NCAA tourney spawns weather prediction contest

The NCAA basketball tournament, also known as the Big Dance, sets the stage for another kind of contest: the Weather Dance. But this other competition held during March Madness has little to do with basketball: It's all about predicting which competing campus will be hotter or cooler on scheduled game dates during the tournament.

"Basically, you're testing your weather forecasting skills," says Perry Samson, professor and associate chair of the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences (AOSS) Department, who designed the online weather tournament to get people across the country thinking about climate issues.

In its first year the dance had 100 participants; this year it boasts 1,200 people thus far, including 200 K-12 teachers and their classes. The highest scoring K-12 teacher will be invited to join the U-M/Texas Tech Storm Chasing team for a day in the field. Students enrolled in AOSS 102, a course titled Extreme Weather, are competing with introductory courses from a number of universities—Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Michigan State and Florida State, so far. The prize: bragging rights.

The NCAA men's tournament began March 13 and the women's tourney got underway March 17, but Samson says it's not too late to participate in the 2007 Weather Dance, and signing up is easy. Now that the 65 competing teams have been seeded, participants can log onto www.weatherdance.org/ to make their weather predictions for the remaining games.

The top eight participants will win large umbrellas from the pioneering online weather site www.wunderground.com. The next top 16 participants will win copies of the book "Extreme Weather" by Chris Burt.

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