Local Forecast Contest -- Rules and Other Information (Spring 2006) How to enter a forecast: 1. Log on to your account on a Metlab machine (same username and password as your rossby account) and type the following command: lfc 2. Enter your forecaster number and password. 3. Enter your forecasts for both sites, or exit if you entered a previous forecast which you do not want to change. 4. If you have problems entering a forecast in this way, you can also send your forecast to lfc@rossby.metr.ou.edu. Make sure it is sent before the deadline. Fawbush and Miller Scholarship Information: * If you are an undergraduate in good academic standing and have taken at least one meteorology course, then you are eligible for the $500 Fawbush and Miller award sponsered by COCAMS (Spring 2006 only). The top eligible finisher in the contest will receive the award. If you are disqualified from the contest according to the rules below, you will no longer be eligible for this semester's award. There is no prize offered to graduate students, staff, or anyone else who does not meet the requirements above, but anyone is free to participate in the LFC. Important information: * You will be required to make a forecast once a week. Forecasts are due at 00 UTC each Thursday evening. You may submit a forecast any time during the week before this deadline. If you miss a forecast, you will receive a forecast of climatology. If you miss more than one forecast, you will be disqualified. * The contest will run for 7 weeks. The first forecast is due March 9. Each participant will enter forecasts for two sites each week. One site will be OKC, the other will be announced the day before forecasts are due. No forecasts will be due the week of spring break. * Each forecast will consist of a Day 1 and Day 2 forecast of high temperature (Fahrenheit), low temperature (Fahrenheit), probability of precipitation, and precipitation amount (inches, to the nearest hundreth if an inch) for each site. Day 1 is the period from 0600 UTC Thursday night to 0600 UTC Friday night. Day 2 is the period from 0600 UTC Friday night to 0600 UTC Saturday night. * If you select "model guidance" as your forecast, you will receive a blend of the GFS, NGM, and NAM MOS and QPF guidance. To remain eligible, you may only select "model guidance" or "climatology" for one forecast period during the semester. A forecast which is only partially model guidance will only be counted as a fraction toward the limit. SCORING: Error points are cumulative. * One point is accumulated for each degree (F) of error in the temperature forecasts. * Probability (POP) forecasts will receive 0-10 error points. The point total is calculated by multiplying the error in the POP forecast by 10. For example, a 70% forecast corresponds to a probability of 0.7. If it rains, then the verification is 1.0 and the error is 1.0 - 0.7 = 0.3. This would correspond to 3 error points (0.3 * 10). The maximum number of error points is 10, when the forecast is 0% and it rains, or 100% and it doesn't rain. * Conditional precipitation amount is scored with a continous function c = 18*p^0.42, where p is the forecast amount in inches. Error points are given by |c(forecast) - c(verification)|. This scoring system is designed to yield error points of the same magnitude as in the National Forecasting Contest while avoiding the problems associated with discrete precipitation categories. See http://weather.ou.edu/~lfc/qpf.html for a partial table of precipitation error totals, to get an idea of what the magnitude of the errors can be. IMPORTANT NOTE: Error points are only calculated on the forecast precip amount if it rains, or if it doesn't rain and the forecast probability was 100%. This has the effect of placing an additional penalty on a forecast where the POP was given as 100% and it does not rain. If a forecaster enters a 0% POP, they will not be prompted for a precip amount. If it does rain, their conditional precip amount forecast will be 0 and the error points will be calculated accordingly. This has the effect of placing an additional penalty on a forecast where the POP is 0% and it does rain. * The POP and precip amount forecasts are for measurable precipitation. A trace of precipitation will be treated the same as zero precip in the verification. Pay close attention to the time interval for which you are forecasting. (It is different from what the weather service uses.) High and low temperatures do not always occur at the usual diurnal times. Send e-mail to lfc@rossby.ou.edu, if you have any questions about the contest. Any problems that arise during the contest will be handled according to the rules of the National Collegiate Weather Forecasting Contest, or at the discretion of the LFC manager. Forecasts and scores will be posted at http://rossby.ou.edu/~lfc. Any participant who does not want their forecasts and scores posted publicly should contact the LFC Manager (lfc@rossby.metr.ou.edu).