August 2020 C.E.T. and EWP forecast contests

[Don]

Identical CET to August 2004.  As others have alluded, Summer 2020 was markedly close overall in terms of temperature to that summer.

[North-Easterly Blast]

August 2020 comes in with a final CET of 17.57, rounded up to 17.6.  August 2004 actually had a CET of 17.62, so August 2020 was actually only the warmest August since 2004.  It fell in the top 20 warmest Augusts on record, so that is a pretty notable anomaly, and what I would call the first significantly above average August in 16 or 17 years.

[Weather-history]

54 minutes ago, Don said:

Identical CET to August 2004.  As others have alluded, Summer 2020 was markedly close overall in terms of temperature to that summer.

Amazingly, the England and Wales rainfall summer totals could be similiar to each other. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Weather-history

[cheeky_monkey]

Edmonton ended on a cool note so final for August is 15.1c which is 1.2c below normal so now makes 19 months in a row of below normal temps..maybe Sept will brake this run?

[mb018538]

4 hours ago, North-Easterly Blast said:

August 2020 comes in with a final CET of 17.57, rounded up to 17.6.  August 2004 actually had a CET of 17.62, so August 2020 was actually only the warmest August since 2004.  It fell in the top 20 warmest Augusts on record, so that is a pretty notable anomaly, and what I would call the first significantly above average August in 16 or 17 years.

Weird that it’s made it into the top 20....that week of heat was truly exceptional and put a lot of legwork in for the month, the rest of it was very forgettable and mainly unsettled. I certainly won’t remember it as one of the better months. I much preferred April and May.

[Earthshine]

From a purely statistical point of view, you'd think August 2020 was a pretty decent month.  However, maximum temperatures were nothing to write home about (I think around 21.5°C average max in the CET?).  It was the mild nights that pushed the mean CET up into the warm category.

[Walsall Wood Snow]

At 17.6c August 2020 shares the same mean CET with August's:

1779

1780

1826

1933

1976

1984

2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The PIT]

Sunny Sheffield finished on 17.2C +0.9C above average. Failed to make our top ten warmest months.

[virtualsphere]

On 03/08/2020 at 22:00, virtualsphere said:

There definitely seems to be more regional variation in August during recent years - I had to check my stats after reading your post and my memory of last year being fairly poor in the west seems right, we had 235mm rain and only 9 dry days - for comparison in July 2020 we had 158mm and 13 dry days (and in May 2020 for example, 32mm and 25 dry days).  The Met Office anomaly maps back this up - the last 12 Augusts (bar 2011) all show a similar pattern (source https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-actual-and-anomaly-maps) 

The sunshine maps are more telling: we have to go back to 2005 to see the yellows over our part of the UK in west Wales in August. For every other month between April and October we only have to go back to 2018 to see the yellows... so a dry sunny August has definitely been a rarity here and hopefully this will be the one that bucks the trend!

Well I had high hopes at the start of the month, but despite the impressive heat at the beginning of August we're still above average for rainfall and below average for sunshine here - the hunt for a good August continues...

 

Still we did get a very impressive lightning show at the start of the month and with 'only' 201mm of rain last month here it was drier than last August by 34mm, and slightly drier than June 2020 as well!  Wettest summer overall here since 2012.

[Roger J Smith]

The ten-day period 5th to 14th averaged 21.20 and this places 2020 in 8th position in terms of warmest 10-day period. It's not the 8th warmest ten-day period however as other years with warmer stats may have had multiple ten-day intervals warmer and some might not even overlap making them genuine warmer cases.

By my rough calculation the rest of the month therefore averaged only 15.9 C which is a cooler than average August. The first to fourth were also above that so the average from 15th to 31st must be something like 15.5. 

 

[damianslaw]

Map above confirmation Lake District had a very wet August and fairly dull away from Morecambe Bay.

[Roger J Smith]

EWP tracker came in as expected at 124 mm. The following summarizes the August top 20 scoring and the current annual standings will be added when I have finished updating the file. 

(slight revisions to this table on 5th after final value of 125.2 mm reported)

 

Rank __ Forecaster ________ Fcst __ Error ____ Points ___ (notes on deductions)

_ 01 ___ B87 _____________ 125.0 _ +1.0 _____ 10.00 ____

_ 02 ___ NeilN ____________ 111.0 _-13.0 ______ 9.66 _____ third scoring interval see below

_ 03 ___ Summer Blizzard ___110.0 _-14.0 ______ 9.49 _____ fourth scoring interval see below

_ 04 ___ I Remember Atl252 _105.0 _-19.0 ______ 9.32 _____ fifth scoring interval see below

_ 05 ___ shillitocettwo ______ 105.0 _-19.0 ______ 9.24 _____ 0.08 deduction for 2nd entry

_ 06 ___ Thundershine _____ 129.0 _ +5.0 ______ 9.23 _____ loses 0.6 for 3d late penalty from 2nd score 9.83

_ 07 ___ syed2878 ________ 105.0 _-19.0 ______ 9.16 _____ 0.16 deduction for 3rd entry

_ 08 ___ brmbrmcar _______ 104.0 _-20.0 ______ 8.81 _____ scoring intervals resume

_ 09 ___ DR(S)NO ________ 100.0 _-24.0 ______ 8.64 _____

_ 10 ___ stewfox __________ 100.0 _-24.0 ______8.56 _____ 0.08 deduction for 2nd entry

_ 11 ___ relativistic ________ 100.0 _-24.0 ______ 8.48 _____ 0.16 deduction for 3rd entry

_ 12 ___ Emmett Garland ____93.0 _-31.0 ______ 8.14 _____ scoring intervals resume

_ 13 ___ Weather26 ________ 86.2 _-37.8 ______ 7.80 _____ 14th scoring interval see below

_ 14 ___ Blast From The Past_ 87.0_-37.0 ______ 7.77 _____ 0.2 deduction for 1d late

_ 15 ___ JeffC _____________85.0 _-39.0 ______ 7.63 _____

_ 16 ___ ProlongedSnowLover 85.0 _-39.0 ______ 7.55 _____ 0.08 deduction for 2nd entry

_ 17 ___ J10 ______________ 85.0 _-39.0 ______ 7.47 _____ 0.16 deduction for 3rd entry

_ 18 ___ Roger J Smith ______80.3 _-43.7 ______ 7.12 _____ scoring intervals resume

_ 19 ___ Summer Shower ____80.0 _-44.0 ______ 6.95 _____

_ 20 ___ Born From The Void _ 80.0 _-44.0 ______ 6.87 _____ 0.08 deduction for 2nd entry

____________________________________________________________________

 

Annual scoring summary (Dec 2019 to Aug 2020)

This only shows the ranks of the 60 entrants in the August contest, missing ranks did not enter. A few of the higher missing ranks are shown below the table, down to 60th place in annual points.

 

Rank _ prev _ Forecaster ______ Total points __ [] _ Rank _ prev __ Forecaster ____ Total points

_01 ___ 01 __ Twilight __________63.60 ______[] __ 32 ___ 33 __ Mr Maunder ______ 41.71

_02 ___ 02 __ Godber.1 ________ 60.72 ______[] __ 33 ___ 37 __ Relativistic^_______ 41.12

_03 ___ 06 __ Emmett Garland __ 59.12 ______[] __ 34 ___ 40 __ I Rem Atl 252^_____ 41.01

_04 ___ 05 __ Jeff C ___________58.72 ______[] __ 35 ___ 41 __ Neil N ___________ 40.84

_05 ___ 03 __ Reef ____________57.45 ______[] __ 36 ___ 30 __ seaside60 ________39.62

_06 ___ 04 __ Mulzy ___________55.33 ______[] __ 37 ___ 44 __ syed2878^ _______ 38.30

_07 ___ 08 __ Don ____________ 54.73 ______[] __ 38 ___ 43 _prolongedSnowLover^^_37.85

_08 ___t12 __ Blast from the Past_54.15 ______[] __ 39 ___ 34 __ Timmytour ________ 37.31

_09 ___ 10 __ Bobd29 _________ 53.90 ______[] __ 40 ___ 35 __ CheesepuffScott ___ 37.05

_10 ___ 07 __ mb018538 _______52.74 ______[] __ 41 ___ 36 __ weather-history ____ 36.75

_11 ___ 14 __ jonboy^__________51.87 ______[] __ 42 ___ 47 __ Norrance _________ 33.26

_12 ___ 19 __ Roger J Smith ____50.72 ______[] __ 43 ___ 48 __ Polar Gael^________ 33.07

_13 ___ 18 __Born From the Void_50.64 ______[] __ 44 ___ 49 __ Kirkcaldy Weather^__ 32.83

_14 ___ 09 __ General Cluster ___49.67 ______[] __ 45 ___ 39 __ Stargazer^^________ 32.80

_19 ___ 25 __ J10 ____________ 49.55 ______[] __ 46 ___ 38 __ Let It Snow! ^ _______32.74

_16 ___t12 __ The PIT _________49.52 ______[] __ 47 ___ 52 __ B87^^ _____________ 31.61

_17 ___ 17 __ snowray ________ 49.49 ______[] __ 50 ___ 55 __ Shillitocettwo^^ ______ 28.75

_18 ___ 20 __ Steve B _________49.43 ______[] __ 52 ___ 51 __ Earthshine (5) _______ 27.48

_19 ___ 16 __ Dog Toffee ______ 49.00 ______[] __ 54 ___ 59 __ Stewfox ^^^__________23.68

_20 ___ 11 __ virtualsphere _____48.62 ______[] __ 55 ___ 63 __ Summer Blizzard (5) __ 21.62

_21 ___ 27 __ brmbrmcar ______ 48.53 ______[] __ 57 ___ 54 __ Radiating Dendrite (3) _ 20.85

_22 ___ 15 __ Feb91Blizzard ___ 47.37 ______[] __ 61 ___ 81 __ SummerShower (2) ___ 15.10

_23 ___ 29 __ DR(S)NO _______ 47.30 ______[] __ 62 ___ 61 __ Leo97t (5) __________ 14.58 

_24 ___ 22 __ Stationary Front __ 46.92 ______[] __ 69 ___ 68 __ 2010cold (3) ________ 10.22

_25 ___t23 __ DAVID SNOW ____46.39 ______[] __ 74 ___140__ Thundershine (5) _____ 9.39

_26 ___ 31 __ Weather26 ______ 45.61 ______[] __ 76 ___ 125 __ Summer of 95 (2) ____ 9.25

_27 ___t23 __ davehsug _______ 45.34 ______[] __110___---- __ WxEnthusiast91 (1) ___ 4.66

_28 ___ 26 __ February1978^___ 43.84 ______[] __120___124 __ joggs (2) ____________3.31

_30 ___ 28 __ Midlands Ice Age _ 42.97 ______[] __125___136__ Lettucing Gutted ______2.39

_31 ___ 03 __ daniel* __________41.84 ______[] __140___ ---- __ Captain Shortwave ___ 0.34

________________________________________________________

^ after names indicates month(s) missed, score from fewer than 9 contest months.

(if more than three months missed, actual number of contests is in brackets)

Ranks not shown in table to 60th (no Aug forecast) include _ 

_29 __ 21 __ Thundery Wintry Showers^^ 43,09

_48 __ 39 __ DiagonalRedLine^^^ ______ 30.39

_49 __ 45 __ SLEETY^^^ _____________28.89

_51 __ 46 __ Robbie Garrett (5) ________28.74

_53 __ 50 __ Kentspur (5) _____________25.65

_56 __ 53 __ freeze (5) _______________21.03

_58 __ 56 __ Mr TOAD (3) ____________ 18.99

_59 __ 57 __ Pegg24 (4) _____________ 18.18

_60 __ 58 __ Pinball Wizard (2) ________ 16.74

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by Roger J Smith

[J10]

Downloads

August 20 CET.xlsx

August 20 Summary.pdf

Monthly

The temperature was 17.6c in August, with 4 players getting it spot on.

Summer Sun, Captain Shortwave, Stationary Front and Daniel*

This month 28 were within 0.5c ( compared to 7 players last month)

Seasonal

The same 1st and 2nd compared to last month, Relativistic won from  February1978 in 2nd. Leo97t up to 3rd.

Overall

Some changes this month.

Stationary Front (1st from 3rd)
mb018538 stays in 2nd. 
Dancerwithwings (3rd from 1st)

Edited September 2, 2020 by J10

[Earthshine]

Hey at least I'm less than 1C off this month  better than last month where I was over 2C off.

[Daniel*]

Well I did excellent again  my form is returning!!! 

[Met.]

16 minutes ago, J10 said:

Downloads

August 20 CET.xlsx 609.13 kB · 1 download

August 20 Summary.pdf 503.46 kB · 0 downloads

 

Some changes this month.

Stationary Front (1st from 3rd)
mb018538 stays in 2nd. 
Dancerwithwings (3rd from 1st)

So.... it seems that I'm the only person who has negative points. Do I get some kind of award for that accomplishment?

[summer blizzard]

Still 31st of those who’ve entered every month, that’s painful compared to previous years.

[Relativistic]

 

5 hours ago, J10 said:

Downloads

August 20 CET.xlsx 609.13 kB · 3 downloads

August 20 Summary.pdf 503.46 kB · 6 downloads

Monthly

The temperature was 17.6c in August, with 4 players getting it spot on.

Summer Sun, Captain Shortwave, Stationary Front and Daniel*

This month 28 were within 0.5c ( compared to 7 players last month)

Seasonal

The same 1st and 2nd compared to last month, Relativistic won from  February1978 in 2nd. Leo97t up to 3rd.

Overall

Some changes this month.

Stationary Front (1st from 3rd)
mb018538 stays in 2nd. 
Dancerwithwings (3rd from 1st)

My first seasonal comp victory since Spring 2013 

[Roger J Smith]

In terms of the best combined forecast of CET and EWP for August, it's a case of finding the least total ranks and I have my hands full with that as all the good EWP forecasts seemed to be in the bad half of the CET and vice versa.

The only two I can find with even a glimmer of recognition of the warm/wet outcome would be Emmett Garland and Born from the Void. Since the combined ranks are going to be into the 30s with so many CET forecasts close to the target, I will declare these two co-winners of best combined. 

In the annual contest, three forecasters are top ten in both contests. 

Reef stands 5th in EWP and 6th in CET, Don is 7th EWP / 4th CET and mb018538 is 10th EWP / 2nd CET. The CET leader Stationary Front is 24th in the EWP and 5th place PIT (in CET) is 16th in the EWP. 

[Weather-history]

On 1 September 2020 at 12:32, Weather-history said:

Amazingly, the England and Wales rainfall summer totals could be similiar to each other. 

Summer 2004: 290.4mm

Summer 2020: 292.4mm

August 2020: 125.2mm

[Roger J Smith]

The final posted value for EWP is 125.2 mm. This makes no significant changes to the scoring already posted. I edited in two minor changes (LG's 200 mm moves ahead of GC at 50 mm for August scoring compared to the provisional value 124 -- neither change affected annual ranking). 

Seasonal top 40 scores for summer 2020

Rank __ Forecaster ______ Total Points __ Avg error

_ 01 ___ JeffC ___________ 25.50 _______ 26.17

_ 02 ___ Roger J Smith ____24.53 _______ 26.47

_ 03 ___ Blast From the Past 23.93 _______ 24.97

_ 04 ___ Bobd29 _________ 22.87 _______ 26.17

_ 05 ___ Jonboy _________ 22.09 _______ 28.97

_ 06 ___ Twilight _________ 21.72 _______ 32.83

_ 07 ___ Neil N __________ 20.93 _______ 24.30

_ 08 ___ Born From the Void 20.74 _______ 32.97

_ 09 ___ Dog Toffee _______20.38 _______ 30.50

_ 10 ___ Godber1 ________ 19.15 _______ 33.97

_ 11 ___ Don ____________ 18.99 _______ 36.50

_ 12 ___ Weather26 _______18.81 _______ 29.37

_ 13 ___ J10 _____________18.14 _______ 32.97

_ 14 ___ SteveB __________17.93 _______ 32.97

_ 15 ___ Feb91Blizzard ____ 17.69 _______ 39.03

_ 16 ___ syed2878 ________ 17.22 _______ 31.97

_ 17 ___ The PIT _________ 17.15 _______ 37.50

_ 18 ___ February1978 _____16.84 _______ 38.97

_ 19 ___ DR(S)NO ________ 16.81 _______ 32.97

_ 20 ___ProlongedSnowLover 16.64 _______35.30

_ 21 ___ brmbrmcar ________16.18 _______ 30.17

_ 22 ___ Earthshine ________15.98 _______ 39.30

_ 23 ___ Stewfox __________ 15.77*_______22.73*

_ 24 ___ Stationary Front ____15.75 _______ 35.97

_ 25 ___ mb018538 ________ 15.70 _______ 41.30

_ 26 ___ I Rem Atlantic 252 __15.43 _______ 34.30

_ 27 ___ snowray __________15.34 _______ 40.17

_ 28 ___ SummerShower ____15.10* ______ 24.95*

_ 29 ___ Mulzy ____________ 14.96 _______ 40.63

_ 30 ___ B87 _____________ 14.69 _______ 27.50

_ 31 ___ davehsug _________14.67 _______ 42.50

_ 32 ___ General Cluster ____ 14.04 _______ 46.17

_ 33 ___ daniel* ___________ 13.88 _______ 40.30

_ 34 ___ virtualsphere ______ 13.78 _______ 39.97

_ 35 ___ Let It Snow! _______ 13.72 _______ 42.87

_ 36 ___ DAVID SNOW _____ 12.86 _______ 41.30

_ 37 ___ Relativistic ________ 12.37 _______ 40.97

_ 38 ___ Norrance _________ 12.34 _______ 42.63

_ 39 ___ CheesepuffScott ___ 12.25 _______ 46.67

_ 40 ___ Leo97t ___________ 12.14 _______ 49.17

________________________________________

*scores and averages from two months out of three.

note: July scores were clustered more tightly to consensus so

this accounts for somewhat random distribution of average errors

vs total points -- if you didn't score well in July your error wasn't

particularly large.

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by Roger J Smith

[Roger J Smith]

Interesting stat -- "Normal 1990-2019" has a higher score now than any forecaster in the contest. Normal 1981-2010 ranks between 4th and 5th places in the contest, and consensus ranks between 10th and 11th. So our consensus EWP, while fairly good, is not quite as good as the normal monthly values, especially the most recent.

This was not the case in the first two years of the EWP contests when our consensus generally did slightly better than the normals, and all three finished in the higher portion of the middle ranks of the contest. So this year has us all a bit stumped, it's fair to say. 

[Roger J Smith]

The amount by which August exceeded July in CET was second greatest in recent times, to 1997. It edged out 2004 which as several have mentioned had almost identical CET values for all three summer months (July 2004 was 0.1 higher than this year).

The difference was 1.9 deg from July to August. The only years with a difference greater than 1.5 (and in most cases June or September were not warmer than July either, making this also the difference by which August was the warmest month of each year in question) are the following, in reverse chronological order: 

2020 had 1.9 difference (17.6 vs 15.7, June 15.3, Sep ??)

2004 had 1.8 difference (17.6 vs 15.8, June 15.3, Sep 14.9)

1997 had 2.2 difference (18.9 vs 16.7, June 14.1, Sep 14.2)

1947 had 1.6 difference (18.6 vs 17.0, June 15.5, Sep 14.9)

1919 had 1.8 difference (15.7 vs 13.9, June 14.3, Sep 12.7) so only 1.4 warmer than June

1871 had 2.0 difference (17.2 vs 15.2, June 12.8, Sep 12.7)

1856 had 1.6 difference (16.9 vs 15.3, June 13.5, Sep 12.5)

1842 had 2.6 difference (17.1 vs 14.5, June 15.6, Sep 13.2) so only 1.5 warmer than June

1840 had 2.1 difference (15.9 vs 13.8, June 14.1, Sep 11.1) so only 1.8 warmer than June

1821 had 1.6 difference (16.4 vs 14.8, June 12.3, Sep 14.9) so only 1.5 warmer than Sept

1802 had 3.7 difference (17.2 vs 13.5, June 13.7, Sep 13.8) so also 3.4 warmer than Sept --

-- -- -- this is by a wide margin the most dominating August over the other warm months.

1792 had 1.6 difference (16.9 vs 15.3, June 13.2, Sep 11.8)

1767 had 1.7 difference (16.1 vs 14.4, June 12.8, Sep 14.1)

1758 had 2.2 difference (16.4 vs 14.2, June 14.6, Sep 11.9) so only 1.8 warmer than June

1743 had 2.0 difference (16.9 vs 14.9, June 15.6, Sep 14.2) so only 1.3 warmer than June

1708 had 2.0 difference (17.0 vs 15.0, June 14.0, Sep 15.0) so an equal 2.0 warmer than Sept also. --

-- -- -- this and earlier Maunder years (other than 1705 below) are somewhat less precisely measured, to nearest 0.5

-- -- -- there were no Maunder cases greater than 1.0 Aug minus July in any case other than 1705.

1705 had 1.9 difference (17.5 vs 15.6, June 12.2, Sep 11.9)

--------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------

From this list we can see that August 2020 managed to place tied 8th for the amount by which it was warmer than July, and

tied 4th for the difference by which it was warmest month of the year, unless this September reduces the margin set by July.

Augusts this much warmer than July (1.5 or greater) have happened 17 times in 362 tries, the frequency seems to be resuming

after dropping somewhat in the 20th century compared to 18th and 19th. 

At random it should be about 20-25 years between cases. The 50 years 1947 to 1997 represents the longest wait, although the

first case noted is year 47 of the series so that might have been a longer interval. 1871 to 1919 was also 48 years. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by Roger J Smith