Does this mean only those who voted for one of the two lowest value bins [for which there are votes] remain in the running for bragging rights?
I believe so. Given voting closed less than a month ago, that isn't very good. I am one of two who went for lowest bin with votes. May 99 was lower than April 99 and if that happens maybe we will be close or under a rise of 1.25. No guarantee there will be such a month with under 1.25 rise but perhaps looking reasonably good for that and my guess.
But Yuha had it sussed long ago
I think there should actually be more buckets at the lower end.
The recent high values are partly due to El Nino and we can expect some lower rises with a return to more neutral ENSO. At least that is what happened in 1998-99:
1998 1999 2016
Jan +2.17 +2.92 +2.54
Feb +1.95 +3.09 +3.76
Mar +2.73 +2.44 +3.29
Apr +2.31 +2.33 +4.14
May +2.87 +1.54 +3.74
Jun +3.40 +1.31 +4.01
Jul +3.51 +1.63 +3.08
Aug +3.70 +0.95 +3.32
Sep +3.73 +0.79 +3.40
Oct +3.58 +0.97 +3.28
Nov +3.03 +1.20 +3.37
Dec +2.75 +0.97 +2.63
So maybe by September there will be a month with rise below 0.75 and everyone will be wrong.
I concur that setting up a poll by using a year including a Godzilla El Nino event as a baseline is a good way to catch people off-balance who are thinking about an averaged trend-line basis of comparison.
Edit 1: Much like the 'faux hiatus' was cherry-picked by comparing GMSTA values during that period to a baseline of 1997-1998 during the immediate prior Super El Nino event.
Edit 2: With regard to the perception of a 'faux hiatus' as discussed in Edit 1, the linked reference indicates how accurate averaged projections can be (see the associated attached image) when all of the various inputs are normalized correctly:
Iselin Medhaug, Martin B. Stolpe, Erich M. Fischer& Reto Knutti (2017), "Reconciling controversies about the ‘global warming hiatus’", Nature, doi:10.1038/nature22315
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v545/n7652/full/nature22315.htmlAbstract: "Between about 1998 and 2012, a time that coincided with political negotiations for preventing climate change, the surface of Earth seemed hardly to warm. This phenomenon, often termed the ‘global warming hiatus’, caused doubt in the public mind about how well anthropogenic climate change and natural variability are understood. Here we show that apparently contradictory conclusions stem from different definitions of ‘hiatus’ and from different datasets. A combination of changes in forcing, uptake of heat by the oceans, natural variability and incomplete observational coverage reconciles models and data. Combined with stronger recent warming trends in newer datasets, we are now more confident than ever that human influence is dominant in long-term warming."