Golden Snowball Challenge standings

Posted at 10:20 AM on December 14, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Weather

Reader Derek Schille has taken a stab at a logo for News Cut's Golden Snowball Challenge.



The measured snowfall in St. Paul is 2.25." MPR's Paul Huttner came closest with a 2" prediction.

Here are the results of this leg of the challenge.

Meteorologist	Prediction	Points
Paul Huttner	2"	9
National Weather Service	2"	9
Chikage Windler (KSTP)	3"	0
Mike Fairbourne (WCCO)	3"	0
Jonathan Yuhas (KARE)	1.5"	0
Ian Leonard (KMSP)	4"	-8

Because every meteorologist isn't involved in each "leg" of the challenge (it's based on predictions at the time a storm starts), we'll use average of point totals to determine rank. Here's what we've got so far:

Meteorologist	Storms	Points	Average
Patrick Hammer (KSTP)	1	10	10
Paul Huttner	2	17	8.5
National Weather Service	2	4	2
Chikage Windler (KSTP)	1	0	0
Mike Fairbourne (WCCO)	1	0	0
Jonathan Yuhas (KARE)	1	0	0
Mike Augustyniak (WCCO)	1	-5	-5
Keith Marler (KMSP)	1	-5	-5
Don Moldenhauer (BMTN)	1	-5	-5
Ian Leonard (KMSP)	1	-8	-8
Paul Douglas (MinnPost)	1	-8	-8

Meanwhile, we've found out there is already a Golden Snowball Award. It's given to the city in upstate New York that accumulates the most snow. If the organizers there find out what we're up to, we're prepared to rename it the Golden Potato Chip Challenge.

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Comments (4)

I like it.

Didn't your mother ever teach you not to eat golden snow?

Posted by Robynn | December 14, 2009 12:46 PM

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Just gotta say this is terrific and I'm looking forward to watching the whole season. This is a great Minnesota spectator sport, and nobody is demanding a new stadium for it!

Anyway, my only recommendation is that there be some sort of bonus for least over-prediction, or conversely, a penalty for most over-prediction. Basically, some way of penalizing the snowpocalypse meteorologists who consistently predict twice as much snow as we get (usually with ratings in mind).

Perhaps it would be fairest just to say that if there's a tie, and, for example, one weatherperson predicts 2.5" and another says 1.5" and the total is 2", the win goes to the 1.5" prediction. Winter storm forecasts are just not the place for Chicken Littles, which I'd say is a particularly apt comparison in this case.

Posted by greg | December 14, 2009 1:23 PM

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Hey ... REALLY a Great Idea!

But a quick note on my points:

4" - 7"+ was my general forecast for the Greater Metro ... My actual forecast was for 4"-5" for Northwest Metro ... 6"-7"+ for the southern & southeastern part of the Metro ...

I picked up 5.25" at my house in Maple Grove ... the NWS 7.4 falls closer to my 6"-7"+ (the plus is for the extra .5 or so expected) ...

Don't know if this affects my point total, but I figured I'd clear up the forecast, just in case ...

I'm a BIG believer in NOT over-hyping a snow event ... I also don't believe in attempting to forecast totals more than 36 hours in advance ... there's just no way of comfortably making an accurate forecast before then ...

Sorry I missed out on Monday's snow ... I "arm-chaired" about 2" from vacation... but I know that doesn't really count, lol ...

Again ... a GREAT idea ... accountability can be a VERY good motivator for accuracy!

Yours in "Mellow" Snow reporting,
-Keith

Posted by Keith Marler | December 16, 2009 7:06 AM

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I might even try and figure out what station Keith Marler is on - cool comment!

Posted by BJ | December 16, 2009 9:05 AM

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