Mike, I think it was deleted because moving it would've killed much of the rest of the thread.

I saw the article about that in the Orlando newspaper yesterday; it's better suited for the new Predictions forum, IMO. Truth be told, I'm not sure exactly what they are going to try to be getting out of it...real scientists are not going to place their money on a landfall pool for any tropical cyclone; there's simply too much at stake. Thus, it is going to be the semi-pros, the hobbiests, and the general public that tries to make some money off of the market. That will reduce the pools to wild guesses, the NHC forecast, model guidance forecasts, or media outlet forecasts...and I'm not sure what is to be gained there. If it is an attempt to see which forecast performs best, that is already done in a formal basis by the NHC each season. It's not like the stock market, where the goal is money; it is real life, with real lives at stake, and I'm not sure I see how having (essentially) a landfall pool is going to help matters. Perhaps something similar without using money can be adapted to a forecast module to teach students/the general public/others how to better forecast these storms, but this doesn't appear to do that.

Just my two cents, however.