2012 Verification
This verification exercise faces the challenge that the words I used in the forecasts of the AMS poster are ambiguous. For example, that the US and Canada would be chilly mid-April to May. Does this mean that the average temperature over the whole area will be cold compared to the last ten years (what people remember), or the last nineteen years (period of lunar precession) or compared to 1980-2010 (formal climatology)? Or did it refer to extremes? That there would be extremes? More than usual? Worse than usual? And as to time period concerned: did it mean that it would be "chilly" - whatever I meant by that - from time to time, or over the whole time.
I know myself what I meant -
but in fairness to the idea of a verification, it would not be transparent if I picked out one, presumably successful, interpretation out of all the above, and said that's the one I meant. It would certainly look like cherrypicking whether it was or not. So what I'll do is attempt (at some limited level of effort) to assess several meanings. It would take my whole life to assess the truthfulness or utility of every possible meaning of each forecast I made for 2012. Anyway I will start....
Mid-APRIL-MAY: CHILLY & STORMY IN CANADA & US
Compare the whole period April 15 to May 31 as a whole, was it warm compared to 1980-2010 climatology?
No, the area taken as a whole over the whole period and compared to formal climatology (1980 to 2010) was not comparatively chilly. On the contrary, the whole area over the whole period compared to formal climatology was comparatively warm.
Mid-APRIL-MAY: DRY IN C EUROPE, S. E. EUROPE, WEST US, NORTH AND WEST CHINA, KOREAS
Mid-APRIL-MAY: RAIN IN THE MAGHREB, NORTHERN IRAN, TURKEY’S BLACK SEA COAST
