About the Contest In the fall of 2009, a forecasting competition will be initiated at The goal of the contest is to allow students to learn about space weather data, models, and forecasting by actively participating in a contest to predict a few basic space weather parameters. The contest is open to anyone and there will be awards for the best individual and group forecasts. In the first contest, two parameters are to be predicted: (1) the maximum and minimum values of the real-time-estimated geomagnetic index Kp and (2) the solar wind velocity measured by the SWEPAM instrument on the ACE satellite in a 24-hour time interval with a lead time of 0-6 hours. For example, on Monday between 12:00 UT and 23:59 UT (07:00 EST and 19:00 EST or 08:00 EDT and 20:00 EDT) you will enter a prediction for Kp and |Vx| min/max for the time interval of 00:00 UT-23:59 UT on Tuesday. The predictions are compared to real-time data from the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) [ Each forecaster is required to make a prediction on Monday through Friday and only the last forecast entered on a given day is used to compute the forecaster’s error. If a forecast is not entered for a given day, the measured values for the previous day (persistence) will be entered as their forecast, plus a 30-point penalty. Contest Rules Forecast Error Calculations ● The verification values (actual data) for the estimated planetary K index (Kp) is taken from the SWPC web page. The verification values for the solar wind bulk speed (Vx) are taken from the SWPC. ● Every 1 km/s error = 0.1 error point ● Every 1 Kp-Index error = 5 error points Disqualification ● There are two types of disqualifications: (1) If the forecaster does not forecast for 2 out of the 5 days of the week, they are disqualified for the week. (2) If the forecaster does not forecast for 40 days out of the entire contest, they are disqualified for the contest. ● The following are the statuses you will see in the results page: ● S = Forecast Submitted ● NS = No Forecast Submitted ● WDQ = Week Disqualification ● CDQ = Contest Disqualification Forecaster data are stored in a MySQL database and historical data are available. Statistical analysis will be performed to better understand human forecasting of space weather. Measured values for selected day Errors that are accumulated since the first forecast day of the contest. Brian Curtis and R.S. Weigel George Mason University Department of Computational and Data Sciences On the 19th, you must make a prediction in the yellow time window for the min and max value in the magenta window (the 20 th ). Status Status: S - Forecast Submitted NS - No Forecast Submitted WDQ - Week Disqualification CDQ - Contest Disqualification Special “Users”: PERSIS - Persistence forecast (use last measured as next prediction) CONSEN - Consensus (average of all forecasts) This forecast contest is still in a testing phase. We are open to suggestions and comments. We have a mailing list for discussion and contest announcements at and a separate mailing list for those who want daily reminders at Instructions for making automated forecasts are given on the web page. Space Weather Workshop, Boulder, CO, April 28 - May 1, Contest Dates: Registration Opens– September 1 st, 2009 Start – September 28 th, 2009 Week 1-8– September 28 th to November 20 th No Forecasting– November 21 st to November 29 th (Thanksgiving Break) Week 9-10– November 30 th to December 11 th No Forecasting– December 12 th to January 24 th (Winter Break) Week 11-20– January 25 th to April 2 nd Final Tournament– April 5 th to April 30 th (Format TBD) End– May 1 st Vx Kp index