BAMOS June 2017
9
Weather Tipping update
Grant Beard , Weather Tipping administrator , 23 May 2017
The first eight rounds have taken competitors to all points of the compass , with forecasts required for localities in every state and the Northern Territory . Round 9 is the ACT ' s turn at Canberra Airport .
After the first eight rounds , the official Bureau of Meteorology forecasts sit atop the ladder on 36 points , equal with Merlinde Kay in second place . In other words , the Bureau has , on average , proved unbeatable to date . It is some years since this has been the case because a successful tactic in the past has been to detect and exploit the Bureau ' s Achilles Heel , if indeed there was one . For example , extreme weather tends to be underforecast by the prediction models , so those situations are a chance to gain a few points over the Bureau .
Consistency across the three forecast elements ( minimum , maximum , rainfall ) is the key to scoring well . Even though the Bureau is leading overall , it is placed third for rainfall forecasts , ninth for minimum temperature forecasts and sixth for maximum temperature forecasts .
Perhaps one of the keys to the Bureau ' s success so far is how well the administrators interpret the official forecasts . For example , rainfall forecast amounts are interpreted in light of the official synoptic chart forecasts on the Bureau ’ s website . The timing of rain either side of 9am on Sunday is important ; this nuance is lost in the worded forecasts .
As in other years , minimum temperature seems to be the most difficult element to forecast . The spread of scores across the top eight is 10 – 15 for minimum temperature , compared with 5 – 10 for maximum temperature and 9 – 11 for rainfall .
The other places in the top eight are filled by some of the usual suspects : David Shield , Tim Eckert , Rowland Beardsell ,
JohnnyChampo Pidinchedda ( 2016 minor premier ) and Blair Trewin ( 2016 Grand Finalist ) all competed in the 2016 finals .
We currently have 148 active competitors , although 12 accounts were suspended after round 5 as these individuals had failed to enter their own forecast up to that point . They had simply accepted the Default forecast , which is engineered to score 2 worse than the Bureau ; it is automatically provided to those who unavoidably miss a forecast . A new policy for 2017 , the account suspension is designed to remove those individuals who are unable to compete or simply choose not to for whatever reason .
The easiest forecast location was Mildura in Round 1 , where a weekend of stable autumn weather saw the top 27 forecasters score 1 or 2 . Ngaanyatjarra / Giles in Round 3 has proved to be the most challenging site so far , due to some wayward model guidance and the difficulty of timing a rain-band . The top 20 scores were between 5 and 7 .
There were a few website-related hiccups to start the competition , the most common complaint being that registration emails were not being received . It turned out that these were going to Spam or Junk in many instances ; our website tech has rectified this problem . There were some particularly anxious moments from Macquarie University students , of which there is a large cohort from the Science and Engineering Faculty . They ' re required to compete as part of their assessment .
So , all-up a successful start to the season , and we wish everyone good forecasting for the remainder .
Editor ’ s Note : After 13 rounds , the Bureau is currently sitting in 5th place .