Taking their studies beyond the classroom, UC Davis students in a weather-forecasting course have scrutinized the evening weather broadcasters at Sacramento's six local television stations. The comparison taught the students about weather forecast accuracy and about the career option of making weather forecasts for broadcast television. Last fall, they tracked the predicted high and low temperatures for one-, three- and five-day periods. Those predictions were compared with temperatures observed by the National Weather Service in Sacramento. Four weather forecasters had the best score in various categories, according to Richard Grotjahn, professor of atmospheric sciences, who devised the study for the senior-level class. John Maher (Channel 31) had the best score for overnight lows while Shelly Monahan (Channel 3) scored best for one-day highs. For three-day forecasts, Dave Bender (Channel 10) scored best for lows while Lance Orozco (Channel 40) scored best for the highs. "The number of forecasts was not long enough to sort out who is best overall, but the comparison did uncover some interesting peculiarities in real-world forecasting," says Grotjahn. "Last fall's weather produced unusually few dramatic temperature changes and that often led the broadcasters to 'over-forecast' -- to predict greater change in temperature than occurred," he notes.