A. There are many rules for the contest. Please see the Rules page for more information.

A. All undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and alumni of a higher education institution are eligible to participate in the contest. In the future, this contest may be open to lower education institutions and the public, but currently only higher education institutions may participate. For more information on eligibility, please see the appropriate section on the Rules page.

A. There is a small fee to participate in the contest, which is used towards trophies, plaques, mailing costs, and other administrative costs. The entry fee does not go towards any scholarship awards or pay any staff. For more information on fees, please see the appropriate section on the Rules page.

A. There will be trophies awarded to the top forecasters in each city, top overall forecasters at the end of the year, and for the Final Four participants of the tournament.

A. You may sign up for the WxChallenge at the beginning of each semester on the Registration Page. Please contact your school's local manager for teh registration key to sign up. You may find your school's local manager contact information on the Contact page. If your school does not have a local manager, please contact the National Manager.

A. Your category number is a number designating your general meteorological knowledge, not necessarily your grade in college. A person who transferred and has the credit hours to be listed as a Junior, but is taking Freshman meteorology course should consider themselves a Freshman for the competition. The categories are: 0 - Professional (Includes alumni, military personnel, and NOAA employees), 1 - Faculty/Staff/Professional, 2 - Graduate (Masters and PhD) students, 3 - Senior and Junior students, and 4 - Sophomore and Freshman students. By breaking the forecasters into categories, it allows a more fair competition (i.e., a freshman does not have to compete against a PhD student).

A. To enter a forecast, you must visit the forecast entry page. There are instructions on the page that describe the entry process. Please note that a forecast is not considered valid unless it has been saved and the forecaster sees the green "Saved" box on screen.

A. Depending on your time zone and the time of year, certain UTC times will vary. Please view the UTC to local conversion table if you are unsure of how to convert your local time to UTC time.

A. No. The team consensus score is the average of all human forecasts during each day of each period. The team score utilizes a weighted scoring system described in the Scoring section (Team Scores sub-section) of the rules page.

A. For temperature and precipitation:
The temperature and precipitation values for climatology come from the daily climate normals from NCDC.

For wind:
The wind values for climatology are derived by averaging the maximum recorded wind speed each day within a +/- 5 day window from ASOS data using the past 30 years of ASOS data.

A. All forecast information is logged internally. If there is an error in your forecast, please contact your local manager with your error.

A. If after 24 hours of the end of the day you find an error in the verification of a forecast, please contact the WxChallenge Manager with the incorrect verification number and the correct verification number. Please also send verification data (i.e., a METAR) showing the correct verification number. Since the results are automated and use METARs, occasionally there are a few errors that slip through. However, almost all of these errors will be caught within 24 hours. Please refrain from submitting verification error emails until 24 hours have passed.

A. There can be many things that may cause a forecast not to be entered. Please make sure that your username and password are correct and that you have selected the appropriate school. If these items are valid, please check the error messages to see what other problems are occurring. If you still are having problems, please contact your local manager with a detailed description of your error.

A. If you have lost or forgotten your password, please use the online Password Retrieval page to have your password emailed to your registered e-mail address.

A. If you wish to change your registered e-mail address, please contact your local manager using your registered e-mail address and state the new address you wish to use. If you do not send the request from your current, registered email address, the change can not be processed.

A. The website is compatible with Firefox, Edge, Internet Explorer (Windows), Explorer (Mac), Mozilla, Safari, Opera, and many mobile web browsers. The website utilizes Javascript, so it needs to be enabled (or allowed for this site) for the website to work properly.

A. Information on times, locations, registered computer names, IP addresses, and other public information is being logged as your use the website. These activities are used to determine any improper behavior and are for the security of the forecasters and the contest.