Wager update

Some of you may recall my post on Nate Silver's proposed wager to bloggers regarding global warming. Asking climate change skeptics to put their money where their mouth is, Silver proposed the following bet:

The rules of the challenge are as follows:

1. For each day that the high temperature in your hometown is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit above average, as listed by Weather Underground, you owe me $25. For each day that it is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit below average, I owe you $25.

2. The challenge proceeds in monthly intervals, with the first month being August. At the end of each month, we'll tally up the winning and losing days and the loser writes the winner a check for the balance.

3. The challenge automatically rolls over to the next month until/unless: (i) one party informs the other by the 20th of the previous month that he would like to discontinue the challenge (that is, if you want to discontinue the challenge for September, you'd have to tell me this by August 20th), or (ii) the losing party has failed to pay the winning party in a timely fashion, in which case the challenge may be canceled at the sole discretion of the winning party.

While the terms of the bet prohibited me from taking part -- my blog rank isn't high enough -- I decided to run the numbers based on the weather thus far this year. As of July 27 Silver would have owed me $1,725. Well, I decided to run the numbers again today and it's a really good thing Silver didn't take me up on the bet, as he would now owe $2,225 (164 below average temperature days minus 75 above average temperature days times $25. 32 days were at the average).