Return of the Target Area game to Stormtrack

[Steve Miller]

One of the most memorable features of the early days of the online version of Stormtrack was the Target Area game. When I took over ST a couple years ago, it was in the back of my mind that I'd recreate it for the community and beyond. It's nearly complete now, and ready for you to try out at the link below! Features:

• Set a target for any severe weather event that occurs up to two days in the future
• Target wind, hail & tornadoes; score points for your attempts
• Points are calculated from the following criteria:
  • Amount of time between your target placement and the actual event occurrence
  • Target radius size in reference to where severe weather actually occurred
• The game outputs a heat map which serves as a dynamic crowdsourced weather model
• Sign up and play individually or join a team. Anyone can create a team
• There is no cost associated with the game

https://forecastclash.com

Follow @ForecastClash on Twitter and Facebook.​

April 9, 2017 (note: target picks closed at noon for today's event)
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[Brian G]

Great work. I see a lot of potential. Question...when making a forecast what is the meaning of AM and PM?

 

[rdale]

Before 12Z or after 12Z (the site uses UTC.)

 

[Brian G]

Before 12Z or after 12Z (the site uses UTC.)

So for the central timezone AM would be 7pm to 7am (0Z - 12Z) and PM would be 7am to 7pm (12Z to 0Z)?

 

[Steve Miller]

AM/PM ONLY has to do with the cutoff time on Day 1. So in other words, after noon on any day, you no longer have the ability to forecast for the remainder of Day 1. We did this because not every forecaster is in-tune with UTC and cutting off at "noon" makes sense.

 

[James Wilson]

DUDE! This looks like a fun time ... Thanks for starting this up.

 

[Brian G]

AM/PM ONLY has to do with the cutoff time on Day 1. So in other words, after noon on any day, you no longer have the ability to forecast for the remainder of Day 1. We did this because not every forecaster is in-tune with UTC and cutting off at "noon" makes sense.

Ok, that makes sense. Followup question...if I make a forecast for a particular day during what period of time is it said to be active? Is it a midnight-to-midnight kinda thing or does it pretty much follow the way the SPC assigns the date (which is 12Z-to-12Z)?

 

[Harrison Cater]

What about adding the option for a user to call a bust? Not really sure how I myself even think of this idea, or how it would possibly be implemented, but I thought it was kind of an interesting idea, so I thought there was no harm in proposing it here.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

That's awesome news. One of my big regrets is that I never got this up and running a few years ago, but I was just too overwhelmed, and I was no longer able to contact the original author I contracted this out to (in Bulgaria!) I hope this takes off, and I plan to visit it regularly.

 

[James Wilson]

I must have done something wrong with my test. I placed hail in the blue circle and there was hail but no points lol.

 

[Steve Miller]

I must have done something wrong with my test. I placed hail in the blue circle and there was hail but no points lol.

Since it was yesterday's event, you might check again soon on those points. We process reports so that SPC has time to parse bad/good reports. So, there's a chance it just hasn't gotten counted yet. I'll do some checking myself as well.

 

[James Wilson]

Right on ... I just jumped the gun. That was fun!

 

[cstrunk]

Is there a way to keep track of your forecasts? I made a forecast for Day 2, but then it disappears when I make another forecast for Day 1. I can't tell if it's still an active forecast or if it didn't get saved.

I think it'll be a fun game though and I'm interested to see improvements.

 

[Steve Miller]

We need to create an option for seeing your past targets and targets that have not yet been scored. I'll see if we can move that up the list of things we still need to do. Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Jeremy Perez]

Steve, great work to you and your team, it's really tightening up nicely. I just discussed a potential bug report with John, because it seemed to miss the tornado reports in Iowa yesterday that I thought were within my forecast circle. Turns out it was because the reports came in at 115Z and my PM forecast was only good from 12Z-0Z. If 0Z is the AM/PM dividing point, my guess is that's going to wind up being frustrating for users in the long run since severe reports will tend to be heaviest running across the 0Z break point. Could the AM/PM definitions be revisited? Maybe PM = 18Z-06Z? Just a suggestion. Thanks again for all the work!