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Photo by Reed Hutchinson UCLA
Photographic Services
Meteorologist/student adviser James Murakami (right) looks
at weather data with students Gregory Masai (standing), Brian
Tang and Hanne Murphey. |
Neither rain nor sleet keeps forecasters down
BY MARINA DUNDJERSKI
UCLA Today
If you think it’s difficult to predict whether it’ll
be warm or nippy as you head to work these days, then imagine the
predicament of forecasting weather one day ahead in such distant
places as Billings, Mont., and Calumet, Mich.
A UCLA team made up of an undergraduate, 13 graduate students
and staff meteorologist/student adviser James Murakami is matching
its prognostication skills against those of 985 other competitors
in a 26-week, international collegiate, weather-forecasting contest
that is wrapping up this month. The UCLA team, which finished forecasting
weather in eight required locations across America, is waiting for
the final results.
Since September, the team has been predicting the daily high and
low temperatures and amount of precipitation for each of the locations
over two-week intervals, mulling over such factors as cloud cover
and moisture distribution.
“It’s thrilling,” said undergraduate Brian Tang,
who now ranks 26th in individual standings. “You look at the
computer models and what they’re forecasting each day in terms
of temperature, rainfall and other indicators, and then use the
knowledge we gained in class and our instincts to make a forecast
for the next day.”
The mercurial nature of weather occasionally caught the Bruins
by surprise. Last October when contestants focused on Los Angeles,
the Bruins didn’t anticipate that the dense smoke from raging
brushfires would keep temperatures lower than normal. They lost
first place to MIT in that round.
Then there were those minor shifts in wind-flow pattern in Flagstaff,
Ariz., that made forecasting dicey. The team predicted a temperamental
thunderstorm would break the day before it actually did.
But the team has kept a sunny disposition. Now ranked a respectable
13th place out of 38 schools, it has three members among the top
100 prognosticators.
“Considering this is the first time we’ve participated
in 15 years, I think we did remarkably well,” Murakami said.
UCLA is the only Southern California university to offer a degree
in atmospheric sciences/meteorology. To see the final results, go
to: www.ems.psu.edu/NFC.
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