The Snowy Prize

The subject turned to snow and then a little friendly pool the guys were were having. Each threw in $5, with the winner getting the bundle for predicting the January snowfall at Madison’s Dane County Regional-Truax Field Airport.

I am lucky enough to be friendly with a bunch of the service techs at the company we buy our weather equipment from. They are squirreled away in Madison, WI, figuring out ways to make weather a more compelling story on TV.

Last month I was speaking with Bruce, one of those techs, and the subject turned to snow and then a little friendly pool the guys were were having. Each threw in $5, with the winner getting the bundle for predicting the January snowfall at Madison’s Dane County Regional-Truax Field Airport.

I asked in. I know nothing about winter weather in Wisconsin, except it’s cold, windy and snow filled.

My guess was 16″, which led Bruce to post this.

Thought I would give everyone a quick update on the KMSN January snow pool. Geoff Fox jumped in at the last second with a prediction of 16″. So the revised winning snowfall ranges are as follows…

Pat 4.2″, Brian 7.7″, Chris 8.2″ and John and Bruce both picked 8.7″ and Geoff at 16″

So the breakdown is as follows:

5.9″ or less Pat wins

6.0″ – 7.9″ Brian wins

8.0″ – 8.4″ Chris wins

8.5″ – 12.3″ John & Bruce win

12.4″ and higher Geoff wins

After 13 days, KMSN currently stands at 4.5″

My guess was way too high. It was obvious these other (mostly) meteorologists were more attuned to their local climatology than I was.

I sent Bruce $5 via PayPal and forgot about the whole thing until last night. Curious, I fired off an email with just two words: “How bad?”

Smarty pants…you smoked us…everyone else picked less than 10 inches. We are smarting from that.

We got 23.2 inches…which is was the eighth snowiest January on record. December-January of this year was the second snowiest 2-month period in Madison records…which go back to the 1880s. Since we got hit so hard in December, the thinking was that the odds were against back-2-back snowy months. However, La Ninas—if they have any trend at all–tend to make winters over the upper Midwest a bit more potent…whether that be cold or snow…or both.

In forecasting, as in life, it is much more profitable to be lucky than skilful.

3 thoughts on “The Snowy Prize”

  1. “We got 23.2 inches”

    Lemme tell ya.. It’s been a pleasure driving through it too, since Madison has been really bad at plowing these days. And, it’s getting even better as Dane County has nearly run out of salt.

    These stories do a good job explaining the salt issues:

    1.”Stretching Out And Dirtying Up The Salt Supply”

    http://wkow.madison.com/News/index.php?ID=18705

    2. “Salt Shortage for Madison Streets”

    http://wkow.madison.com/News/index.php?ID=1775

    But anyway… It’s been a mess in terms of snowfall around here.

    But hey, it wasn’t just snow… We had tornadoes in Walworth & Kenosha Counties, too, this past month!

    See http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mkx/?n=010708_tor for those details!

    -Adam

  2. the poker player in you should ask them to attempt the same betting pool on CT weather for February. I’m thinking you’d win your money back.

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