On this site you can find information on each forecast city as well as useful links and resources to help assist your forecasting process. Normally, a post specific to each new forecasting city will start off each forecasting period. Discussions of especially challenging or boring forecasts are encouraged and are done by commenting on any post.
The Challenge
The competition begins on September 30, 2013 for Houston, TX (KHOU). The full schedule for the Fall semester is as follows:
| City | Identifier | Dates | ||
| Houston, TX | KHOU | September 30 - October10 | ||
| Cheyenne, WY | KCYS | October 14 - October 24 | ||
| Norman, OK | KRMN | October 28 - November 7 | ||
| Concord, NH | KCON | November 11 - November 21 | ||
| Grand Rapids, MI | KGRR | December 2 - December 12 |
Source: http://wxchallenge.com/challenge/schedule.php
Forecasts are due at 00 UTC and are made for a period 06 UTC - 06 UTC. So until Daylight Savings Time, forecasts are due at 8:00 PM after which it will change to 7:00 PM. You forecast every Monday night - Thursday night and have Friday's off. After the Fall cities are done we take a break and resume in the Spring semester.
The cost for participation in both the Fall and Spring semesters is $5; the cost for one semester is $3. Your forecaster ID must contain 6 letters and/or numbers. You will be put in a category with other participants of your level, e.g. Category 4: Freshmen/Sophomores, Category 3: Juniors/Seniors, Category 2: Grad students, etc. It is not unusual and is highly encouraged for Cat 4 forecasters to kick Cat 2 forecasters' butts. Just putting that out there. However, we do get judged as a team (SUNY-Stony Brook) so please feel free to discuss the thinking behind your forecasts but you must keep your exact numbers to yourself.
For each forecast you must submit a high temperature (F), low temperature (F), maximum wind speed (kts) and precipitation amount (in). Note that the wind speed is sustained, not gusts, and the precipitation amount is the cumulative liquid precipitation- so don't put 12 inches if you think it will snow a foot!
That's about all of the important information I wanted to provide here. For more detailed info and guidelines on the scoring system please see the WxChallenge website. Motivational statement: first and second place forecasters for each category receive trophies for every city, not just overall or tournament winners. So there's plenty of opportunities for glory here!
Below are a few useful resources however everyone is encouraged to log onto the Metlab computers and plot model data using nmap2, analyze soundings with BUFKIT, etc. New this year is an online discussion board called MetScholars: Connecting Students in Meteorology. Through that you can find even more links to forecasting resources and a place for discussion with students from many other colleges and universities. It may serve as a great platform for learning from your peers (or the mistakes of your peers!).
Useful Links
Submit your forecasts: http://wxchallenge.com/challenge/submit_forecast.php
Check out the WxChallenge site information and verification: http://wxchallenge.com/challenge/schedule.php (click on the current forecast city's city link)
MetScholars Discussion Topic: Forecasting
Current Analyses
-Satellite-
Global Satellite (NRL)
-Surface-
-Upper-levels-
-Tropical & Severe Wx-
WxForecaster
MetScholars Forecasting Resources
MOS (Text)
MOS WxChallenge city-specific data (UAlbany)
Ensemble Data Links (Spaghetti plots, SREF, GEFS, etc.)
MOS (Text)
MOS WxChallenge city-specific data (UAlbany)
Ensemble Data Links (Spaghetti plots, SREF, GEFS, etc.)
Archived Data
Please feel free to comment below with any questions or comments. Please let me know if you have any trouble logging on to submit your forecasts. Thanks for your enthusiasm and good luck-- let's go SBU!!!
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