Weather for Thought

As a Meteorologist student I have come to find out that weather is constantly on the brain, whether you like it or not! This week began Mississippi State University’s annual forecasting competition. Meteorology students will compete against one another by forecasting a high and low temp, average max wind speed, and total precipitation amount for a random selected area. The area is selected nationally by wxchallenge.com and therefore Mississippi State competes nationally in the contest. Only seniors and graduate students compete in the national aspect of the contest. Yet, juniors, like me, just compete with fellow classmate which is a total of 73. We have to make a forecast Monday through Thursday for the following day. The point system is determined similar to golf; however many degrees you are off, that same number of points is added to your score. The person with the lowest score is “winning”. It’s a fun game!

Our first area selected for us is Cape Hatteras, NC. Cape Hatteras will last on into next week, and then we will provide a forecast for the following: Great Falls, MT; Portland, ME; Peoria, IL; and Wentachee, WA. Currently our teacher is more concerned with our consistency in forecasting rather than our accuracy. By next year if we are off more than 5 degrees then we will have to write a summary on why we were wrong. Most aspects of forecasting is associated with skill, however, some is just mere luck (rain totals). The forecasting contest is not only a grade, but a great example of “practice makes perfect”. As of now I have a long way to go to become a great forecaster (my score can speak for itself) but this is one of the steps to lead me in that direction.

~Leah Dailey
X-Ray