For the New York State forecast, I predicted that none of the Golden Snowball cities would have measurable snowfall on any day between Friday and Sunday. The table below shows how much snow each city had as reported by the National Weather Service.
| New York State Snowfall | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day | Albany | Binghamton | Buffalo | Rochester | Syracuse |
| Cities with no measurable snow each day: 4 | |||||
| Friday | Trace | 0.8 | None | None | Trace |
| Saturday | None | Trace | None | None | None |
| Sunday | None | None | None | None | None |
That forecast proved to be wrong. It was Binghamton that spoiled the forecast, and it didn’t take very long for that to happen. The other cities did their part. Close, but not close enough.
For the World pick, I said that at least 2 of the 4 major cities in Idaho, Montana and Utah would be within 5 degrees of their average highs and lows on Friday. The table below shows what the results are as reported by the National Weather Service and the Brigham Young University weather station.
| Mountain West Friday Temperatures | ||
|---|---|---|
| City | Average High/Low | Recorded High/Low |
| Cities within 5 degrees of average highs and lows: 2 | ||
| Billings, MT | 38/22 | 52/35 |
| Boise, ID | 42/29 | 39/30 |
| Provo, UT | 43/27 | 63/26 |
| Salt Lake City, UT | 43/27 | 39/23 |
That forecast turned out to be correct, barely. Interesting to note that the two that were not within 5 degrees were well above their average highs with Billings almost 15 over and Provo 20 above average.
As a side note, I try to use National Weather Service data when available. In the case of Provo, I used The Weather Channel to find the average temperatures and the BYU station for the actual temperatures as there is not an official NWS station in Provo. In some cases (usually with unofficial stations such as BYU’s), a “day” can have different start times. For example, the BYU page lists the day as 24 hours between 5pm local time while stats kept at Penn State’s weather station for State College, PA (also unofficial) are 24 hours between 7am EST/8am EDT. NWS information is updated a few times a day, with data available sometime after midnight for the previous day. It’s this data that I’ll typically use when verifying the accuracy of my forecasts if available for the given city.
| Golden SnowCast Results | |
|---|---|
| Region | Record |
| Overall Percentage: 50% | |
| NYS | 0-1 |
| World | 1-0 |
| Overall | 1-1 |
So, I’m struggling out of the gate. To gain some perspective on this, I’d need to get the next 8 straight forecasts correct to get to my goal of 90%. Only 2 predictions are done at a time though, so when the next batch of forecasts come out, I’ll be shooting to reach 75% overall. I expect to have that forecast done by midweek.
Have a great week everyone.
Well if you’re going to be this good at forecasting that just may take all the fun out of picking on you. Great Job in my opinion Stephen with only Bingo hitting you with a snowball.
On the bright side you were right with all the Golden Snow Globe cities
WTG and a great rap up of how ya did!!!