PAOC weather forecasting team wins WxChallenge for the second consecutive year

PAOC's weather forecasting team has won first prize for the second time in the recently established national collegiate weather forecasting contest, WxChallenge, run by the University of Oklahoma.

The challenge runs for twenty weeks, covering five (5) two-week forecast periods each semester, with a team prize awarded at the end of the year. Our team won the year long contest, competing  against more than 50 US colleges. 
All members of our team performed very well, with all of our forecasters ranked in the top 140, out of over 1000 participants. 
Brian Tang was the top forecaster in the graduate category,
Vince Agard was second in the freshman-sophomore category and 
Brian Doyle was third in the junior-senior category.

This year's team was a "young" one, since it included 9 undergraduates, 4 graduates and 2 staff members - see below.

Congratulations to the entire team for the great performance! See final scores.

Over the past eight years, when our victories in the old NCWFC contest are included, the team has ranked first seven times and third once - see links on the side yellow bar. 

We would like to dedicate these successes to the memory of Professor Ed Lorenz, who died recently at the age of 90. Ed, the father of Chaos, was not only a brilliant mathematician but also a great meteorologist, who started his career as a forecaster. It was while serving as a weather forecaster for the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II that he decided to do graduate work in meteorology at MIT.

2007-2008 Winning team:
Undergrads:
J.Vincent Agard - freshman
Zachary Bailey - senior, course16
Sarah Baumgardner - junior, course 12
Emily Davidson - sophomore, course 12
Brian Doyle - junior, course 10
Garrett Marino - senior, course 12
Elizabeth Maroon - sophomore, course 12
Anna Simon - sophomore, course 20
Karen Sun - sophomore, course 18
Grad students:
Cegeon Chan, PAOC
Jonathan Moskaitis, PAOC
Brian Tang, PAOC
Angela Zalucha, PAOC
Staff:
Lodovica Illari, PAOC
Jeff Scott, PAOC
1/2 year participants:
Derric Tay - senior, course 12
John Williams - grad student, PAOC
Yi-Hsin Lin - senior, course 18