By Root Routledge

How hard is it to guess the weight of a giant pumpkin?

More than 200 people tested their powers of estimation earlier this month at the sixth annual Apple Days Festival in Buckley Park.

A pumpkin from Everett Oldham’s garden yielded 253 guesses that ranged from 15 pounds to more than a million pounds!

To some kids it was the biggest thing they had ever seen. A couple of guesses were in the millions of pounds and nine guesses were between 1,020 and 20,000 pounds. Those are what we might call extreme outlier guesses, so for statistical analysis we’ll eliminate these 11 guesses and analyze the remaining 242, which ranged from 15 to 1,000 pounds.

The accompanying graph shows the distribution of the 242 guesses and some summary statistics. As you can see, the data is “skewed” to the right with a long tail. The average of these 242 guesses was 295.3 pounds and the median was 258.5 pounds. The median is that value where half the guesses were below and half above.

The actual weight, which nobody knew at the time, was 311 pounds. Almost two thirds, 63 percent, of the guesses were below the actual weight. We can say that 311 was the 63rd percentile of all the guesses.

Ruthie Matthes did guess the exact weight and was the winner of the pumpkin.

It will be interesting to see if the guessing gets more accurate next year.

Thanks to Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado for organizing the event, with volunteer help coordinated by the Fort Lewis College Environmental Center.

Have a fun and safe Halloween, but watch out for the Giant Pumpkin!

Root@AlpineAnalytics.com. Root Routledge is president of Alpine Analytics, an environmental statistics consulting firm in Durango.