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All posts for the month February, 2012

With Leap Day right around the corner, I figured I’d try to celebrate the extra day with a bang. Mother nature is helping out a bit, and I’ll get to that later.

First, it’s a check on how the last forecast fared. That outlook called for snowfall in the 2-6 inch range over the extended weekend for the selected cities. If all five were in range: Bull’s Eye. 3 or 4: On Target. Here are those totals:

Lexington, KY: None
Charleston, WV: Trace.
Charlottesville, VA: 5.8
Washington, DC: Trace
Baltimore, MD: None

Um…woops. Only Charlottesville was in range, so that’s a Complete Miss, the 2nd straight one for me.

GSG Forecast Results
Forecasts Bull’s Eye On Target Complete Miss Points
Average: 0.56
SITD 0 1 1 2
PBR 1 1 3 3
Total 1 2 4 5

Am I really going to do a lot better with long range forecasts than the short term ones? Seems that way. That forecast was also the halfway point for the PBR, just 5 remain. I have my work cut out for me if I’m going to hit the 1.00 average.

So let’s get to it with the next forecast! This one features Minneapolis, MN, Bismarck, ND, Fargo, ND, Aberdeen, SD and Pierre, SD.

Bull’s Eye At least one of the five will have a foot or more snow by the end of Wednesday.
On Target All five chosen cities will have at least 6 inches of snow by the end of Wednesday.
Complete Miss Any other result.

Have a great week everyone. And if you’re in the snow storm’s path, be careful out there!

It has been awhile since I’ve done a PBR forecast on the site, and it’s about time I fixed that. Before that, here are a couple of notes.

First off,I think I’m going to be making alterations to my plan as we go. The idea was to have 5 months of forecasting options for 10 PBR forecasts, December through April. December was pretty much a bust, and I can’t imagine April being that much better. So now I’m going to try to squeeze in the remaining forecasts as quickly as possible. There are 7 weekends between now and April, so if I plan on a forecast for each week, then I’ll be in good shape.

Finally, for those of you who have just started coming to the site, I figured I’d explain just what the PBR forecasts are. Point Blank Range forecasts are predictions made generally 1-3 days in advance. All forecasts made are with complete certainty, no waffle words such as “chance of” or “likely”…and, I keep track of how the forecasts have fared. There are 3 scoring ranges with any PBR forecast: Bull’s Eye (2 points), On Target (1 point) and Complete Miss (0 points). On Target is more or less what I anticipate to happen, while a Bull’s Eye is like a bonus. The goal for the end of the season is to average “On Target”, or 1.00 when this and the Shot In The Dark forecast results are combined. SITD forecasts are like PBRs, except done monthly and double points.

With that said, let’s take a look back at the last forecast, done for January 27th and 28th. I believed that snowfall would be in the 1-3 range for Madison, WI, Milwaukee, WI, Minneapolis, MN, Detroit, MI and South Bend, IN. If all five were in range, that’s a Bull’s Eye while a majority would be On Target. Here are the snowfall totals.

Madison: 0.5
Milwaukee: 0.6
Minneapolis: 0.5
Detroit: 1.3
South Bend: 0.4

Only Detroit was in range, so that is a Complete Miss.

GSG Forecast Results
Forecasts Bull’s Eye On Target Complete Miss Points
Average: 0.63
SITD 0 1 1 2
PBR 1 1 2 3
Total 1 2 3 5

With that out of the way, it’s time for this edition. The featured cities are Lexington, KY, Charleston, WV, Charlottesville, VA, Washington, DC and Baltimore MD.

Bull’s Eye All five of the selected cities will total 2-6 inches of snow for the 3 day weekend.
On Target 3 or 4 of the selected cities will total 2-6 inches of snow for the 3 day weekend.
Complete Miss Any other result.

Have a great weekend everyone!

There wasn’t a whole lot of changes this last update and none of the cities really stepped up to the plate to challenge Anchorage who still holds the top spot by a zillion snowflakes.

Rochester, New York has finally made it into the top 10 with the snow it received since the last update. That knocked Worcester, Mass out of the top 10 and dropped a few of the cities down a spot. The biggest climb up the hill this update was by Lincoln, Nebraska who picked up ovr a foot of snow and jumped around 22 spots on the snow mountain. Omaha also made a jump of around 14 spots. Nowhere’s near what they would need to get near the top though.

As for 2 time repeat national snow champs Syracuse? In the voice of the Geico Gecko in NYC “Foget about It”. :)

On a side note Sorry about it being awhile for a full update but I do get a top 10 snow update in sometimes and not a full update so make sure you check the top 10 snowiest cities out also.

Here is an article that was in the Washington Post about our contest & what I did last week with a jounalist from Washington, DC named Andrea Sachs – aka- Snowless Lady. Click Here to Check It Out!

Have a Great Weekend All ;)

It’s time for another edition of Shot In The Dark Forecasts! I wouldn’t be doing Anchorage any justice if I didn’t feature them at least once this season. So for February, they get the spotlight to themselves in this SITD forecast. Before we get to that, how did the January forecast fare?

I believed January would be below average for five chosen cities. If that held true, it’d be a Bull’s Eye forecast. Another way to get the Bull’s Eye was if one of the five was below average by a foot or more. 3 or 4 of the cities were below average, with none being a foot or below average, then the forecast was On Target. Below are the totals for those five cities and their averages in parenthesis.

Ann Arbor, MI: 16.8 (13.4)
Colorado Springs, CO: 0.5 (5.1)
Erie, PA: 26.5 (29.8)
South Bend, IN: 35.0 (20.6)
Worcester, MA: 13.6 (17.1)

3 out of the 5 were below average. None of them were lower by a foot or more, so it’s On Target. Of the group, South Bend was the big winner, beating average by more than 14 inches!

So let’s take a look at the standings. Remember that for SITD, an On Target forecast is worth 2 points.

GSG Forecast Results
Forecasts Bull’s Eye On Target Complete Miss Points
Average: 0.71
SITD 0 1 1 2
PBR 1 1 1 3
Total 1 2 2 5

If this was a Bull’s Eye, I’d be right at 1.00. So I am just a bit short with a little more than half of the forecasts to go.

Now for this edition’s forecast, which features only Anchorage, AK. In an average season, Anchorage will get 11 inches in February. But as we the stats show, this has been anything but average for Anchorage. In fact, they’re already almost 30 inches above average for the entire season! I think this above average pattern will continue for them.

Bull’s Eye Anchorage’s February total will be at least triple average for the month.
On Target Anchorage’s February total will be at least double average for the month.
Complete Miss Any other result.

Have a great February everyone!

I was curious to see how the Colorado cities did after getting pounded the last day or two so I did a quick top 10 update. They did pretty good with Denver jumping up to third place adding just over a foot of snow to their totals showing 12.5 inches so far. Ft. Collins picked up another 9.1 inches and Lakewood,Co had 15 inches of the white fluffy gold drop on them.

I was thinking that one of the cities have finally chipped away some snow from Anchorage, Alaska’s totals but low and behold Anchorage goes and sets a date record for yesterday picking up 9.1 inches of snowfall breaking their old record of 5.4 that was set in 1970. Anchorage is the first city to hit the 100 inch mark this season also and has double their normal snowfall totals for this time in the season. We’ll keep an eye on where it’s snowing and update as needed.

HAve a Super Weekend All :)

According to an article at MSN – The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club made their decree Thursday morning in central Pennsylvania: Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, and there’ll be six more weeks of winter. The announcement was met with boos from the enormous crowd gathered in Punxsutawney.

My question is what winter? Never mind winter but this whole snow season has been a bust so far. Records of warmer than normal temperatures are being set all over the country most likely. As for snow, what snow? To think people let out gasps and whines when they heard the news seems to go against the way the weather has been so far. I think it should have been whines and gasps if he didn’t see his shadow. That could have ended a good thing, the weather pattern that the US has had so far this winter. For those that don’t like the snow at least.

Phil

This by far has been the most boring updates I’ve done since keeping the stats the last couple of seasons.  A few jumps in the slopes here and there but no big snow for any of the cities.  I will agree with the rodent though.  I think within the next 7 – 10 days that jet stream that has been hanging to the north of the US will start dropping and when it does I think it may stick around for a bit.  Hopefully at least through March.  Keep an eye on the Colorado cities as they should be picking up some snow in some of the cities.  If it pans out that they get some decent snow I’ll update them again to see how they gain on Anchorage.

Have a Great Weekend All ;)