I hope that's not revised. I went for 7.0C

I have been asked about the performance of regular participants to the CET competition over the years. I have gone back to 2010 and calculated the average prediction error for those members who have participated every year since 2010. I ignored 2009, which was the first year I ran the competition (because there were too few participants - sorry Saint). I have allowed one missed year otherwise it would be a very short list. For those who did not make it to the end of one year I have used the average prediction error of all the others in the table for that specific year (this figures are highlighted in orange).

Here is the table - there are 18 people listed. No surprise that Darren S is comfortably in the lead. This lead will be extended when the 2018 results are added.

Direct link to larger table TABLE

Let's hope there are more than 18 in the table next time you post it.

I even made 11th place but I can’t imagine what I was doing in 2012 that stopped me predicting that year.   

Good luck to all for 2019!  Not you though Darren, you don’t need luck!  

Met Office Hadley           7.1c.     Anomaly       2.4c. Provisional to 31st.

Metcheck                        6.79     Anomaly       1.26

Netwearther                    7.35c   Anomaly        2.26c

Forest Town Mansfield       6.7c.   Anomaly       0.1c

Peasedown St John           8.42c   Anomaly      2.3c

Treviskey Redruth             9.1c.   Anomaly      0.14c.

Mean of my 10                 7.50c.   Anomaly      0.23c.   

I see it's edged up a bit.

Many thanks for this analysis GW. I'm pleased to feature as high as I do (for now), but not surprised to be a fair way off Darren! Maybe 2019 will be my year. Nah, probably not.

Happy New Year all!

Many thanks GW, I thought I was a lot worse than that!! Well on the slippery slope in recent times🙈😀
Martin

Final CET for December was 6.89C.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_mean_2018

Hungry Tiger had the closest prediction for December with 7.00C. So congratulations to him

My 10 Watched stations final for December 2018 comes in at   7.55c.   Anomaly   0.28c. 

Bordon                       7.1c.      Anomaly     -2.2c.

Canvey Island             8.0c.      Anomaly     0.5c.

Cheadle Hulme            7.4c       Anomaly     0.48c

Clevedon Weather        8.8c.     Anomaly     0.68c.

Darwen                       7.4c.     Anomaly     0.44c.

Hexam                        5.3c.     Anomaly     -0.46c.

Mount Sorrel                6.9c.    Anomaly      0.36c

Forest Town Mansfield  6.8c.     Anomaly      0.2c.

Peasedown St John      8.49c.   Anomaly      2.378c

Treviskey Redruth       9.4c.     Anomaly      0.44c.

Metcheck        6.83c.

Netweather     7.41c.

Final charts for December. 

It was the 15th= warmest December on record

What a year it’s been though!  Probably the most exciting since we started these CET threads, not just for the competition but for watching records toppling!  I’ve lost track of all the records set throughout the year but I’d be surprised if it hasn’t been a record year for records!  

Thank you all for the friendly banter and thank you SC, Gavin and GW for all the technical data you provide.

Biggest New Year’s Honour goes to GW of course for running these threads!   (Can’t find the ‘clapping hands’ smilie). 

Cheers - Thanks. Feel well pleased. I bet though I've only hit it bang on a couple of times since I've been in the competition. . I have to admit I intially thought I was taking a big gamble with that one. Talk about mild December.

Cheers Caz.

I reckon in all the time I've been in this competition I've only hit it bang on once or twice. Anyway - Its a great competition and it's good fun as well.

Although I was wrong betting you it would settle bang in between us at 6c!  Well done!  Now you’re on a roll, let’s see if you can keep it up!    

Annual CET competition - Final table

No surprise to see Darren S topping the table this year and winning the gold medal. He has been in first place since April and never outside the top three all year. So big congratulations to Darren.

The winning figure of 6.69C is the third best since the competition started in 2009. In fact it is not Darren's best result as he finished with 6.25C when winning the competition for the first time in 2014. Whether Idle's record of 5.99C remains intact.

Shoeshoe sneaks into second place, recording a highest position in the table this year. Gusty finishes in third. The top three were well clear of the rest.

Some big movers further down the top 10 including Devonian up five to fifth. Hungry Tiger climbed 10 to 15th after winning the December competition.

sussex snow magnet and Hippydave also recorded their highest position of the year with several others equalling their highest position from earlier in the year.

Despite winning the competition to predict the CET for the whole of 2018 (see separate thread), springsunshine takes the wooden spoon in the cumulative monthly competition.

Direct link to larger table TABLE

The tables below show each person's position in the table for every month of the year (with the highest position shown in red) and also the monthly prediction errors for each person. A figure highlighted in orange denotes a missed prediction where the error was calculated using the formula set down in the competition rules. A figure in yellow denotes an error of 0.50C or less.

I have also included a figure for the root mean squared error in addition to the absolute error. This alternative calculation penalises large errors to a greater extent (due to the squared part of the formula). So consistently low predictions are the way to get a low figure under this method rather than say several exactly correct predictions but also with a few quite large errors. Interestingly under this method Snowshoe would have won due to having no errors above 1C.

Direct link to larger table TABLE

Direct link to larger table TABLE

Finally here is the updated table I posted yesterday that now includes the 2018 data. This shows the average prediction error for the last 10 years for those members who have been in the competition for the whole of that period (with a maximum of one missed year which is indicated in orange).

Direct link to larger table TABLE

Does this mean that we get to call him Sir GW?

Thanks GW! I think I need to do a winner's acceptance speech? 

Anyway, thanks for the congratulations and especially thanks for the all-time table over the last 9 years. What the hell was I doing in 2013? I'm shocked to see how far ahead of the pack I am, although I suppose I am now only the first person to win the competition more than once.

I am disappointed to have gone off the boil in the last three months of 2018, and almost blew it, but I had enough in reserve to ride out the year. Where did snowshoe come from? He could have taken me if things were a little different. I'm annoyed that I missed out not only on beating the record, but also on failing to beat my winning score from 2014, so I'm hoping to try and beat that in 2019, you have been warned. 

Having said that, January 2019 looks tricky. I've not put my guess in yet. 

I think you mean 2009? 

Congratulations to all participants, particularly those that stayed the course.

Let the competition commence for 2019!