Mississippi State University recently won first place in a national weather forecasting competition for the third consecutive year in the Weather Challenge. 
Doug Gillham, forecasting instructor and team faculty adviser, said this year the Weather Challenge had participants from 71 institutions from across the United States and Canada.  The competition extended between the months of September and April. 
The teams forecasted for cities such as Boston, Mass., Seattle, Wash., Huntsville, Ala. and Richmond, Va.  They predicted the high temperature, low temperature, precipitation amount and maximum wind speed for each city. The scores were based on how accurate these forecasts were. 
“You issue a forecast for a different city every two weeks, and the goal is to be as accurate as possible,” Gillham said. “You lose points for every degree you’re off.”
Twenty-one graduate and undergraduate students from MSU entered the competition.  Ten of the top-18 forecasters were from MSU out of 1,816 total competitors, he said.
MSU won first, second and third places in the faculty division, first, second and fourth in the undergraduate division and third and fourth in the graduate division.
Gillham said before winning first place for the past three years, MSU had come in second for a few years behind Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  No other school has won three years in a row.
“There were two years where we were second behind MIT and then [we] beat MIT, so we developed a bit of a rivalry and mutual respect for each other,” he said.
For many of the students, this year was their first time in the contest and their first national championship, which is something they can put on their resumes and be proud of, Gillham said.
“It’s a well-respected competition and, for us, it helps with recruiting and shows we know how to teach our students to be successful forecasters,” he said.
Jason Sydejko, broadcast meteorology major and graduate student, said he won sixth overall in the competition and that the MSU team did well as a whole.
“There were a handful (of team members) that were fractions of a point behind (me). We owe a huge credit to the coaching staff and our team as a whole,” Sydejko said.  “You can have skills as a forecaster, but there is a certain level of luck involved (and), in certain circumstances, I was a little bit luckier.”
MSU is establishing itself as one of the premiere weather forecasting schools in the nation, he said. The professors put in a lot of time teaching the team different styles of forecasting to help the students in the competition. 
“Our professors pick up on things I would have never even thought of, (and) learning these techniques is invaluable,” Sydejko said.
David Wolter, broadcast meteorology graduate student, placed seventh overall and said this experience has taught him how to forecast for places all over the country.
“I learned how to effectively forecast in a wide variety of climates from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Coast to the plains and the Pacific Northwest, south Texas and even in the deep South,” Wolter said.
He said the team’s instructor went above and beyond to teach the students the details that may only be touched on in weather programs at other schools.  
“It’s really humbling to be a national champion in forecasting,” he said. “We have had such a great leader, and we’ve all been able to work together really well as a team.”
The students studied several weather models to learn their biases and how to pay attention to them.  Wolter said the most interesting days of the competition were the ones when nothing seemed to go right because the students were frustrated but determined to stay accurate. 
“(We) really were trying to put (our) heart and soul into winning the championship as (we) kept on learning at the same time,” he said.