Thanks to everyone who entered our “First Snow” contest. We briefly review the entries, which surprisingly follow closely with Boulder’s climatology.
In the announcement post for this contest, we offered a little insight by providing a few of Boulder’s “first snow” statistics. Thirty-two of you came up with “educated” guesses for the timing and amount of Boulder’s first snow of the 2016-2017 winter season. The entries are contained in the calendar below:
Calendar of all entries, showing names and amounts of all guesses
A few observations:
- Dates range from September 27th to November 5th
- Amounts range from 0.3 to 5.0 inches
- Both the mean and median date chosen were October 20th (which ironically matched up precisely with Boulder’s historical data!)
- The most popular day selected was Sunday, October 23rd. Hmm…are we on to something?
- 90% of entries predict a first snow of 3.3 inches or less
SUMMARY OF PRIZES:
If you recall, for prizes, we’re giving away free BoulderCAST Premium subscriptions of . As a reminder, Premium members get full-access to our daily forecast discussion every morning at 5AM. This is especially useful in the winter, when our meteorologists brain-dump thoughts for days leading up to impactful snowstorms. In case you weren’t with us last winter, we did quite well for the entire Denver Metro area’s snow forecasts. Premium members also have admittance to the 24-hour version of our hourly forecast, have early viewing of select content, can request custom forecasts, and gain other added perks (like doubled prizes in this very contest!). Read our announcement post for more information.
The prizes for the contest are as follows:
- 1st place: 6-month subscription to BoulderCAST Premium
- 2nd place: 3-month subscription to BoulderCAST Premium
- 3rd – 5th places: 1-month subscription to BoulderCAST Premium
- All other places: Virtual “pat on the back”
As an added bonus, if you’re already a Premium subscriber at the time of the first snow, and you’re one of the winners, your prize will be doubled! All the more reason to get ready for winter’s woes and sign up now!
SUMMARY OF SCORING:
Those who come closest to the actual date of Boulder’s first MEASURABLE SNOW (defined as snow at or above 0.1″) win! For verification, we’ll go off the official Boulder climate station located at the NIST building in south Boulder.
In the event that multiple entries end-up the same amount of days from the verification date, snowfall amount will be used as the tie-breaker.
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Prizes and recognition will be awarded in the days following our first dumping of snow, BIG or SMALL. Let’s hope it’s one to remember!
Now, think flakes!
