Roger Smith

Rogue Waves -- about the winter of 1842-43 ... The Toronto records for some years in the 1840s have either lost their snowfall data or the observers didn't record it for a few winters. It becomes a complete record of both rain and snow after 1848 but there are some partial records for years between 1845 and 1847. Some of this material may be recoverable. For example, old published annual summaries (from the 1950s) gave all-time records that included 12" of snow in October 1844, but this did not make it into the published records or the on-line historical weather section on the EC website. I don't know why that happened, the snow matches the coldest temperatures for October recorded on the same days (end of the month). As to the winter of 1842-43, we do have all temperature and rainfall records. I don't think the rainfalls are anything but rain, no melted snow seems to be in them, because in those first few winters all the rainfall reports are on mild days only. There was some sort of almost singularity type storm on January 31st, 1843. Apparently there are some accounts of it in the Midwest, perhaps others reading this will know where they are sourced. I can see that the temperature dropped sharply from that date to early February and the reported rainfall for the date was 2.50" which is considerably larger than any other one-day January rainfall at Toronto. Basically it seems to have been fairly mild up until that storm and quite cold for February through April afterwards. I assume the storm must have been a blizzard to the north of its track and must have had some severe lake effect bands during the transition. Perhaps it had some similarities to the Jan 1978 storm although I imagine it ran more southwest to northeast than south to north. The high for Jan 31 is given as 36 F with a reading of -3 F by early Feb 2nd. Combined with the very heavy rain that suggests some sort of track where the warm sector stayed over western New York, and perhaps part of the rainfall event was freezing rain. With that moisture signal it would not surprise me to learn that the snow side of the storm was also quite heavy and there may have been some very strong winds wrapped around the system. There was another rainfall around the 10th and 11th of February with one brief return into above freezing temperatures, after which it stayed around 20 F most of the time with some subzero nights, not as cold as some months back in that era like Feb 1855 which had some days entirely below zero F. (later edit) Spent some time googling the winter of 1843 and the period in question, didn't find much except for this account from Minnesota: https://www.climatestations.com/minnesota-weather-for-1843/ and also a New York City newspaper reporting gales from south to southwest on (Tuesday) Feb 1, 1843, spreading up the coast to Boston. I searched some old newspapers from the Great Lakes region, nothing was available in Michigan, anything else I could find had no references to recent news of any kind and the contents were either political reports, advertising or short stories and poems. However these were not major city newspapers of that period so perhaps a search of Detroit or Chicago newspaper files from the days after the storm. Perhaps the severe period was later than just this one big storm, as evidenced by how the weather was described in Minnesota, certainly the storm in question began the severe period but it seemed to become worse later in February there.

I am working on a project to extend the records of the (downtown) Toronto city weather station. This was a first order station back in the day and I have published records for it starting in March, 1840. I have recently updated all the daily record highs and lows for temperatures, and rainfall and snowfall. Some of that required taking estimates from nearby locations as there is not quite a continuous observation program (it was most incomplete in 2016 and 2017, seems to be back up to 100% this year). The past week produced two record lows, which makes a grand total of six from the past thirty years. There were two in January 1994, one in November 1997, one in March 2007, one in November 2017, and now the two just observed. Before that there were only record lows in 1972, 1976, 1980, 1981 and 1982, since the publication of daily temperatures and extremes that I used as my starting point. There have been of course a lot of new record highs although I've found that the frequency of them is not really different from the period 1910-1967 (the year when the publication came out). I will publish some links to the full results in a month or two, although the real target for ending the project is March 1, the 180th anniversary of the first records. Before that, I happen to have some data from Providence, RI to cover the 1830s, and some overlap with Toronto in 1840, from which it appears that the temperatures are quite similar if perhaps a day later in their arrival at Providence compared to Toronto. That probably wasn't always the case, but it seemed to be working that way in March, 1840 which oddly enough started out with record warmth in what turned out to be quite a cold year generally. The recent records for your interest are Nov 12 ____ 16 F ___ breaks 17 F from 1894, 98 Nov 13 ____ 12 F ___ breaks 14 F from 1873 That 1873 record was perhaps a midnight low as the record low for the 14th was also in 1873 and was 11 F. The 1873 record lows were also the earliest in the winter season that the temperature went below 15 F which had been observed on the 4th and 5th in 1854. But that quickly escalated to 7 F on 15th-16th in 1933, then progressively lower after the 20th reaching -5 F on Nov 30, 1875 as the absolute low for November. The daily high reported on the 12th of 24 F appears to be the earliest such reading, the 1873 outbreak had 26 on the 13th. The high on the 15th in 1933 was 19 F, the earliest sub-20 recorded, but the absolute low once again went to Nov 30, 1875 with a high of only 5 F. The 1880 cold shows up big time also, with daytime highs continuously below 30 F from 18th to 27th and below 20 F from 21st to 23rd when lows reached 4 F. This part of November has done much better for record cold than most parts of the year in modern times, this being the third new record along with 21 F on 8th (1976) and 15 F on 10th in 2017. The reason why so few records have fallen in the past half century is mainly the urban heat island effect which was already becoming evident in the data around the 1890s and 1900-09 decade. The rate of production of surviving record lows drops sharply after 1888 and even back around 1950 it was just about as difficult as nowadays to break a record, any time that a half decent cold air mass hit in the 19th century there was no city there to modify the radiational cooling, so the records set nowadays are mainly from exceptional cold air masses that have a bit of velocity to get them into the city's core without losing too much of their cold. Snowfall observations have become a bit problematic, it appears that two different observation programs are underway (since 2003) and one observer logs temperatures and rain/precip and snow depth, while another one goes to a slightly different location and logs rain and snow in the winter season only. This secondary site usually reports very similar rainfalls and snow depths match the snowfall amounts. So far I have not seen that secondary report and have only the 14.1 mm precip and 15 cm snow depth as guides to what fell on November 11th. That would edge out the previous record of 4.8" on Nov 11, 1933 (which was followed by record cold of 7 F on both 15th and 16th). The 1898 cold was preceded by 5.5" snow on November 10th. (15 cm is 5.9" but as the station has variable water content results for snowfalls I can only estimate that from snow depth). Daily rainfall records seem to have decreased slightly in frequency although match random expectation fairly closely (in the past half century). Daily snowfall records have fallen to about two-thirds the expected pace based on 50 of 180 years, but there are peaks around mid-November and early April (more heavy snowfall events than expected at random). The month where winter has been most visibly eroded is February, a lot of new record high temperatures and very few snowfalls of consequence. January by contrast has produced about the usual crop of cold records and snowfalls. I may get after that snowfall contest for the forum, last year the deadline for it was December 1st and was extended to about the 10th, so no rush on that.

Final scoring for November 2019 FORECASTER _____________ DCA_NYC_BOS__east__ORD_ATL_IAH__cent__c/e___DEN_PHX_SEA__west ___ TOTALS Roger Smith _______________ 84 _ 78 _ 80 ___ 242 __ 65 _ 94 _ 70 __ 229 __ 471 __ 68 _ 74 _ 66 __ 208 _____ 679 wxdude64 _________________ 62 _ 60 _ 84 ___ 206 __ 33 _ 94 _ 80 __ 207 __ 413 __ 76 _ 84 _ 92 __ 252 _____ 665 RodneyS ___________________ 56 _ 54 _ 76 ___ 186 __ 39 _ 88 _ 52 __ 179 __ 365 __ 82 _ 70 _ 80 __ 232 _____ 597 Tom _______________________ 36 _ 36 _ 74 ___ 146 __ 17 _ 88 _ 56 __ 161 __ 307 __ 62 _ 88 _ 94 __ 244 _____ 551 Scotty Lightning ____________50 _ 44 _ 80 ___ 174 __ 25 _ 50 _ 74 __ 149 __ 323 __ 48 _ 74 _ 86 __ 208 _____ 531 ___ Consensus ______________ 36 _ 36 _ 74 ___ 146 __ 25 _ 72 _ 56 ___ 153 __ 299 __ 48 _ 88 _ 94 __ 230 _____ 529 DonSutherland1 ____________20 _ 14 _ 62 ___ 096 __ 29 _ 72 _ 68 __ 169 __ 265 __ 34 _ 94 _ 82 __ 210 _____ 475 BKViking ___________________34 _ 28 _ 66 ___ 128 __ 19 _ 38 _ 46 __ 103 __ 231 __ 48 _ 94 _ 96 __ 238 _____ 469 wxallannj ___________________36 _ 28 _ 70 ___ 134 __ 25 _ 46 _ 38 __ 109 __ 243 __ 40 _ 98 _ 82 __ 220 _____ 463 ___ Normal _________________30 _ 24 _ 60 ___ 114 __ 00 _ 70 _ 54 __ 124 __ 238 ___ 58 _ 54 _ 76 __ 188 _____ 426 hudsonvalley21 ____________ 14 _ 04 _ 52 ___ 070 __ 00 _ 56 _ 30 __ 086 __ 156 ___ 26 _ 94 _ 98 __ 218 _____ 374 =============================================== Extreme forecasts Coldest forecasts have scored highest at DCA, NYC, ORD, IAH and DEN. The first three of those go to Roger Smith, IAH to wxdude64, and DEN to RodneyS. BOS and ATL produced winners and losers as second coldest forecasts attained high scores there. BOS (-2.0) is a loss for RS (-3.0) and a win for second coldest wxdude64 (-1.4) ATL (-1.5) warmed up enough on the 30th to transfer the highest score previously held by RodneyS (-2.1) to a tie (Roger Smith -1.8 and wxdude64 -1.2) who share the win while RodneyS gets a loss. SEA does not qualify for extreme forecasts at the moment, consensus values are close to the provisionals with both warm and cold extremes scoring lower than most. PHX (+2.3) was a win for second warmest forecast of wxallannj (+2.2) and a loss for warmest hudsonvalley21 (+2.6).

First report on the anomalies and projections ... ___________________________________ DCA _ NYC _ BOS ___ ORD _ ATL _ IAH ___ DEN _ PHX _ SEA 8th ___________ (anom 7d) _________--3.0 _ --0.7 _ +1.9 ___ --8.8 _ --3.7 _ --4.6 ___ --7.1 _ +2.6 _ +0.4 16th _________ (anom 15d) ________ --6.2 _ --5.4 _ --3.5 __ --12.8 _ --7.0 _ --9.5 ___ --1.9 _ +4.7 _ +2.5 23rd _________ (anom 22d) ________ --5.0 _ --5.2 _ --3.4 ___ --9.1 _ --4.2 _ --6.1 ___ +0.1 _ +4.0 _ +2.4 8th ___________ (p 14 d) ___________ --7.0 _ --6.0 _ --5.0 __ -11.0 _ --8.0 _ --8.0 ___ --2.0 _ +3.0 _ +1.5 16th __________ (p 22 d) ___________ --4.8 _ --4.5 _ --4.0 ___ --8.0 _ --7.0 _ --6.5 ___ +1.0 _ +3.0 _ +2.5 8th ___________ (p 24 d) ___________ --4.5 _ --3.0 _ --2.5 ___ --6.0 _ --4.0 _ --4.0 ___ +1.5 _ +2.0 _ +2.0 16th __________ (p 30d) ___________ --4.0 _ --4.0 _ --3.5 ___ --5.0 _ --5.5 _ --5.0 ___ +1.0 _ +1.5 _ +2.0 23rd __________ (p 30 d) ___________ --3.0 _ --3.5 _ --2.5 ___ --6.0 _ --2.5 _ --3.0 ____ 0.0 _ +3.0 _ +1.0 29th ________ changes _________________________ --2.0 _________________________ --2.0 ____________ 1st Dec __ final anomalies ________ --3.5 _ --3.8 _ --2.0 ___--5.5 _ --1.5 _ --2.3 ____--2.1 _+2.3 _+1.2 __________________________________________________________ (8th) _ The month started quite cold in the east and central regions, and looks like getting even colder next week. The projection beyond that is based on a more modest cold anomaly to near normal conditions returning. The west has been a little warmer than average and looks set to stay that way for most of the month. (16th) _ I am updating a day later than usual, so the discussion of errors in the 7d outlook above will refer to estimates of the anomalies to 15th rather than what you see posted for the 16th. Those forecasts were fairly accurate given the large negative anomaly that developed over the eastern and central regions. For most locations the 15th was fairly close to the anomaly shown but for DEN which warmed up it was likely closer to -3 so the error was larger than it looks there. PHX and SEA probably did a bit better as they moved up beyond where they had been on 14th. So overall I am estimating an average error close to 1 deg which for a pattern this anomalous is good. The projections for next week are for modified cold to continue in the east, modified warmth fading to closer to average in the west. Then for the period 23rd to 30th I have extended the values derived for the 22nd with conservative assumptions of pattern persistence (small negative anomalies east, small positives west). Based on the provisional end of month anomalies, the scoring would likely be an inverse of the forecast table but only faintly so, since the larger potential errors in the east seem to be compensated by better scoring in the west. We all seem to have looked for patterns that were less divided east-west than what actually has developed so far at least. (23rd) _ The forecasts for this past week were fairly accurate although ATL did not retain the cold anomaly to the extent suggested, overall the average error in the forecast (based on NWS 7-day) was 0.87 deg. This coming week, using the NWS 7-day and one additional day from the GFS guidance, it looks as though all large negative anomalies will be trimmed down further and this actually brings ATL and IAH back into normal scoring range so we won't likely need provisional scoring there. ORD could on the other hand get into that range, at the moment the provisional is just low enough to keep scoring "raw." Anything colder than -6.5 will change that and I think the field will benefit slightly vs my own lead in the monthly contest as the differentials on raw scores are higher than the progressive scoring would become. Now that BOS has a provisional less extreme than my forecast, there again the field will gain as all scores rise but mine not as much. Feeling more confident that these scores will be a good approximation now, so I will bring in the annual update soon, after revising the provisional scoring. (29th) _ Scoring for BOS and DEN will be adjusted after checking the progress of the last forecasts a week ago. The rest look to be either on track or will produce only a field-wide adjustment not affecting contest scoring relatively. (1st Dec) _ Final anomalies are now all confirmed as of 14z. Most of the scoring is already updated and this will be complete by 15z.

I am halfway up a mountain within sight of the BC-WA border and we got some snow in late September (quite a lot at higher elevations) and it has been almost bone dry since then. There is still a very thin snow cover on the local mountains from that dumping but nothing below 5500' asl. I have never seen such a dry pattern as we are in here at this time of year. Think it must mean that weird snowfall anomalies lie ahead, and by definition that means you get snow because zero snow there is not a weird snowfall anomaly. Will be boosting my earlier predictions slightly, just feels to me like one big storm is inevitable for your region with the strength of cold air masses combined with no cut off low tendencies in the southwest (meaning it won't end up wasted over the southern Rockies). Even so, expecting some very mild weather in the mix so this one big storm concept will have to be well timed and worth the pain of the other weeks of anomalous warmth.

Forecasts for November 2019 FORECASTER ________________ DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL_ IAH ___ DEN _ PHX _ SEA hudsonvalley21 _____________ +0.8 _ +1.0 _ +0.4 __ +0.4 _ +0.7 _ +1.2 __ +1.6 _ +2.6 _ +1.3 DonSutherland1 ____________ +0.5 _ +0.5 _ --0.1 __ --1.7 _ --0.1 _ --0.7 __ +1.2 _ +2.0 _ +2.1 ___ Normal __________________ 0,0 __ 0,0 __ 0.0 ____ 0.0 __ 0.0 __ 0.0 ___ 0.0 __ 0.0 __ 0.0 BKViking ___________________ --0.2 _ --0.2 _ --0.3 __ --1.2 _ +1.6 _ +0.4 __ +0.5 _ +2.0 _ +1.0 wxallannj ___________________--0.3 _ --0.2 _ --0.5 __ --1.5 _ +1.2 _ +0.8 __ +0.9 _ +2.2 _ +0.3 Tom ________________________ --0.3 _ --0.6 _ --0.7 __ --1.1 _ --0.9 _ --0.1 __ --0.2 _ +1.7 _ +0.9 ___ Consensus ______________ --0.3 _ --0.6 _ --0.7 __ --1.5 _ --0.1 _ --0.1 __ +0.5 _ +1.7 _ +0.9 Scotty Lightning ____________ --1.0 _ --1.0 _ --1.0 __ --1.5 _ +1.0 _ --1.0 __ +0.5 _ +1.0 _ +0.5 RodneyS ___________________ --1.3 _ --1.5 _ --0.8 __ --2.2 _ --2.1 _ +0.1 __ --3.0 _ +0.8 _ +0.2 wxdude64 __________________ --1.6 _ --1.8 _ --1.2 __ --1.9 _ --1.2 _ --1.3 __ --0.9 _ +1.5 _ +1.6 Roger Smith ________________ --2.7 _ --2.7 _ --3.0 __ --3.5 _ --1.8 _ --0.8 __ --0.5 _ +1.0 _ --0.5

Scoring is now fully updated. Congrats to Orangeburgwx for coming back and cleaning house in October. The annual scoring race has tightened up considerably with DonS and wxdude64 making upward moves and narrowing their deficits behind leader RodneyS. There was only a slight addition to BKV's annual late penalty total, which added five points to reach a total of 180. With those points added, BKV would be in fourth place. Wxdude64 has an annual total of 14 so that would move him to within 12 points of second place DonS, With both scores adjusted BKV would then be 27 points behind wxdude64. Tom is the only other active participant with any late penalties and those points (46) would not be enough to move him past Scotty Lightning. -- So it's on to November and I see all nine of us have on-time forecasts that are spread out a fair bit so there will likely be some scrambling of scores for some this month.

BWI _ 27.5" DCA _ 22.1" IAD _ 34.3" RIC _ 15.5" SBY _ 14.5" (could be adjusting this, at the moment I think the sweet spot for northeast US snowfall will be a bit north of your region but cold air will be available at least to mid-Jan and there is probably some chance of a big snowstorm before the pattern shifts to a milder second half of winter) _ some similarity to 95-96 so can't rule out that sort of outcome yet. A very good analogue seems to be 1971-72, how did you fare that winter? (edited my original numbers slightly upward on Nov 7th no real change in thinking just feeling a bit more confident of the one big storm during the good setup before the warmer second half).

_________ DCA _ NYC _ BOS __ ORD _ ATL/DTW _ IAH/BUF ___ DEN _ PHX/BTV _ SEA temp ____ -2.7 _ -2.7 _ -3.0 ___ -3.5 __ -1.8 ______ -0.8 _________-0.5 ___ +1.0 _____ -0.5 snow ____ 15.5 _ 38.5 _ 55.8 __ 60.5 __ 60.2 _____ 102.5 _____ 109.7 ____ 110.5 __ 7.5 (enter snow or edit your entries to 22nd deadline)

<<<<< ===== ----- ----- ----- Annual Contest Scoring Jan - Oct 2019 ----- ----- ----- ===== >>>>>   A new look for the annual table this year, will continue with the all nine format of monthly scoring. Best score tallies will be handled in a separate table. From now to end of 2019, best scores will be tabulated for the eleven regular participants and this will continue with any new or temporary additions getting best scores in addition to those. Highest cumulative scores are shown in red in this table (for nine locations) or bold for subtotals. (note edit on Nov 23 was to fix errors in Consensus which was not updated when the rest of the scores were updated).  FORECASTER _________DCA_NYC_BOS __east__ ORD_ATL_IAH__cent __ c/e ___ DEN_PHX_SEA __west___all 9 TOTAL  RodneyS ______________609 _760 _667__2036 __617 _592 _778__1987__4023 __ 641 _688 _658 __ 1987___ 6010 ___ Consensus ________673_ 818 _682 __2173__618 _581 _758 __1957 __4130 __ 541 _676 _650 __1867 ____5997  DonSutherland.1 _______607 _810 _607 __2024 __595 _592 _772 __1959 __3983 __ 547 _712_ 686__1945____ 5928 wxdude64 _____________677 _796 _635 __2108 __645 _533 _729 __1907 __ 4015 __ 561 _670 _656 __1887 ___5902 Roger Smith ___________ 692 _722 _670 __2084 __576 _515 _700 __1791 __3875 __ 678 _648 _638 __1964____5839 wxallannj ______________655 _736 _712 __2103 __534 _643 _734 __1911 __ 4014__ 481 _678 _646 __1805____ 5819 hudsonvalley21 ________632 _754 _752__2238 __575 _603 _754 __1932 __4170 __ 365 _672 _582 __1619____ 5789 BKViking ______________ 682 _789 _682 __2153 __580 _515 _705 __1800 __3953 __ 481 _629 _644 __1754 ____5707 Scotty Lightning________585 _752 _655 __1992 __580 _592 _738 __1910 __3902 __ 385 _616 _524 __1525 ____5427 Tom ___________________517 _715 _561 __1793 __623 _454 _746 __1823 __3616 __ 459 _656 _607 __1722 ____5338  ___ Normal ____________ 410 _732 _560 __1702 __598 _360 _714 __1672 __3374 __ 386 _683 _471__1540 ____4914 Stebo (4/10) ___________ 283 _327 _310 __ 920 __242 _219 _275 __ 736 __ 1656 __ 227 _217 _125 ___ 569 ___ 2225 RJay (4/10) ____________ 162 _246 _216 __ 624 __256 _185 _288 __ 729 __ 1353 __ 263 _279 _188 ___ 730 ___ 2083 tplbge (1/10) ____________ 90 __ 94 __ 78 __ 262 __ 46 __ 80 _ 100 __ 226 ___ 492 ___ 72 __ 88 __32 ___ 192 ____ 684 Orangeburgwx (1/10) ____ 50 __ 90 __ 78 __ 218 __ 88 __ 60 __ 80 __ 228 ___ 446 ___ 60 __100__ 76 ___ 236 ____ 682 smerby (1/10) ___________ 94 __ 78 __ 48 __ 220 __ 22 __ 90 _100 __ 212 ___ 432 ___50 __ 82 __ 96 ___ 228 ____ 660 Jakkelwx (1/10) _________ 92 __ 68 __ 30 __ 190 __ 50 __ 82 __ 68 __ 200 ___ 390___ 80 __ 90 __ 88 ___ 258 ____ 648  _______________________________________________________________________  Best scores in each category _ (nine locations, three regional subtotals, and central-eastern or "original six" subtotal (c/e) as well as all nine).  _ These are best scores in each monthly contest, best total scores are highlighted in the table above in red. Order for best scores will be based on rank in table above. _ from July best scores with * are regular forecaster high scores, wxdude64 for IAH (Smerby, con as shown for IAH), and BKV, wxallannj for PHX (jakkelwx higher) also ___ Tom for west total (jakkelwx higher). _ from October, best scores with ^ are regular forecaster high scores, as Orangeburgwx had high scores for BOS, ORD, cent/east, PHX and month of October. Those count for both Orangeburgwx and the regular forecaster with high score in each case. ATL and central subregion will be a tie between DonS and Orangeburgwx so no ^ symbol needed there. (all these are provisional at the moment).  FORECASTER _________DCA_NYC_BOS__east__ORD_ATL_IAH__cent__c/e__DEN_PHX_SEA__west___all nine  RodneyS _______________ 1 ___1 ___1 ____ 3 ____ 3 ___1 ___2 ____ 3 ____ 2 ____ 3 ___2 ___1 ___ 2 ____ 2 _ APR,MAY  ___Consensus__________1 ___0 ___1 ____ 1 ____ 0 ___0 ___1 ____ 0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___0 ___0 ___ 0 ____ 0 DonSutherland.1 ________0 ___1 ___1 ____ 0 ____ 1 ___1 ___1 ____ 2 ____ 2^____0 ___1 ___3 ___ 1 ____ 1^ __ OCT^ wxdude64 ______________ 2 ___0 ___0 ____ 2 ____ 1 ___0 ___1*____2 ____ 1 ____ 2 ___1 ___3 ___ 1 ____ 2 __ MAR, JUN Roger Smith ____________ 5 ___1 ___2 ____ 4 ____ 3 ___3 ___1 ____ 2 ____ 2 ____ 3 ___3^___1 ___ 2 ____ 2 __ JUL, SEP wxallannj _______________ 1 ___2 ___1 ____ 1____ 0 ___3 ___1 ____ 1 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___1*___1 ___ 0 ____ 0 hudsonvalley21 _________ 1 ___4 ___1 ____ 1 ____ 0 ___1 ___0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ____ 1 ___0 ___0 ___ 1 ____ 1 __ JAN BKViking ________________0 ___0 ___0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___0 ___0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___1*___0 ___0 ____ 0 Scotty Lightning ________ 1 ___1 ___2 ____ 0 ____ 1 ___0 ___2 ____ 1 ____ 2 ____ 1 ___1 ___1 ___ 0 ____ 0 __ AUG Tom ____________________ 0 ___2 ___0 ____ 0 ____ 1 ___0 ___2 ____ 1 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___1 ___1 ___ 2* ___ 0 ___ Normal _____________ 1 ___3 ___1 ____ 1 ____ 0 ___0 ___2 ____ 0 ____ 1 ____ 0 ___ 0 ___0 ___ 0 ____ 0  Stebo __________________1 ___0 ___1 ____ 1 ____ 0 ___0 ___0 ____ 0 ____ 1 ____ 0 ___ 0 ___0 ___ 0 ____ 1 ___ FEB  RJay ___________________0 ___0 ___1 ____ 0 ____ 1 ___0 ___0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___1 ___0 ___ 0 ____ 0 Orangeburgwx _________ 0 ___ 0 ___ 0 ____ 0 ____1 ___1 ___0 ____ 1 ____ 1 ____ 1 ___ 1 ___0 ___ 0 ____ 1 ___ OCT smerby _________________0 ___1 ___0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___0 ___1 ____ 0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___0 ___0 ___ 0 ____ 0  jakkelwx _______________ 0 ___0 ___0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___0 ___0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ____ 0 ___1 ___0 ___ 1 ____ 0  __________________________________________________________________________________  Extreme forecasts    STANDINGS to date in 2019 Roger Smith _________23-7 (3 _/) RodneyS ____________ 11-4 DonSutherland1 ______ 8-0 wxallannj ____________ 7-2 Scotty Lightning ______6-1 Normal ______________ 6-1 wxdude64 ___________ 5-0 hudsonvalley21 _______5-0 (1 _/) Orangeburgwx _______ 5-2 Tom _________________ 4-1 Stebo ________________3-1 BKViking ____________ 2-0*^% RJay ________________ 1-0  tplbge _______________1-0  Jakkelwx ____________1-0  *retained if Jakkelwx plays fewer than three.  ^ no decision for BOS, SEA in Aug (highest raw score reduced by late penalty) ^ also no decision for PHX (Sep) same reason. % also no decision for PHX (Oct) same reason. _/ ... Roger Smith (Oct) has three wins among regular forecasters but Orangeburgwx has higher scores and wins for those also. Hudsonvalley (BOS) same reason for symbol. ... ... The other win for Orangeburgwx was a tie with DonS (ATL) so this symbol is not needed for that. ... ... IAH was scored an extreme forecast in Oct because it would have qualified among regular forecasters. There was a win-loss situation and Orangeburgwx shared a loss (with RS) although if he were a regular participant the outcome would not have qualified. (third coldest forecast of Tom, and Normal, shared a win).  ______________________________________________________________________________

As of October 28th, October had scored 4/1/0 and the seasonal count was 16/6/3. (edit, on 30th STS Rebekah was named so now we are at 5/1/0 and seasonal 17/6/3. (edit, in mid-November Sebastien was named so now the seasonal count is 18/6/3. There is some chance that Sebastien will briefly become a marginal hurricane. The previous alternate scoring for Nov-Dec 0/0/0 is changed to 1/1/0 with the main scoring table continuing to he based on 1/0/0.) Scoring for October is out of ten points maximum. The October scores can be seen in the table below which adds in all other months scored to date, your current seasonal score if November verifies at 1/0/0 and your Nov-Dec score (out of 2 points) if that happens. Nov-Dec error deductions are half the rate for most months, like June and July. You might end up scoring higher if you have a different forecast from 1/0/0 in Nov-Dec and that verifies instead. Table 2 below the main table showed the same thing for 0/0/0 outcomes. As of Nov 20 it was changed to the now relevant 1/1/0 outcome. (edit, this part has been resolved now) ... But keep in mind that October might not be a done deal yet as there is a 20% chance shown for the mid-Atlantic low (which is now Rebekah) and there could always be something popping up in the Caribbean. It would have to be named by Nov 1 03z to get onto the October count though. Provisional scoring for 2019 Hurricane / tropical storm forecast contest Scoring now assumes 5/1/0 the final count for October, 1/0/0 for Nov-Dec and 18/6/3 the seasonal count. This table will be adjusted if necessary going forward. FORECASTER ________ season __ Jun __ Jul __ Aug __ Sep __ Oct __ N-D ___ months (max 50)___TOTAL (max 100) Ineedsnow ____________ 48 ______ 2.5 __ 5.5 __ 12.0 __ 13.0 __ 9.0 __ 1.5 ___ 43.5 _______________ 91.5 __ Contest normal _____ 44 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 10.0 __ 13.0 __ 5.0 __ 1.5 ___ 38.5 _______________ 82.5 snowlover2 ____________46 ______ 3.5 __ 4.0 __ 11.0 __ 13.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.5 ___ 36.0 _______________ 82.0 North Arlington 101 ____46 ______ 3.5 __ 4.5 __ 11.0 __ 12.0 __ 3.0 __ 2.0 ___ 36.0 _______________ 82.0 hlcater ________________ 42 ______ 3.5 __ 6.0 __ 10.0 __ 12.0 __ 6.0 __ 2.0 ___ 39.5 _______________ 81.5 NCforecaster89 _______ 44 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 ___ 9.0 __ 6.0 __ 2.0 ___ 37.0 _______________ 81.0 __ consensus __________43 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 __ 12.0 __ 3.0 __ 2.0 ___ 37.0 _______________ 80.0 stormlover74 __________41 ______ 4.0 __ 5.0 __ 10.0 __ 12.0 __ 6.0 __ 2.0 ___39.0 _______________ 80.0 __ NHC (high end) _____ 40 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 10.0 __ 12.0 __ 5.0 __ 1.5 ___ 37.5 _______________ 77.5 cyclonic fury __________ 39 ______ 4.0 __ 5.5 __ 10.0 __ 12.0 __ 4.0 __ 2.0 ___ 37.5 _______________ 76.5 RJay __________________ 41 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 ___ 8.0 __ 12.0 __ 3.0 __ 2.0 ___ 34.0 _______________ 75.0 Julian Colton __________ 38 ______ 4.0 __ 5.5 ___ 9.0 __ 10.0 __ 5.0 __ 1.0 ___ 34.5 _______________ 72.5 __ CSU (June fcst) _____ 34 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 __ 12.0 __ 4.0 __1.5 ___ 37.5 _______________ 71.5 yoda __________________ 33 ______ 3.5 __ 6.0 __ 10.0 __ 10.0 __ 7.0 __ 1.5 ___ 38.0 _______________ 71.0 A few Univ b n _________ 34 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 ___ 9.0 __ 10.0 __ 3.0 __ 2.0 ___ 33.0 _______________ 67.0 Stebo _________________ 40 ______ 3.5 __ 4.0 __ 11.0 ___ 2.0 __ 3.0 __ 2.0 ___ 25.5 _______________ 65.5 Roger Smith ___________ 27 ______ 3.0 __ 6.0 ___ 8.0 __ 14.0 __ 5.0 __ 2.0 ___ 38.0 _______________ 65.0 __ NHC (median) ______ 29 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 ___ 9.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.5 ___ 33.5 _______________ 62.5 yotaman ______________ 33 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 ___ 4.0 __ 3.0 __ 2.0 ___ 29.0 _______________ 62.0 (Alternate version for Nov-Dec 1/1/0 and seasonal 18/7/3) FORECASTER ________ season __ Jun __ Jul __ Aug __ Sep __ Oct __ N-D ___ months (max 50)___TOTAL (max 100) Ineedsnow ____________ 49 ______ 2.5 __ 5.5 __ 12.0 __ 13.0 __ 9.0 __ 1.0 ___ 43.0 _______________ 92.0 __ Contest normal _____ 47 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 10.0 __ 13.0 __ 5.0 __ 1.0 ___ 37.5 _______________ 84.5 snowlover2 ____________47 ______ 3.5 __ 4.0 __ 11.0 __ 13.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.0 ___ 35.5 _______________ 82.5 North Arlington 101 ____47 ______ 3.5 __ 4.5 __ 11.0 __ 12.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.5 ___ 35.5 _______________ 82.5 hlcater ________________ 43 ______ 3.5 __ 6.0 __ 10.0 __ 12.0 __ 6.0 __ 1.5 ___ 39.0 _______________ 82.0 NCforecaster89 _______ 45 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 ___ 9.0 __ 6.0 __ 1.5 ___ 36.5 _______________ 81.5 __ consensus __________44 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 __ 12.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.5 ___ 36.5 _______________ 80.5 __ NHC (high end) _____ 42 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 10.0 __ 12.0 __ 5.0 __ 1.0 ___ 37.0 _______________ 79.0 stormlover74 __________39 ______ 4.0 __ 5.0 __ 10.0 __ 12.0 __ 6.0 __ 1.0 ___38.5 _______________ 77.5 RJay __________________ 44 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 ___ 8.0 __ 12.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.5 ___ 33.5 _______________ 77.5 Julian Colton __________ 41 ______ 4.0 __ 5.5 ___ 9.0 __ 10.0 __ 5.0 __ 1.5 ___ 35.0 _______________ 76.0 cyclonic fury __________ 38 ______ 4.0 __ 5.5 __ 10.0 __ 12.0 __ 4.0 __ 1.5 ___ 37.0 _______________ 75.0 yoda __________________ 34 ______ 3.5 __ 6.0 __ 10.0 __ 10.0 __ 7.0 __ 1.0 ___ 37.5 _______________ 71.5 Roger Smith ___________ 33 ______ 3.0 __ 6.0 ___ 8.0 __ 14.0 __ 5.0 __ 1.5 ___ 37.5 _______________ 70.5 __ CSU (June fcst) _____ 33 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 __ 12.0 __ 4.0 __1.0 ___ 37.0 _______________ 70.0 A few Univ b n _________ 37 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 ___ 9.0 __ 10.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.5 ___ 32.5 _______________ 69.5 Stebo _________________ 44 ______ 3.5 __ 4.0 __ 11.0 ___ 2.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.5 ___ 25.0 _______________ 64.0 yotaman ______________ 36 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 ___ 4.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.0 ___ 28.0 _______________ 64.0 __ NHC (median) ______ 28 ______ 3.5 __ 5.5 __ 11.0 ___ 9.0 __ 3.0 __ 1.0 ___ 33.0 _______________ 61.0

The 2019 temperature forecast contest approaches its conclusion with this second-last month ... predict temperature anomalies (relative to 1981-2010 normal values) in F deg for DCA _ NYC _ BOS ___ ORD _ ATL _ IAH ____ DEN _ PHX _ SEA and also, as in previous years, there's an independent second contest to enter, winter snowfall which applies to all the same locations except ATL, IAH and PHX, for those, we substitute in DTW, BUF and BTV. Entrants should predict to nearest tenth of inch the winter 2019-2020 snowfall at the nine locations DCA _ NYC _ BOS ___ ORD _ DTW _ BUF ___ DEN _ BTV _ SEA including what may have already fallen at some locations, through to the end of May (or if necessary June 2020, the official season runs July 1 to June 30 but in practice is September to May). You don't have to enter the temperature contest to take part in the snowfall contest. But you can enter both either at the same time, or by later entry into the snowfall portion. Deadlines for the temperature forecast contest will be the usual on-time deadline of 06z on 1st, with late penalties thereafter. For the snowfall contest, you have basically most of November with the deadline falling on the 22nd. I will send any temperature forecast entrants a reminder if they don't produce a snowfall contest entry by Nov 20th. Good luck !!

Final scoring for October, 2019 ^ Scoring for DEN uses the "maximum 60" rule and all scores are boosted. DCA qualified for this also (highest raw score was 58) but only the top score was improved by the minimum progression so all other scores are natural since they are higher than the mercy rule method. ATL scores were also subject to the max 60 although the two top scores went up only one point from 59 to 60 and all the rest were higher by the regular scoring procedure anyway. FORECASTER _________________________DCA_NYC_BOS__east__ORD_ATL_IAH__cent__c/e__DEN_PHX_SEA__west ___ TOTAL Orangeburgwx __________________________ 50 _ 90 _ 78 __ 218 __ 88 _ 60^_ 80 ___ 228 __ 446 __ 60^_100_ 76 ___236 _____ 682 DonSutherland.1 ________________________ 56 _ 84 _ 60 __ 200 __ 56 _ 60^_ 80 ___196 __ 396 __ 42^_ 68 _ 80 ___ 190 _____ 586 wxdude64 ______________________________ 60^_ 74 _ 46 __ 180 __ 60 _ 47 _ 78 ___ 185 __ 365 __ 36^_ 76 _ 94 ___ 206 _____ 571 BKViking _______ (-1%) __________________ 36 _69*_ 51*__ 156 __ 55*_ 41 _ 85*___ 181 __ 337 __ 36^_ 75*_ 93*__ 204 _____ 541 ___ Consensus __________________________ 46 _ 68 _ 49 ___ 162 __ 56 _ 49 _ 82 ___ 187 __ 349 __ 36^_ 68 _ 84 ___ 188 ______ 537 wxallannj _______________________________ 42 _ 64 _ 50 __ 156 __ 52 _ 49 _ 82 ___ 183 __ 339 __ 24^_ 64 _ 88 ___ 176 _____ 515 Roger Smith ____________________________ 32 _ 54 _ 36 __ 122 __ 74 _ 00 _ 64 ___ 138 __ 260 __ 54^_ 98 _ 90 ___ 242 _____ 502 hudsonvalley21 _________________________ 56 _ 92 _ 74 __ 222 __ 56 _ 29 _ 82 ___ 167 __ 389 __ 06^_ 60 _ 40 ___ 106 _____ 495 Tom ____________________________________ 30 _ 50 _ 34 __ 114 __ 70 _ 17 _ 94 ___ 181 __ 295 __ 48^_ 58 _ 62 ___ 168 _____ 463 RodneyS ________________________________ 54 _ 64 _ 38 __ 156 __ 20 _ 51 _ 48 ___ 119 __ 275 __ 24^_ 70 _ 62 ___ 156 _____ 431 ___ Normal ______________________________08 _ 40 _ 32 __ 080 __ 66 _ 00 _ 94 ___ 160 __ 240 __ 45^_ 82 _ 60 ___ 187 _____ 427 Scotty Lightning _________________________28 _ 60 _ 42 __ 130 __ 56 _ 19 _ 76 ___ 151 __ 281 __ 12^_ 52 _ 60 ___ 124 _____ 405 ==================================================================================== * = 1% late penalty deductions ^ (DEN) scoring by rule of maximum score 60, top raw score was only 30 there. DCA only top score needed adjustment from 58 to 60, all other raw scores higher than minimum progression, ATL also subject to same method as anomaly +5.1 but once again only top scores marginally boosted from 59 to 60.. Extreme Forecasts All locations are now in the running for an extreme forecast. DCA (+4.6) goes to wxdude64 (+2.5) for the win. NYC (+3.0) goes to hudsonvalley21 (+2.6) for the win. BOS (+3.4) goes to Orangeburgwx (+2.3) and hudsonvalley21 (+2.1) as full-time participant. ORD (-1.7) goes to Orangeburgwx (-1.1) and Roger Smith (-0.4) as full-time participant. ATL (+5.1) goes to DonSutherland1 and Orangeburgwx (tied +3.0). IAH (+0.3) has dropped close to qualifying zone, will count it (among only regulars, would be a win for Tom and loss for Roger Smith but Orangeburgwx had a lower forecast that would usually disqualify the outcome as high score belongs to third coldest forecast. Also Normal would get a win on this outcome.So it will be shared wins for Tom and Normal, shared loss for Roger S and Orangeburgwx. DEN (-7.2) goes to Orangeburgwx (-2.6) and Roger Smith (-2.0) as full-time participant. PHX (-0.9) counts as a win for both Orangeburgwx (-0.9) and Roger Smith (-1.0). SEA (-2.0) goes to wxdude64 (-1.7) with Orangeburgwx taking a loss (-3.2) and BKV a "no decision" (-1.7, late pen).

Here's a brief summary of my research findings for the 2019-20 winter LRF. This looks like being a "front-loaded" winter that changes from a cold eastern regime in Nov-Dec and possibly early January, to a very mild eastern regime for later parts of January and most of February. This trend would likely continue into March, so a lot of the traditional storm opportunity period for the east coast may be removed from play. However, a front-loaded winter can produce its own brand of memorable winter weather too. Expect the circulation to be dominated by high amplitude ridge-trough coupling with a gradual retrograde component that will cause the mid-winter reversal. The first part of the winter will see frequent incursions of very cold air into the Midwest, Ohio valley, southeastern U.S. and east coast. The storm track will likely run up the coast at times and sometimes from the eastern Gulf to the Great Lakes. Some heavy snowfalls are likely in the eastern half of the U.S. in November and December. Out west it should be relatively dry with a little less than normal coastal rain and mountain snow in general. Around early to mid January this pattern will retrograde allowing the storm track to shift to the plains states towards the upper Great Lakes. Temperatures will rebound to above normal values and there could be a blowtorch effect for the east coast at times. Heavy snow in this phase (mid-Jan into Feb-Mar) would be most likely from higher parts of the desert southwest into northern NM, Colorado then northeast to Minnesota. This part of the winter might see anomalous cold, dry spells over the PNW and western Canada with diminished coastal rainfall and some mountain snows but not enough to reach normal values. Analogues include (Jan) 1932, 1937 and 1950, 1968 and 1969, 1986 and 1990.. This pattern might relax at times to allow modified cold to seep into the Midwest and Great Lakes, setting up a secondary storm track from Missouri to upstate New York. This would not cut off the mild air from the coast but might lead to heavy mixed falls inland from Kentucky to northern New England. Because the energy level will be high for storm development, some memorable storms could occur. During the colder first half of the winter one or two very heavy snowfalls might be expected in the I-95 corridor. Major blizzards might be encountered later in the winter in the central and northern plains states. Looking forward to the other forecasts and won't be too surprised if there would be quite a range of options, as the high-amplitude factor means high risk-reward in terms of placement of features and evolution. In other words, confidence not rated as high going into this, but that's the scenario that my research model has indicated. Best bet for winter storm on the east coast is Dec 25-26. Best bet for record highs in the warmer portion of winter is mid to late February.

Oops, no tie-breaker. But I don;t foresee being tied so there you go. Not looking too bad on the long-range charts for an early end to frost-free season, question might be, would all four go at the same time? Takes a fairly potent cold shot to do that, I would assume, with DCA in such a warmed up location and RIC further south.

Given that voters in most countries are divided on their level of concern about climate change, I think the best political solution is to reshape the paradigm and take climate change out of the equation to some extent, focusing instead on benefits in general from alternative (non-fossil-fuel) energy sources. If there are demonstrable benefits from such a transition, then the climate change issue fades into the background. Another change in political emphasis should be towards mitigation of problems. Whether the alleged problems are caused by AGW, other forms of natural variability, or non-climate factors, these problems need to be addressed. For example, forest fires (or wildfires) are said to be increasing. Maybe they are, maybe not. But more to the point, an advanced society should be able to manage this problem. It is probably more cpmplex than just AGW forcing more fires. There are questions like changing lifestyles (the exurban population increasing rapidly), interface questions, and philosophies about fighting or containing fires. So that sort of climate-related issue can be approached as a self-contained problem that the climate is not a key factor in controlling, in fact it would make a lot of sense to have large changes in our management of the wildfire issue, regardless of what the climate is doing or not doing. To some extent, I think the climate "emergency" is overblown hype, those who peddle it for political gain seem to have no knowledge whatsoever of the range of past weather and climate events. There may be subtle changes as part of AGW, or what we see may be just inevitable natural variability. Either way, it's a safe bet that nothing we do will actually change the future weather observed on our planet by more than a very slight amount. So knowing that, we should have mitigation strategies in place, rather than dealing in these fantasies about paying a tax on carbon to change the weather. That simply isn't going to happen, no matter how many people say so with whatever level of urgency and passion.If the oceans begin to rise in a more dramatic fashion, what can be done about it? Plans must be drawn up for protection or even removal of critical infrastructure, and populations at risk, but only when it becomes apparent that there is no alternative. I don't say this to make denial a policy, I say it because it is the only rational approach. The political parties who deal in a tax-to-solve approach are just deluding themselves and their voters. Their plans cannot possibly work. Mitigation might include diversion of some ocean water into massive desalination/irrigation projects which are needed anyway for other reasons. This is what we should be doing, rather than taxing carbon.

I can attest to how cold it is behind this system because I'm there, and it's cold (about 35 F at 4,000' in southern BC and likely going down to near 20 F tonight under clearing skies). Noticed how there was quite a strong push of arctic air south into the Great Lakes region near the end of the latest GFS run, could be lake effect snow with that (not this current system but in about two weeks from now). Early cold is not a good signal for a prolonged east coast cold winter, most years with a cold October seem to sustain the cold to about Christmas-New Years then it flips to very mild. That happened in the coldest case of all (1875) as well as more recently in 1987. I did find a few similar patterns that held on a bit longer such as 1969-70 and 1976-77 (the flip was in mid-Feb there). We already had a heavy snow here a week ago which was probably a new early season record although I can't find stats going back very far for my location. Around Sep 28-29 we had about four inches on the ground where I live and 15-20 inches a bit higher up to our northwest (around 5500' asl there). Quite a bit of that snow has persisted through to today out of town, we can still see snow on nearby hilltops that fell then, with a bit of dusting last night added in. It has also been anomalously cold for several months in Finland and western Russia.

Seasonal Max contest -- final results Scoring for seasonal max 2019 -- departures (F deg) from actual values ___________________________ DCA_NYC_BOS _ ORD_ATL_IAH _ DEN_PHX_SEA Actual values ______________ 99 _ 95 _ 98 ___ 95 _100 _103 ___ 101 _115 _ 95 ___ Total dep 01 _ wxallannj _______________2 __ 1 __ 3 ____ 1 __ 2 __ 3 ______ 1 __ 1 __ 0 _____ 14 02 _ RodneyS _______________ 0 __ 3 __ 2 ____ 0 __ 1 __ 2 ______ 3 __ 1 __ 3 _____ 15 t03 _hudsonvalley21 _________2 __ 5 __ 2 ____ 4 __ 1 __ 0 ______ 1 __ 1 __ 1 _____ 17 t03 _DonSutherland1 ________1 __ 3 __ 2 ____ 1 __ 2 __ 1 ______ 3 __ 2 __ 2 _____ 17 05 _ BKViking _______________1 __ 3 __ 2 ____ 4 __ 1 __ 3 ______ 1 __ 2 __ 1 _____ 18 06 _ Tom ___________________ 0 __ 4 __ 2 ____ 5 __ 1 __ 1 ______ 2 __ 4 __ 2 _____ 21 07 _ wxdude64 _____________ 3 __ 5 __ 3 ____ 5 __ 1 __ 1 ______ 1 __ 3 __ 0 _____ 22 08 _ Scotty Lightning _______ 3 __ 5 __ 0 ____ 1 __ 1 __ 2 ______ 6 __ 2 __ 2 _____ 22 09 _ Roger Smith ___________ 8 __ 9 __ 7 ____ 8 __ 1 __ 2 ______ 3 __ 5 __ 5 _____ 48 Seasonal Max forecasts for 2019 Roger Smith _______________ 107 _ 104 _ 105 __ 103 _ 101 _ 101 __ 104 _ 120 _ 100 wxdude64 _________________ 102 _ 100 _ 101 __ 100 __ 99 _ 104 __ 102 _ 118 __ 95 Scotty Lightning ____________102 _ 100 __ 98 ___ 96 _ 101 _ 105 ___ 95 _ 117 __ 93 hudsonvalley21 ____________ 101 _ 100 __ 96 ___ 99 __ 99 _ 103 __ 100 _ 116 __ 94 BKViking __________________ 100 __ 98 __ 96 ___ 99 __ 99 _ 100 __ 100 _ 117 __ 94 DonSutherland1 ____________100 __ 98 __ 96 ___ 96 __ 98 _ 102 ___ 98 _ 117 __ 93 Tom _______________________ 99 __ 99 __ 96 ___100 _ 101 _ 102 ___ 99 _ 119 __ 97  RodneyS ___________________99 __ 98 __ 96 ___ 95 __ 99 _ 101 ___ 98 _ 116 __ 92 wxallannj ___________________97 __ 96 __ 95 ___ 96 __ 98 _ 100 __ 100 _ 116 __ 95 ============================================================================= Congrats to wxallannj for a winning total of 14 deg just ahead of RodneyS at 15, with hudsonvalley21 and DonSutherland1 tied third at 17. The best performances in regions were: _ Eastern (DCA, NYC, BOS) __ best score RodneyS (5 deg) __ second place wxallannj, BKViking, DonSutherland, Tom (all 6 deg) _ Central (ORD, ATL, IAH) ___ best score RodneyS (3 deg) ___ second place Don Sutherland and Scotty Lightning (both 4 deg) _ Western (DEN, PHX, SEA) _ best score wxallannj (2 deg) __ second place hudsonvalley21 (3 deg) __ third wxdude64, BKV (4 deg) The most perfect forecasts went to RodneyS with two. Our consensus forecasts would have scored 16 points, good for third place. We were generally a bit too high for NYC and ORD, otherwise quite close as a group to the other seven. Given the number of hot days, it's perhaps somewhat surprising that the outcomes were all rather close to seasonal normals, but perhaps that was due to high humidity which can make it difficult for readings to get much past 100 degrees (apart from PHX which also had a rather average outcome despite a lot of sustained heat waves). The next special contest will be seasonal snowfall and that will be introduced in the November thread.

So nice to be able to work at a normally fast speed on this website again, so here's the picture after one week of October ... and it's cold out west, snowing outside my place right now (I am near 4,000 feet up a hill in southern BC but it's quite early for this elevation to get snow, surrounding peaks of 7-8k feet are covered from the last event we had in late September when a foot of snow fell nearby) ... ______________________________________ DCA _ NYC _ BOS ___ ORD _ ATL _ IAH ____ DEN _ PHX _ SEA _ 8th ______________ (7d) ______________+8.9 _ +3.6 _ +1.4 ___+3.3 _+13.2 _+6.9 ___ --1.4 _ --0.3 _ --1.4 _15th _____________ (14d) ____________ +6.3 _ +2.9 _ +1.8 ___+0.8 _ +9.1 _ +3.5 ___ --3.8 _ --0.2 _ --2.9 _22nd _____________ (21d) ____________+4.0 _ +1.7 _ +1.8e___+0.6 _ +5.8 _ +3.0 ___ --2.8 _ +0.3 _ --1.8 _29th _____________ (28d) ____________ +4.2 _ +2.5 _ +2.8 ___ --0.4 _ +5.1 _ +1.3 ___ --4.8 _ +0.1 _ --1.5 _ 8th _____________ (p14d) ____________ +2.5 _ +0.3 _ --0.3 ___+1.8 _ +7.5 _ +3.8 ___ --1.5 _ --2.7 _ --1.6 _15th _____________ (p21d) ___________ +3.5 _ +2.0 _ +1.8 ___ +0.5 _ +5.0 _ +2.7 ___ --0.5 _ +0.2 _ --2.0 _22nd _____________ (p28d) ___________+3.2 _ +1.5 _ +1.5 ___ +0.2 _ +4.3 _ +1.8 ___ --2.0 _ +0.8 _ --0.8 _ 8th _____________ (p24d) ____________ +1.5 __ 0.0 _ --0.5 ___ +1.0 _ +4.5 _+2.0 ___ +0.5 _ --1.0 _ --1.5 _22nd ____________ (p31d) ____________+2.0 _ +0.5 __ 0.0 ___ --1.0 _ +3.0 _ +1.0 ___ --1.5 _ +1.0 _ --0.5 _29th _____________ (p31d) ___________ +4.5 _ +3.0 _ +3.0 ___ --1.0 _ +5.5 _ +1.0 ___ --7.0 _ --1.0 _ --2.0 _ 1 Nov ___ final anomalies ___________ +4.6 _ +3.0_ +3.4 ___ --1.6 _ +5.1 _ +0.3___ -7.2 _ --0.9 _ --2.0 The results of the Seasonal Max contest have bee posted in the September thread. 8th _ After a very warm start in the eastern and central regions, the coming week looks more variable so the large positive anomalies will be reduced or largely voided. The west has been running rather cool and this trend appears likely to continue for the coming week. The outlook period from GFS guidance 15th to 24th appears near normal in the east, perhaps a little below normal in central regions, with a warming trend indicated for PHX and DEN, not so much for SEA however. Projections are based on rather conservative estimates a little below average in the east to perhaps 2-3 above in the west. 15th _ Forecast verification was relatively poor, the amount of cold air arriving in central regions was well predicted but it tended to modify faster than expected when it reached the east coast. The average error was therefore 1.9 F deg (generally too cold by that amount). This coming week appears rather close to average in many areas but a bit warmer than average due to a very warm start for DEN, and later warmth in PHX. The extension of the forecast from day 8 to 16 (GFS) proceeds on the assumption of -3 anomalies in the eastern and central regions, including DEN, and slightly above normal in PHX and SEA. These may be rather conservative numbers given the outflow of very cold air from the arctic into the Great Lakes region during the period. Based on -6 anomalies the eastern stations could end up below normal despite current healthy positives. ATL and IAH will be cut back into our forecast range and ORD could fall lower than shown here as well. Our lowest ORD forecast is -1.1. The current scoring estimate for consensus from the provisionals posted above would be 762/900 so there could be some high scoring this month. Will post provisional scoring after 21st update and better handle on end of month changes. 22nd _ This past week the forecasts recovered to a more normal outcome with the average error only 0.5 deg, and DEN accounted for about half of that. This coming week looks rather average in the east and a bit warmer than normal in the west. The last three days of the month are looking very cold in the eastern and central regions and mild out west. Only the DCA provisional has been changed for the preliminary scoring posted a few days ago. It will evidently fall a bit less than anticipated but all these late month decreases are of course subject to the usual GFS caveat about overdoing cold outbreaks that far in advance. 29th _ The past week's forecasts were somewhat off due to the larger ridge-trough signature that developed towards the end of the week. The average error was just over 1.0 deg. However, the projections based on the 8-10d GFS last week have proven to be way out, as the cold air is trapped in central regions and not making a move east until near end of the month. This has resulted in a considerable increase in provisionals for the four stations in the eastern time zone, little change needed for ORD and IAH, but severe cold has set in out west and looks locked in for a few more days, so all three western locations have seen a drop (DEN has snow cover too so the cold is biting with -30 anomalies yesterday and expected the next two days). The chill will extend to PHX and SEA (currently 15 F outside my house in south-central BC). Provisional scoring will be fixed and then some annual scoring updates can be posted later today (may not get to that until evening). Nov 1st _ All final anomalies have now been posted. Scoring will be adjusted until it's finalized by 16z. Check back after that on Friday Nov 1st to see the final results -- you will see table headers change wording to final (from provisional) scoring when all is completed. Looks like the scoring race has tightened up with leader RodneyS losing some ground to DonS and wxdude64. Could be an epic finish this year. A few others are not quite out of the hunt yet, all depends on how November turns out as I see there's a good spread of predictions there.

I think that if there are some potent cold shots early in the season (Oct-Nov) it may signal a variable winter to follow, as is often the case, with roughly equal mild or cold spells in the main winter months. I've said elsewhere that the most likely storm track this winter would be something like OK-TN-MD/sPA-seMA and this would imply a variety of storm types for the Mid Atlantic region. The odds would favour one or perhaps two significant winter storms for your region but the core of above normal snowfalls would be north of that storm track, for the northeast, inland PA, n NJ, most of NY and New England. This is of course just amplifying the normal regional outcome, but within that framework, at least I;m not seeing much chance of a blowtorch or dry winter.

Thanks for running this. The season did not quite meet my expectations for severity of heat although there was certainly no lack of heat generally speaking it was one of the hotter summers but as some were able to figure out in advance, the relatively moist soil conditions probably reduced the potential for 100+ days.

Near average overall, some portions quite mild, others rather cold, with reasonable chances for at least one big winter storm. I ran my research model and came up with rather indecisive index values that were generally near long-term averages for the eastern U.S. in general. Still, as with Jan 2016, it just takes that one time for everything to align and you get the memorable storm despite lack of a memorable winter overall. Could be something along those lines. West could have a colder than normal winter which is one reason why reluctant to say cold in east, despite plenty of high latitude blocking and potent arctic air masses likely. Typical storm track may be fairly close to region keeping conditions mixed (OK-TN-MD/sPA-seMA). As a result, may be a good snowfall winter at WV ski areas even if rather average for snow in the coastal plain.

Table of forecasts for October 2019 FORECASTER ___________________________ DCA _ NYC _ BOS ___ ORD _ ATL _ IAH ____ DEN _ PHX _ SEA wxdude64 ______________________________ +2.5 _ +1.7 _ +0.7 ___ +0.3 _ +2.4 _ +1.4 ___ +0.5 _ +0.3 _ --1.7 hudsonvalley21 _________________________ +2.4 _ +2.6 _ +2.1 ___ +0.5 _ +1.5 _ +1.2 ___ +1.6 _ +1.1 _ +1.0 DonSutherland.1 ________________________ +2.4 _ +2.2 _ +1.4 ___ +0.5 _ +3.0 _ +1.3 ___ +0.4 _ +0.7 _ --1.0 RodneyS ________________________________ +2.3 _ +1.2 _ +0.3 ___ +2.3 _ +2.6 _ +2.9 ___ +0.7 _ +0.6 _ --0.1 Orangeburgwx __________________________ +2.1 _ +2.5 _ +2.3 ___ --1.1 _ +3.0 _ --0.7 ___ --2.6 _ --0.9 _ --3.2 ___ Consensus __________________________ +1.9 _ +1.4 _ +0.8 ____ +0.5 _ +2.5 _ +1.2 ____ +0.5 _ +0.7 _ --1.2 wxallannj _______________________________ +1.7 _ +1.2 _ +0.9 ___ +0.7 _ +2.5 _ +1.2 ___ +0.7 _ +0.9 _ --1.4 BKViking _______ (-1%) ___________________+1.4 _ +1.5 _ +1.0 ___ +0.5 _ +2.1 _ +1.0 ___ +0.5 _ +0.3 _ --1.7 Roger Smith _____________________________+1.2 _ +0.7 _ +0.2 ___ --0.4 _ --0.5 _ --1.5 ___ --2.0 _ --1.0 _ --1.5 Tom ____________________________________ +1.1 _ +0.5 _ +0.1 ___ --0.2 _ +0.9 _ +0.6 ___ --0.6 _ +1.2 _ --0.1 Scotty Lightning _________________________ +1.0 _ +1.0 _ +0.5 ___ +0.5 _ +1.0 _ +1.5 ___ +1.5 _ +1.5 __ 0.0 ___ Normal _______________________________ 0.0 __ 0.0 __ 0.0 _____ 0.0 __ 0.0 __ 0.0 _____ 0.0 __ 0.0 __ 0.0 ==================================================================================== Welcome back Orangeburgwx. Consensus for 10 forecasts is mean of 5th and 6th ranked. Color codes show warmest and coldest forecasts, note that Normal is colder than all forecasts for DCA, NYC and BOS.

Scoring has been completely updated now. FYI, BKV would have one point less than second place DonS without any late penalties (175 points in total). Tom is down 31 on one set of late penalties, but would remain a bit behind Scotty L. Wxdude64 has only lost nine points, but that would move him ahead of me into third (fourth counting BKV who has one more point than wxdude64 when late penalties are added). As I mentioned in a previous post, I don't really think BKV has lost quite that much ground as the later forecasts may have gained insight (which is why we have late penalties more than as a punitive measure). In the two months where BKV took significant numbers of points, he did manage to finish middle of the pack and had some high scores (best forecasts) at least on raw scores. If you assume that half the lost points would have remained lost with less insight, then adding 80 would get BKV closer to the chase pack but no further ahead (his total is now 128 behind hudsonvalley21). The chase pack has five within about 50 points, but RodneyS retains a lead of 237 over DonSutherland1. I worked out that over three months remaining in this year's contest, you can gain 216 points by being 0.4 F closer on each location.

+1.2 _ +0.7 _ +0.2 __ --0.4 _ --0.5 _ --1.5 __ --2.0 _ --1.0 _ --1.5