Like grapes into wine, weather turns into climate if you wait long enough.
Most climatologists, though, do not take much of an interest in weather
forecasting nor develop the skills and patience to do it well.

It is, therefore, with great pride and admiration that I recognize Josiah
Mault's accomplishment in winning the Spring Forecast contest in UW's
Department of Atmospheric Sciences. If our readers will forgive a little
reminiscing, my admiration springs from personal experience: while I was a
graduate student in the Department in the early 1990's, I entered the
contest twice, and knowing how much work and skill is involved in placing
somewhere in the top third, I can only imagine what it takes to win.

Contestants devise pseudonyms (Josiah's was carrotmonkey) and then
forecast the next day's low and high temperature at Sea-Tac airport, and
the probability of precipitation. In this year's forecast, which ran 42
weekdays from April 2 to May 30, there were 37 human forecasters and
several additional entries including climatology (simply the averages for
the day in question, never does very well) and the National Weather
Service's official forecast (remember, the contestants can spend as much
time as they want forecasting for a single location, whereas the NWS has
to forecast for most of western Washington).

The contest dates back to the late 1960s and winners have to know not just
how to forecast very well during changing conditions but also how to game
the scoring and gamble on others' forecasts. In the last days of the
contest carrotmonkey's lead was briefly in jeopardy but at the last minute
he pulled ahead again. Second place went to Itchy Brother, a.k.a. Dr.
Nick Bond, who tried to bask in Josiah's glory by noting that he
had taught Josiah's weather forecasting class. Down the rankings a bit
farther was last year's winner, a meteorologist from a local TV station.