TUCSON, AZ — During the monsoon, just about everyone from Arizona becomes a self-proclaimed meteorologist. Researchers at UArizona are now appealing to weather watchers with a fantasy sports-style game they've created around the monsoon.
It's called Southwest Monsoon Madness and to play you guess how much rainfall five desert cities will get, each of the next three months.
They help you out a little by showing the average rainfall for each area but you are allowed to do some extra data mining if you want to stay competitive. The riskier your bet of how much rain will fall, the more points you could earn.
"The monsoon is really important in terms of our ecosystem and our impacts. We're not trying to minimize it we really trying to create a way for people to engage and observe their weather and interact with other weather enthusiasts," said UArizona Assistant Research Professor Zack Guido.
He says their ultimate goal is to study how accurate public guesses are versus their forecasting equipment and also, how moods and confidence change with the rain or lack of it.
"Last year you could see that people were getting more and more depressed, at least the colleagues I was around, as the monsoon fizzled and there were no signs it would improve. One thing we do want to explore is how the monsoon affects people's perceptions and their mood," said Guido.
At the end of the monsoon, they'll crown a winner.
Anyone from the seasonal weather geek to meteorologists is encouraged to play by clicking here.
