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2009 Prognostication Quiz: Final Post


Matthew Wins!

Matthew D. has won the 2009 Prognostication Quiz! He correctly guessed the two December questions to leapfrog over Ted in order to claim the prognostication championship. Matthew ended with a final score of 8, beating out Ted by one point.

The tie-break was not needed this year, but Matthew crushed the competition in that category as well. The total snowfall for the year in Minneapolis-Saint Paul was 47.0 inches. Matthew had 47.3 inches as his tie-break guess. That was the closest guess among all 43 entrants. I was second with a guess of 46.2 inches and my aunt Ellen was third with a guess of 46.0 inches.

Poor Rachel H. ended the year with no points. That's the first time that has been done in the two years of the quiz. I'll find a booby prize to send to her to encourage her to enter again this year despite the horrible embarrassment.

Leader board

Here are the final rankings, sorted by total score and then by the tie break:

Rank Name (Score)
1 Matthew (8)
2 Ted (7)
3 Larry (6)
4 Zoe (6)
5 Pete C. (6)
6 Michael (5)
7 Stephanie (5)
8 Ben (5)
9 Ellen (4)
10 Tina (4)
11 Grant (4)
12 Katie (4)
13 Missy (4)
14 Jeff B. (4)
15 Marcus (4)
16 Ana (4)
17 Kevin (4)
18 Jan (4)
19 Adrian (4)
20 Leanne (4)
21 Ekrem (4)
22 Russell (3)
23 Heather (3)
24 Pamela (3)
25 Liz (3)
26 Gloria (3)
27 Peter M. (3)
28 Cameron (3)
29 Zhiqi (3)
30 Rob (3)
31 Sarah (3)
32 Jeremiah (3)
33 Greg (3)
34 Rachel F. (2)
35 Megan (2)
36 Eric (2)
37 Jeff C. (2)
38 Beth (2)
39 Valerie (1)
40 Janet (1)
41 Ryan (1)
42 Janette (1)
43 Rachel H. (0)

This is the second year in a row that a Matthew has won the prognostication quiz. The inaugural quiz went to Matthew B., who did not enter this past year.

Leanne tied her husband Ekrem with 4 points but edged him in the tie break. She guessed that 83.0 inches of snow would fall in 2009, so she was off by 36 inches. Ekrem guessed that 10.0 inches of snow would fall, so he was off by 37 inches. (Unsurprisingly, they were the maximum and minimum of all the tie break answers. More surprisingly, Adrian was close at the top with a guess of 81.8 inches and Greg was close at the bottom with 12.0 inches.)

The best combined score for the two year quiz is a tie between Matthew D. and Pete C., each with 11 points over the two years. Tied for third place are Grant and Ekrem, each with 8 points. Tied for fifth place are Ted, Tina, and Eric with a total of 7 points.

Question 13

The Dow shed 120 points today, but the close of 10,428 was still comfortably in the range of F. 10,000 points or more. Six people predicted that the Dow would gain 20% on the year: Matthew, Larry, Jeff B., Marcus, Rob, Jeff C. I sincerely hope they put their entire savings into the market last January. (You can tell I'm sincere because Larry is my father.)

Question 14

After no snow in November, we had 20.9 inches in December to make it pretty close in the end. A total of 47.0 inches of snow fell over 2009 at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport. The airport got 10 inches of snow in the big storm system we had last week, but some suburbs very close by got between 16 and 18 inches. If just two more inches of snow had fallen at the airport, Larry would have won the 2009 Quiz. A total of six people guessed C. 43 to 48.9 inches: Matthew, me, Ellen, Ana, Russell, and Greg.

2010 Prognostication Quiz

Don't forget to send in your entry for this year's quiz!

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