The WxChallenge: Forecasting Competition, Educational Tool, and Agent of Cultural Change

Abstract

The WxChallenge, a project developed at the University of Oklahoma, brings a state-of-the-art, fun, and exciting forecast contest to participants at colleges and universities across North America. The challenge is to forecast the maximum and minimum temperatures, precipitation, and maximum wind speeds for select locations across the United States over a 24-h prediction period. The WxChallenge is open to all undergraduate and graduate students, as well as higher-education faculty, staff, and alumni. Through the use of World Wide Web interfaces accessible by personal computers, tablet computer, and smartphones, the WxChallenge provides a state-of-the-art portal to aid participants in submitting forecasts and alleviate many of the administrative issues (e.g., tracking and scoring) faced by local managers and professors. Since its inception in 2006, 110 universities have participated in the contest and it has been utilized as part of the curricula for 140 classroom courses at various institutions. The inherently challenging nature of the WxChallenge has encouraged its adoption as an educational tool. As its popularity has grown, professors have seen the utility of the Wx-Challenge as a teaching aid and it has become an instructional resource of many meteorological classes at institutions for higher learning. In addition to evidence of educational impacts, the competition has already begun to leave a cultural and social mark on the meteorological learning experience.