.7 

1872-73 _______ 5.3 __ 5.2 __ 1.8 _____ 1.7

1873-74 _______ 5.3 __ 5.5 __ 3.9 _____ 1.7

1929-30 _______ 5.8 __ 5.6 __ 2.5 _____ 1.7