December C.E.T

[JohnAcc]

5.8ºC

I like 1] and 2] - but have a feeling 3] is over-complicating it.

Yeah I agree 1 & 2 sound good but not keen on 3.

My December punt is 5.6

Rgds, John

[SteveB]

1 & 2 yes. 3 not so keen on.

[Gavin P]

CET prediction;

CET - 5.1

Rainfall - 100%

Sunshine - 110%

A very average month. Very wet and mild first half. Much colder and drier second half. Chance of snow between Christmas and New Year with easterly winds and pressure high over Scandinavia.

[summer blizzard]

My final (only 2nd SF) prediction for the December CET is 5.2C, 0.1C above average.

I expect the CET for the half way mark to be 5.9C.

FWI.. I don't really support 3) but 1) and 2) are good additions.

[Stratos Ferric]

My final (only 2nd SF) prediction for the December CET is 5.2C, 0.1C above average.

I expect the CET for the half way mark to be 5.9C.

FWI.. I don't really support 3) but 1) and 2) are good additions.

Naah, you always say that. Still plenty of time for a few more changes yet SB.

[summer blizzard]

Naah, you always say that. Still plenty of time for a few more changes yet SB.

Lol, true however i don't remember making more than four, and i never change my punt after the start of the month.

[Optimus Prime]

Lol, true however i don't remember making more than four, and i never change my punt after the start of the month.

Only because you know a surcharge will come into effect.

Bit like these CET threads, the earlier they come the more changes people get. Perhaps we need a limit to the number allowed? I usually have two, provisional and final. Obviously monitoring the number of changes per person when considering how popular the threads are these days would be challenging.

[Paul Sherman]

Have not done this for a while so will go above average, like most of the Winter is going to be Unfortunately (It was a nice 4 month Blip) and plump for

6.4c

Paul Sherman

[Megamoonflake]

Happy to go with sugegstions 1 and 2, not sure about 3 though....

Anyway feel it's going to be a game of 2 halfs, mild first then less mild, therefore my crystal ball is telling me 5.8

Edited November 29, 2007 by Megamoonflake

[SMU]

My December CET Vote Goes to

6.3C

Amended-

S

Final Call

[ukmoose]

Jacko and I have talked about that and he's happy. The bigger issue, and even this isn't huge, is just in setting up the starting list that various people very kindly take it upon themselves to produce. The data strip and processing are fairly straightforward. Jacko, I suggest the starting list be formatted nn.n,nn.n: name, e.g. 06.4,06.1: Stratos Ferric. You'd better holler if you want it presenting differently.

That's great. I agree with all three proposals. Jacko and SF. Thanks very much.

Moose

[Nick F]

Mild first half or more, perhaps some brief cold spells later in the month but still leaving us above average.

6.0C

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

5.9°C

We'll predominantly be receiving westerlies that have passed over a massive zone of above average sea temperatures.

Where has the blocking gone?

[kold weather]

Sadly thats what tends to happen in strong La nina type patterns AFT, whilst we aren't quite at strong La nina its really close enough to it to suggest the atmosphere is behaving in that way.

Going to have to raise my CET forecast upto 6.1C, very mild start but plenty of time for that warmth to be eaten away by any sort of cold spell.

[Norrance]

I think near average again. 5.2C

[ukmoose]

A disappointing outlook. I have been concerned for some time that the high pressure to the south of us would develop as a very dominant and difficult to shift feature, hence I'm going to have to go for a very mild but not unusual 7 degrees please.

Thanks,

Moose

[WBSH]

Exactly 6c

[Jonnie G]

I will go for 5.7C please, which would mean 2007 had the lowest range in CET, beating 1974 by 0.1c

[Stratos Ferric]

ANNOUNCEMENT

Jacko and I have been discussing three amendments to the CET competition: one makes no difference to entrants at all, one other does, and the third might.

1 - Change to scoring: at present there is, as Jacko has pointed out, a very slight inequality in the scoring of the different sections. The scoring for absolute guess works fine, as does the scoring for proximity / accuracy. The concern we share is for the position points, where, in a month with a low number of entrants, the winner might be disadvantaged. In theory it would be possible for someone to win two months on the trot and still attract fewer points than a non winner in a month with far more entrants. Therefore, the proposal is, in every month, to allocate a normalised value for positional points. The first placed entrant will attract 100 points, and the bottom placed just 1 point. Points will then be allocated at equal intervals between 1-100 to each position from second to next last.

2 - To make this work more smoothly, and avoid the 'problem' of multiple entrants on any one value getting the same placing, the proposal is that where there are several entrants punting the same value, entries be ranked preferentially from the earliest received to the last. For example, say I guess 8.6 on the 31st of the month, Jacko guesses the same on the 30th, and SB makes his fifth and last guess of the month at the same value on the 29th. To keep it simple, just say there were 100 entrants this particular month, and we were tied 8th. Ordinarily we would all attract 93 points. The proposal now is that SB would get 93, Jacko 92, and myself 91, i.e. we would be allocated not 8=, but 8th, 9th and 10th place respectively.

3 - BONUS POINTS. To spice the competition up a bit we are proposing a mid month 'sprint' bonus. This would require that entrants make two guesses (alternatively, entrants not making a mid month guess would have their final value count for mid month as well). The bonus here would be a simple 10pt for nailing it bang on (or 0.05 either side should the value be a n.n5 value on the morning of the 16th of the month) and 5 points for upto +/- 0.2 either side of the target value(s). For example, say the mid month is 8.3, then values from 8.1 - 8.5 would pick up bonus points, with 10 for 8.3. If the value were 8.25 then 8.0 - 8.5 would score, with both 8.2 and 8.3 attracting the ten bonus points.

Items 1 and 2 can be started with immediate effect, albeit - in the case of 2 - to the very slight advantage of those having made early punts.

Item 3 would require all entrants to date to offer an additional mid way punt, should they want to choose one differing from their final value. The running mean for the past Decembers has been posted by Yours Truly a couple of pages back, make of it what you will.

So, our proposal is to commence with no.1 and no.2 anyway; what we need is a quick vox-pop re number 3. Ayes to the right; nos to the left.

On the basis that there is no strong support for proposal three, and given that few entrants have made a doubel punt, we'll park that one I think, but the scoring process will be amended consistent with no.s 1 and 2.

Cheers

SF

[Glacier Point]

Thanks SF and Jackone for all your efforts this year !

[ukmoose]

Thanks SF and Jackone for all your efforts this year !

I'd like to echo that. Many thanks for putting in so much time and keeping it going. Great stuff guys.

Moose

[J10]

Happy to go along with the decision to go for 1 and 2. :lol:

But No 3 would not have resulted in that much extra work.

I also have a favour to ask, could the people who very kindly produce the list of entrants, please in future put the post number alongside the entry, to allow for ease of calculating date of entry. It would be very much appreciated.

So the List Could be

Jackone 5.6c, 149

Jonnie G 5.7c, 145

By the way that's not my entry for the month.

[Stu_London]

Stu London - 5.5C #150

[Stratos Ferric]

Thanks SF and Jackone for all your efforts this year !

Mainly JackO to be fair. But let's not overlook SB and the various others who compile the starting lists with scarcely even a prod.

Happy to go along with the decision to go for 1 and 2. :lol:

But No 3 would not have resulted in that much extra work.

I also have a favour to ask, could the people who very kindly produce the list of entrants, please in future put the post number alongside the entry, to allow for ease of calculating date of entry. It would be very much appreciated.

So the List Could be

Jackone 5.6c, 149

Jonnie G 5.7c, 145

By the way that's not my entry for the month.

Further to that, and to make the automated strip operate as smoothly as possible, can I suggest we adopt:

Name nn.nC, xxx

E.g. Stratos Ferric 06.4c, 077.

This just makes sure that values always appear at exactly the same location in the data string - hence the zeroes are vital, particularly re temperature in months when entries span 10.0 (anyone who sees the UKMO data files and wonders at fields with lots of 9s in will realise that they also use packing to make sure that entires are always in the same relative position in string).

Well I have no hope of winning the annual CET competition and I just thought it would be funny if we got a massive record month and Craig Evans still lost.

Don't forget this is a new comp Eddie. We follow the four statistical met seasons, not the calendar year. You won't win the new competition either though with guesses like that' or at least it wouldn't look likley when you punted, but as Harold Wilson said, a week's a long time in the evolution of weather models.

Interesting to see the early punts being more cold. Current spell influencing? I will wait until.....30/11 but it won't be warm

BFTP

Words...famous...last...soon...too..spoken?

[Stratos Ferric]

It's looking like a very mild first half, and in the even larger teapot December is particularly prone to being mild, and not really changing significantly what it's begun. The Atlantic is warm, the pattern in the Pacific is less diverse, and we've been cool for a while though clearly trending out now. A bold feeling...

6.5 C

which would give us a year at no.2 on the all time list. Nagging feeling, as last month, that this might be a tad too low.