For the New York State forecast, I predicted that at least half of the Golden Snowball cities would have wind gusts of 30 mph or more on Friday. The table below shows the highest speeds for sustained wind and wind gusts, according to the National Weather Service.

This one proved to be correct. Not only did four out of five GSB cities have wind gusts over 40 mph (well above my mark), all but Binghamton had sustained winds of 30 mph or more on Friday. A bit windier than I anticipated. It does count as a correct forecast, but I would have liked the gust numbers to have been a little closer to 30 mph.

For the World forecast, I predicted that at least 1 of Ontario, Canada’s big three cities (Hamilton, Ottawa and Toronto) would be at least 5 degrees below average on either Friday or Saturday. The table shows The Weather Channel’s information for the two days.

This one also turned out to be true, and it wasn’t very close on Friday. Interesting to note the nice warm up on Saturday, and Hamilton ended up hitting their average for that day. Again, I wish the numbers would have been a little bit closer to my threshold, as only Ottawa produced a single digit difference.

While it is nice to be right, these forecasts were a bit off the mark. Sure, it still benefited me here, but it still doesn’t quite sit right with me. Of course, it may very well have just been the luck of the draw this weekend. But if this trend continues for the rest of the month, I’ll look into changing things up in 2010.

Regardless, I’m now over 80% for the season. Why do I get the feeling that the miss on Buffalo with my first forecast is going to haunt me one way or another?

Have a great week all!

Unfortunately, this forecast is a bit late. I generally want to get forecasts up for 2 to 3 days in advance. I was ready to do one on Monday for Wednesday and Thursday, but all the good stuff was on Tuesday. So, a decision had to be made…do I make a forecast for 1 day in advance with the knowledge of there being all sorts of winter weather advisories, which would make the forecasts a bit easier (at least in theory), or do I wait a little bit and find something to forecast for the weekend? I chose the second option.

For the New York State forecast, it’s back to just the Golden Snowball cities.

At least half of the Golden Snowball cities will have wind gusts of over 30 mph on Friday.

Looks to be a breezy day on Friday. As a note, there is currently a high wind warning out for a portion of New York State, but that expires on Thursday evening (at least as of the time of this forecast). So I expect breezy conditions to continue into Friday but the wind should not be as strong as on Thursday. For my forecast to be correct, 3 or more of the Golden Snowball cities must have stronger than 30 mph wind gusts.

For the World forecast, it’s a trip up north to Canada. We’re putting the Globe into the Golden Snow Globe, and World into the World forecast all in one step.

At least 1 of the big Ontario cities will have their high temperature 5 degrees or more below average on Friday or Saturday.

This is basically the inverse of my first World forecast. It looks to be a chilly day in Ontario, even for their standards. There are three Ontario metropolitan areas with populations over 500,000: Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton. If one or more of those has a high temperature that is at least 5 degrees below average on Friday or Saturday, the forecast will be correct. Since the forecast is outside the US borders, verification will come from The Weather Channel.

Have a great weekend all!