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Bureau of Reclamation

 14,646

Rodeo II: Sub-Seasonal Climate Forecasting

Closing the gap on sub-seasonal climate forecasting.
stage:
Closed
prize:
$80,000
more
Summary
Timeline
Updates5
Forum3
Teams62
Summary

Overview

Welcome to the Forecasting Rodeo 2 Challenge Series!

 

We are excited to be working with the US Bureau of Reclamation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on this Rodeo II Challenge series! This series will have more than $800,000 in prize money available over the next year.

 

Why This Matters

Water managers need more skillful information on weather and climate conditions in order to help efficiently utilize water resources to reduce the impact of hydrologic regimes. Examples of hydrologic regimes include the onset of drought or a wet weather extremes from high levels of precipitation. Lacking skillful sub-seasonal information limits water managers’ ability to prepare for shifts in hydrologic regimes and can pose major threats to their ability to manage the valuable resource.

The challenge of sub-seasonal forecasting is that it encompasses the time frame where initial state information (e.g., coupled land-atmosphere processes) becomes less important, and slowly varying long term states (e.g., sea surface temperatures, soil moisture, snow pack) become more important to prediction skill. Additionally, this information is needed 15 days to 45 days ahead of time, or even longer.

The Rodeo II Challenge series will create algorithms to enhance sub-seasonal forecasting, reducing risks to our water systems, and helping water managers efficiently manage hydrological regimes.

 


Guidelines

Challenges and Prizes

This challenge series will first have four traditional marathon match challenges to establish predictive algorithms on historical weather data, and then recurring data science challenges over the next full year to refine those solutions on live weather data.

The first challenges kick off July 19th, 2019.

Each of the four concurrent marathon matches will have the following prize structure with 10 placements.

In addition, if any of the top ten placements are new submitters*, they will earn an additional $100 bonus! All new participants who submit passing submissions will earn a $25 bonus.

PLACEPRIZES
1$7,000
2$4,000
3$2,500
4$1,500
5$1,250
PLACEPRIZES
6$750
7$750
8$750
9$750
10$750

*A new submitter is someone who has never submitted to a Topcoder Marathon Match and who registered for Topcoder as a new member as of June 27, 2019.


You need to be a Topcoder member to participate in this series.

 

REGISTER NOW

Timeline
Updates5

Challenge Updates

Submissions open again, contest extended till Sunday

Aug. 23, 2019, 8:41 a.m. PDT by Kyla Jeffrey

The contest is extended till Sunday (25th) 10:00am EDT, feel free to submit now to all 4 challenges.

We think now that the difference in scores had nothing to do with architectural differences between the CPU and GPU setups, nor were our test servers hacked, as some of you suggested. It seems that at the end of the CPU-based testing period the set of target test days had one extra day compared to the set that we planned to use, that's why you saw different scores in identical submissions. We are still investigating how this could have happened. We also think that the current setup is correct in all 4 systems. To compensate for the downtime and the submission issues we extended the contest with ~2 days. Apologies for the inconvenience caused by this.

For more information, please visit the Topcoder Forum.


Tomorrow is the last day to submit!

Aug. 21, 2019, 8 a.m. PDT by Liz Treadwell

 

It's not too late! There is one more day left to submit your forecasting solution to Rodeo II!

Your solution must be submitted on the TopCoder site by tomorrow to be eligible for the judging stage. As a reminder, no late entries will be accepted.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to start a new topic in the forum, or visit the main challenge site on TopCoder here.


1 week remains!

Aug. 15, 2019, 11:45 a.m. PDT by Liz Treadwell

 

There are 7 days left to submit your forecasting solution to Rodeo II!

Remember, you must submit on the TopCoder site by Thursday, August 22nd to be eligible for the judging stage. No late entries will be accepted.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to start a new topic in the forum, or visit the main challenge site on TopCoder here.


2 weeks until the submission deadline

Aug. 8, 2019, 10:15 a.m. PDT by Liz Treadwell

 

Dear innovators,

We are 2 weeks away from our submission deadline for Rodeo II: Sub-Seasonal Climate Forecasting!

This message is to remind you to submit your forecasting solution by Thursday, August 22nd. No late entries will be accepted.

If you have any questions, leave a comment on this update or visit the main challenge site on TopCoder here.

 


Have Questions? We Have Answers

July 22, 2019, 11:25 a.m. PDT by Kyla Jeffrey

Are you considering competing in Rodeo II but are not sure if it is for you? Do you have questions for the team behind this challenge? 

Then don't miss this recap of a live Q&A chat with the folks from Topcoder and Reclamation.

 

What is Rodeo II All About?

  1. Four marathon matches - each with 10 prize placements
  2. Challenges and prizes for an entire year.
  3. A wonderful chance for you to be a part of something that truly matters.

Learn all about Rodeo II here 

and get competing now!


Forum3
Teams62