From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
WxChallenge
is a
weather forecasting
competition among colleges in North America. The competition is run by the
University of Oklahoma
. In its first official semester, fall 2006, there were 1,262 participants from 53 institutions.
[1]
A similar competition, the
National Collegiate Weather Forecasting Contest
, recently ended, partially due to this competition.
Organization
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Entrants in the contest must be affiliated with a college or university, but they range in age and knowledge from
undergraduates
to
professors
. Each semester, 5 cities are picked for forecasting; the current city changes every 2 weeks. Contestants
forecast
4 days per week for the following day's high
temperature
(in
Fahrenheit
), low temperature, maximum sustained wind speed (in
knots
) and
precipitation
(in 1/100ths of an inch).
One "error" point is given for each degree of error on temperature, 1/2 an error point is given for each knot of wind speed error.
Precipitation is scored as follows:
- 0.4 points for each .01 inch of error in the verification range from 0.00 to 0.10 inches inclusive
- 0.3 points for each .01 inch of error in the verification range from 0.11 to 0.25 inches inclusive
- 0.2 points for each .01 inch of error in the verification range from 0.26 to 0.50 inches inclusive
- 0.1 points for each .01 inch of error in the verification range over 0.50 inches
At the end of the competition, the top 64 forecasters continue into a "March Madness" like tournament where a champion is crowned. A trophy is given to the champion, as well as the runner-up and the other two forecasters who make it to the "Final Four".
Winners
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See also
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Sources
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References
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External links
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