Official Rules
- Please only use non-negative integers.
- Please provide only one value for each field in the entry form.
- It is recommended, though not required, that your entry follow these inequalities: named storms ≥ hurricanes ≥ major hurricanes and also hurricanes ≥ US hurricane landfalls.
For the Hurricane Counts: The winner will have the lowest combined Error of total named storms in the Atlantic basin, total hurricanes, total major (category 3, 4, 5) hurricanes, and US landfalling hurricanes.
In the event that a storm forms, becomes major, or makes landfall past that date, it will not count. NHC's reanalysis by the end of the year will be the validation set, regardless of how the storm was named or categorized at the time.Error = |Guessed named storms – actual named storms| + |Guessed hurricanes – Actual hurricanes| + |Guessed major storms – Actual major storms| + |Guessed US landfalling hurricanes – Actual US landfalling hurricanes
Ties will be broken using the most accurate season US insured hurricane loss guess, as described below.
For the Insured Loss Contest: In the event that a storm causes loss after that date, it will not count. Ties will be broken using the count Error, as described above.
For the "Combined Best Rank" Contest: The winner will be the person with the lowest sum of their ranks in the two above contests. Example: if you finish 8th in the counts contest and 5th in the loss contest, your combined rank is 13. If no one else has a lower combined rank, you would be the winner. In the event of ties, even after applying the tie-breaking procedure, the prizes will be split evenly.You can win prizes in all contests.All data used in determining storm count Error will come from the NHC, as of December 31. All loss data will come from PCS, as of December 31, and will only include US landfalling hurricanes, as defined by NHC (so Sandy did NOT count). If an event makes landfall in the US as a hurricane, the entire US inland loss from that event will be counted (Puerto Rico, USVI, or other offshore losses will not count). In the event that PCS has not released any loss information for a hurricane by that date, AIR's most recent median loss estimate will be used. If there is no AIR loss estimate, loss data will come from any other available sources, with a preference for .gov websites (such as for Arthur's loss: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/eventdetails.jsp?id=536963) or news articles. In the unlikely event that no external source has loss information, but the storm made landfall, loss will be assumed at $1 million.
Entries must be received at or before May 31, 2016 at 4:59:59 PM (Boston time).The winners will be announced after December 31, 2016, and prizes delivered before the end of January 2017. Interfering with the contest is not permitted. For example, you are not allowed to seed clouds in a storm to prevent it from gaining strength. Similarly, you may not put ice into the ocean beneath a storm to try to cool the sea surface temperature. In the event of interference, your entry will be disqualified. If an issue comes up that is not addressed in these rules, a decision will be made by a competent expert (the expert will be chosen such that any decision will not impact that expert's prize standing).
