The Weather Challenge, also known as WxChallenge, is a weather forecasting competition in which competitors are charged with creating their own weather forecast. Since 2005, the competition has been run by the University of Oklahoma and the competition includes schools from across the country.

Contestants must forecast the following day’s high temperature, low temperature, maximum wind speed and precipitation for a specific spot within an American city, determined by the exact location of an ASOS weather observation station. For example, the team is currently forecasting for a station in Sandberg, CA.

The team must forecast each location four days per week for two weeks. After two weeks, the location to be forecasted changes with a total of four locations per semester. Trophies are awarded to the team that is the closest to the actual reading in each city.

Assistant geography professor Michael Kiefer said the club is a great way for students to apply what they have learned in class. 

"For me, the WxChallenge has been a sort of refresher course on forecasting, having participated in a forecasting contest as part of my undergraduate education," Kiefer said. 

MSU’s Weather Challenge team was established just four years ago, which has caused some struggles competing against more experienced schools, but they have been able to find success.

“Some of the teams at other universities have 30 or 40 people. We’ve never had more than six," Charney said. "Nevertheless, we’ve still managed to win categories. We’ve won five trophies over the last four years." 

One might think the easy solution to this contest would be to look up the official weather forecast online and copy and paste. In fact, a team that did that probably wouldn’t do very well in the contest.

“The forecasts that are put out by the Weather Channel and the National Weather Service and things like that, they’re usually not terribly specific. They forecast for a zone," Charney said. 

"As part of the Weather Challenge, they show what the weather forecast is for that location. And the forecasters beat the Weather Service forecast all the time. The consensus forecast for all the forecasters in this contest...always beats the National Weather Service." 

What the team does instead is use tools available for free online. Some are made available by the Weather Challenge administration, while others must be researched.

“The more you know, the more you know how to drill into those tools and find the information you need,” Charney said.

Geography doctoral student Jovanka Nikolic said being a member of the team has helped her test and perfect her skills. 

"By being the weather challenge team member, you have a chance to test your weather prediction skills, to test and verify weather forecasting models you are using as your source for a day-to-day forecast, and compete with people all around the US," Nikolic said.