Academics

Penn State meteorology students win third straight national forecasting title

Members of Penn State's 2013-14 Weather Challenge championship team. Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- For the third straight year, a team of Penn State students captured first place in the WxChallenge, a North American collegiate weather forecasting competition, besting teams from more than 50 other universities.

The top five Penn State forecasters were undergraduate students Matthew Strauser, Joseph Carolan and Bradley Yehl, and graduate students Cory Baggett and Stephanie Hay. Their names will be engraved on the Weather Challenge trophy which will reside at Penn State during the 2014-15 academic year.

Baggett finished second overall among all forecasters nationwide and first among all graduate students, while Hay finished sixth in the graduate student category.

Yehl and Carolan finished fourth and fifth among all junior and senior forecasters, while Strauser earned the top score among freshmen and sophomores.

Four other Penn State students -- Hunter Williams, Christopher Stickney, Michael Priante and Sean Romeo -- finished in the top ten in freshman and sophomore category, placing Penn State with five of the top ten forecasters among all freshmen and sophomores nationwide.

During the 20-week forecasting contest that ran from September 2013 to April 2014, students predicted high and low temperatures, precipitation and wind speeds for ten different cities. Some of this year's forecast locations included Atlanta, Ga.; Houston, Texas; Cheyenne, Wyo.; and Fairbanks, Alaska.

SUNY-Albany finished second overall in the forecasting competition, followed by the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For more information about the WxChallenge visit http://www.wxchallenge.com/ online.

Last Updated April 25, 2014

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