TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Debbie Curley is an alumni of the University of Arizona who is getting involved with their “Fantasy Monsoon” game.
It’s a game that allows her to place bets on the weather during monsoon.
“The monsoons are a really important part of Arizona life,” Curley said.
She’s been playing for about two weeks and is known as Dcurley in the game.
“I love the idea of learning more about why the monsoons happen, how much we can expect,” she said.
The goal of the game is to correctly guess how much rain Tucson will get along with four other cities including Phoenix, Flagstaff, Albuquerque and El Paso.
The game features an online dashboard which shows them the amount of rain that has fallen in past years.
Last year in the month of August, Tucson got about two inches of rainfall.
“I’m actually probably going to bet just above the mean, frankly because that’s what I want to see,” Curley said.
Curley said the game is helping her become more familiar with the averages for each city, especially the cities she doesn’t live in.
This year, more than 400 players are participating in the game.
Zach Guido is one of the co-founders of the game and an assistant research faculty at the Arizona Institute for Resilience. Last year he came in twenty second place.
“They accumulate points based on their accuracy and also the riskiness of the forecast,” he said.
A risky forecast means players are betting on weather events that don’t happen too often.
People can see where they rank among other players, but for Guido it’s not about the ranking system. Creating the game was more about getting players like Curley familiar with the weather.
“To engage in the discourse around climate in a very positive way,” he said.
Players win gift cards, but for Curley, the game is more about hoping Southern Arizona sees a rainy monsoon.
“It’s part of our life here in Tucson and in Arizona,” she said.
