Meteorology

Meteorology is a weather-based event designed to give students a basic understanding of the weather and an understanding of why the "weatherman" is always wrong. Its topic changes every year between Climate, Everyday Weather, and Severe Storms. A basic knowledge of fronts and air systems, among other common Meteorology topics, is suggested for every year. It is currently only an event in Division B, and no equivalent exists for Division C.

The event is designed for up to 2 people. You are allowed one Cheat Sheet to bring at the competition.

Event Rotation
The topic of Meteorology changes from year to year.

Resources
The event does not allow any resources during competition, except for a piece of paper with notes (written/typed/double-sided etc.) and a non graphing calculator. This new rule change is because of the scandal that occurred at Nationals one year where one team wrote down all the questions on the test in their database and gave the database to another team (obviously presenting a problem).

Personal resources for studying prior to the competition are not restricted. You should have some sort of Meteorology textbook that has information about all three topics, so you can use it even after the topic changes. Other, more specific and advanced textbooks can also be useful to experienced participants. A useful tactic for studying is looking up topics on Google to get familiar with some subjects before going more specific. Wikipedia is also useful for this purpose.

Making Your Cheat Sheet
Since the only resource you are allowed is one reference sheet, this piece of paper becomes pretty important. Before cramming all of the information you can onto the paper, though, there are some things you should try to keep in mind:
 * Don't overwhelm yourself with information: More info may be good, but if you can't find it efficiently or can't understand it well, it's not going to help you very much. In fact, it may delay you as you try to search for a definitive answer when an educated guess would be correct.
 * Don't overestimate your own abilities either: On the flip side, don't shrug off the cheat sheet because you think you know everything well. You might, but sometimes it's good to have backup just in case you forget in the heat of the test.
 * Make sure it's legible: I've heard several people try to come up with the smallest font possible that they can read, going down to 5 or 4. This is not a good idea usually, unless you can read all of this efficiently. It's better to have larger font and be able to find what you're looking for. 8 is generally a good sized font.
 * A picture is worth a thousand words: For Meteorology, sometimes the descriptions of things get wordy and hard to understand. If you can display something with a diagram, do it, because it'll probably save you space. Plus, they look nicer than a sea of black and white.

Test Format
A Meteorology test usually is in the form of a written test or a PowerPoint with slides on it. Occasionally, a test may come in the form of stations that each team rotates between. In the written test, it is generally a good idea to split it if possible, so each person has less work to do, and you can spend time reviewing later on. Also, if time is a tiebreaker, that can be used to your advantage. Unfortunately, in the other formats, this cannot be done, but all other teams have the same disadvantage. As long as you are able to answer all of the questions in an educated fashion, your prospects are pretty bright.